WikiCheats Editor's Guide

From WikiCheats

For more information about editing on WikiCheats, check out the WikiText Guide.

Making an Edit

Locations of the edit buttons. (Click to Enlarge)

Making an edit is the simplest action you can take on WikiCheats. Most of the time, all you want to do on the site is add new content to an existing page or correct someone else's mistakes.

Making Edits

• Navigate to the page you want to edit.

• Click the edit link in the Toolbox at the upper right section of the page, or scroll down to a particular subsection on that page and click on the blue [edit] link to the right of the section heading.

• Make your edits on that game's Editing page.

• Finally, click the Save page button at the bottom of the screen to save your edits.

Entering Text

Buttons above the editing box to make formatting easier. The most commonly used are Bold, Italic, and Internal Link.

WikiCheats uses a type of text formatting called WikiText. Formatting changes (italic text, for example) are made with special tags and are not visible immediately in the edit box. They can be seen with the "Show preview" button at the bottom of the screen.

There are two features of WikiText that tend to confuse people who are unfamiliar with them. The first is that a single new line (pressing the "Enter" button on your keyboard) has no effect. To create a new paragraph use two new lines (press "Enter" twice). The second is that a line that begins with a space will place the text in a box.

This line begins with a space, which places this text in a box.

Creating Sections

An example of a section heading and two subsections. (Click to Enlarge)

When writing a walkthrough, or anything where you want to break up different sections of information, it's important to use section dividers to organize the page. Creating sections automatically generates a Table of Contents that appears next to the first section, allowing other users to easily navigate to any particular section of a page with one click of the mouse.

You can create a section simply by adding equals signs (=) to either side of your Section title. Use one equals sign for the largest section headings (example: =Act 1=). In a walkthrough, these should encompass the broadest amounts of information, i.e. the major Acts of a game or different Chapters.

Subsections can be created thereafter by using two equals signs on either side of a section title (example: ==Level 1: Dante's Inferno==). In a walkthrough, these typically signify the different levels or locations in a game within a particular Act or Chapter.

Further subsections within a subsection can be created by using increasing numbers of equals signs. In this way, you can break up a particular level or section of an Act or Chapter into smaller pieces still.

One note: don't skip levels of subsections, like from two to four equals signs. It's just confusing and makes the page more disorganized than it has to be.

WikiCheats Article Titles

The title of each game's page on WikiCheats is the name of the game followed by a hyphen, then abbreviations for each platform that it's on. Titles are case sensitive. Due to software limitations, titles cannot have pound signs (#) or accents (é).

Below is a list of the game platforms in the WikiCheats database, followed by their abbreviations for use on the site:

Links

Links to Pages on WikiCheats

To create a link to a page on WikiCheats, navigate to the page you want the link displayed, click the "edit" tab, then write the name of that page in double brackets. For example " [[Grand Theft Auto IV - PC PS3 XB360]] " will give you a link to Grand Theft Auto IV - PC PS3 XB360.

To have the link display something other than the exact title, add a pipe (|) line at the end of the text in the link, then add the text you want to display. For example, [[Grand Theft Auto IV - PS3 XB360|The Greatest Game Ever]] will display as The Greatest Game Ever but clicking on it will take you to the Grand Theft Auto IV page.

You can also link to any subsection on a particular page by adding the pound (#) sign to the end of the link, but before your pipe and text you want the link to display. For example, if you wanted to create a link that jumped straight to the mission "Uncle Vlad" in the Grand Theft Auto IV walkthrough, you would type in " [[Grand Theft Auto IV - PC PS3 XB360/Walkthrough#Uncle Vlad|Uncle Vlad]] ". This would be displayed as Uncle Vlad.

External Links

If you want to create a link to an external page (one not on WikiCheats), simply type in the page's URL: " http://www.wikipedia.org " becomes http://www.wikipedia.org

You can give your external link a title by adding a space after the actual link, typing in what you want your link displayed as, then enclosing it all in single brackets: " [http://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] " becomes Wikipedia

Adding Images

Walkthroughs aren't nearly as dynamic or engaging without vibrant images to help get a point across.

There are several ways to display an image. The first and easiest way is to simply type in " [[Image: " followed by the name of the image (for example, "Dark Mines Map.jpg"), then close it in two more brackets, so that the end result becomes [[Image: Dark Mines Map.jpg]]. Click on the link this creates to be taken to the Upload screen, and follow the instructions there to upload your image. This will display the image in its full, original size, on the left side of the page.

Thumbnails

Generally, an image displayed in its actual size will take up too much space on a page, so it's advisable to display the image in a smaller, thumbnail size. This is done simply by adding " |thumb " after the image name. The image will then be displayed in thumbnail size on the right side of the page. Example: [[Image: Dark Mines Map.jpg|thumb]]

An example of an thumbnailed image with a caption, aligned to the left.

Frames

You can put your image in a frame instead of a thumbnail, if you like. The image will keep its actual size, but surround it in an aesthetically-pleasing frame, aligned on the right side of the page. Example: [[Image: Dark Mines Map.jpg|frame]]

Captions

If you want to give an image a caption, just add a pipe (|) line at the end of your link (before the brackets, of course) and type in your caption. Example: [[Image: Dark Mines Map.jpg|Map of the Dark Mines]].

