VideoLAN Wiki:Syntax

Note: You can practice editing at the Sandbox page whenever you like.

This guide is still in the process of being written

Please follow these guidelines when editing this wiki. There will be more guidelines later.

The basics

This wiki uses the same general syntax as Wikipedia, because both use MediaWiki markup.
This wiki does not support the VisualEditor extension that Wikipedia does.

Familiarising yourself with wikimarkup is probably a good idea, and the convenient one-page summary of wiki syntax is provided at the English Wikipedia here. Anything you forget during editing can be looked up using the "Help" section of the Edit Toolbar (located immediately above the edit box).

VideoLAN wiki syntax

Though VideoLAN wiki inherits some of the functionality found on Wikipedia, not everything is quite the same.
If you are familiar at all with templates on Wikipedia, you've most definitely used {{cn}} to generate ^{[citation needed]}—no such template exists here; nor does {{broken link}}, {{which}}, {{update needed}}, {{clarification needed}}, and similar widgets that remark on information not being the clearest or most recent.
Rather, {{Check}} is the current way to mark text that needs checking, by displaying an in-line note and adding the page to the generic clean-up category Pages to check.

Additionally, a few things are handy to know:

• {{VLC}} displays and links to VLC media player
• {{VLC icon}} is a shorthand way to produce the image
• {{VLC:latest version}} will show the latest version of VLC (indispensable)

Best practices

TODO

Lists

• To make a bulleted list, begin lines with asterisks *
• To make a numbered list, begin lines with pound signs # (which will be automatically re-numbered if you add or remove items—this is generally smart for long or frequently-changing lists).

Linking

• The formula for creating an internal link is [[target page]] or [[target page|text to display]]
  • [[VLC]] gives VLC
  • [[VLC|this totally awesome media player]] gives this totally awesome media player
• There are several ways to create external links: a simple outgoing link, a shortened link, or a shortened link with alternate text:
  • http://example.com/ gives http://example.com/ (this makes for the clearest links)
  • [http://example.com/] gives [1] (this should only be used if the site name is long or unimportant)
  • [http://example.com/ text to display] gives text to display (useful, but can become confusing if over-used)

Useful things

• to link to a Wikipedia article on "example", use [[Wikipedia:example]]

Editing tips

• Use the editing toolbar to help you; it provides buttons to help you out.
• Keep things simple, and don't be afraid to make mistakes.
• Adding a line after a sentence will not make the next bit appear on a new line: for the convenience of coders, it will appear on the same line. To get it on a different line, either use <br> or two lines.

Links

• MediaWiki exhaustive reference guide

Templates

• See the Documented List of Templates.
• See all templates on wiki.videolan.org