Chapter 4. Writing and Editing Content
In this chapter, you will learn about writing and editing content on MediaWiki using wikitext. Wikitext is a shorthand form of HTML, intended to be easier (and quicker) to type than HTML. As a consequence, the more you know about HTML, the easier it will be to begin using wikitext. This chapter assumes you have a basic knowledge of HTML, so it does not provide a detailed explanation about how to write HTML. If you are a complete newcomer, a good starting place is Jon Duckett's Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML, and CSS (Wrox, 2004).
MediaWiki provides a wide array of tools to edit and customize pages. This chapter focuses on wikitext, but this is only the beginning. In Chapter 6, you will learn advanced methods of managing pages, such as how to move and delete pages, how to protect them from unwanted editing, and how to add additional functionality to them through extensions or external applications. In Chapter 8, you will learn how to use MediaWiki's magic words and templates, as well how to define your own skins for MediaWiki, which also means more advanced skills for determining the style and presentation of your content.
Prior to jumping into the nuts and bolts of writing wikitext, I'll share some thoughts about writing for the Web in general in order to provide some context for the discussion of wikitext itself.
Writing for the Web
Writing for the Web is different from writing something that will spend its life on paper. People read ...
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