You can also do this if the image is in thumbnail or frame format: [[Image: Dark Mines Map.jpg|thumb|Map of the Dark Mines]]

Alignment

You can select the alignment of an image by adding " |right ", " |left ", or " |center " after the image name. This places the image against the right side, left side, or center of the screen, respectively. Example: [[Image: Dark Mines Map.jpg|right]]

You can also do this with an image in thumbnail or frame format, with or without a caption. Just make sure your caption comes at the end of the link: [[Image: Dark Mines Map.jpg|thumb|left|Map of the Dark Mines]]

Categories

This page belongs to three categories, as identified at the bottom of the page.

Categories are used to group pages together. This allows users to easily find pages that are related to one another. For instance, every Final Fantasy title has been added to the Final Fantasy Category. Each page in that category has a link at the bottom to the category page. If you navigate to the Categories page, you can see all the Categories that currently exist on WikiCheats.

Whether you're adding a game to an existing Category or placing it in a new Category, the process is the same. Navigate to your game's main page, click the Edit tab at the top of the screen, and then add the text " [[Category: CATEGORY TITLE HERE]] " and click the Save page button. The game is now added to whatever Category you replaced "CATEGORY TITLE HERE" with.

To create a new category, first search the Categories page to see if the category (or similar category) already exists. If it does, simply add your page to the existing category. If the category you want to make doesn't already exist, use the above procedure to add a category tag to each page you want in the new category. When you save each page you'll see a red link to your category at the bottom of the page. Click on that red link and add an introduction to your category page. Click save, and you will have a new category.

Adding a New Game

Sometimes the WikiCheats database hasn't yet included an older game to the system. In instances like these, it's best to create an Orphaned Page so that you and others can start adding cheats, a walkthrough, or other info for that game.

Creating an Orphaned Page

1. Make sure WikiCheats doesn't already have an article for this game. If you're not sure, ask on the forums.
2. Create a new page. The first step in doing this is to make a link to the page you want to create. Your user page is the best place to put this link. Click "edit" and type the name of the game in double brackets. Include platform information, so it should look something like "[[Pac-Man Strikes Back - N64 PS1]]". Note that platform information is case-senstive! (PS2 cannot be written as ps2)
3. Click the Save page button.
4. On your user page, click on the red link to the game you just added. This will take you to the edit screen of your new page. # Type in whatever information you choose about the game. Be sure to include it in the Orphaned Pages category by adding the text " [[Category: Orphaned Pages]] " somewhere in the article.
5. Click Save page to save your changes and add the game to the Orphaned Pages category.

Orphaned Pages will eventually be added to the database, so don't worry, they won't be orphaned forever!

Tables

Tables are useful for organizing large amounts of information into an easy-to-read chart. They are optimal for cheat codes or lists.

Cheat Tables

Cheat tables are useful for keeping long lists of cheats or achievements easy to read because its lines alternate in color.

To create a cheat table, you must first write the <cheattable> tag on the page you wish the table to appear. On the next line you must list the title of the table, preceded by two exclamation points. If you were creating a table of Xbox 360 Achievements, then you would write

!!Xbox 360 Acheievements

The next few lines are for the column headings of your table. In keeping with our Xbox 360 Achievements table, the heading titles you'd use would be Achievement, Gamerscore, and Description. These would written as such:

!Achievement
!Gamerscore
!Description

You can now begin to add the data to your list. Because there are three columns to our Xbox 360 Achievements list (Achievement, Gamerscore, and Description), each section of the list must include three pieces of information, each on their own separate line, all preceded by a pipe (|). These clumps of three must be separated by a pipe and a dash (|-) on its own line. See the example below from Alone in the Dark:

|-
|A Day In Central Park
|150
|Complete the game.
|-

Continue working down the list until it's complete, then end the list with the </cheattable> marker. Here's how our list would look if we added a few more Achievements to the list:

<cheattable>
!!Xbox 360 Achievements
!Achievement
!Gamerscore
!Description
|-
|A Day In Central Park
|150
|Complete the game.
|-
|Basic Combination
|5
|Tape up a bottle.
|-
|Blackout
|30
|Finish the episode without skipping any sequence.
|-
|Blazing Roots
|50
|Burn all roots of evil.
|-
</cheattable>

becomes...

Embedding Movies

Embedding movies is easy, as long as they are being hosted by another site like GameTrailers or YouTube. All you have to do is enclose the link to the video with movie tags so that it looks like this:

<movie>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLi5B0Iefsk</movie>

We currently have support for the following providers:

• YouTube
• GameTrailers
• MetaCafe
• Revver
• Gamevideos

If you want to give your movie a caption, just change the first movie tag from " <movie> " to " <movie caption="CAPTION TITLE HERE"> ". Here's an example:

<movie caption="Lucas's Smash Bros. Moves"> http://youtube.com/watch?v=yEahPgS0Kes </movie>

Persistent Navigation Headers

When you're constructing a guide, it's nice to have a row of buttons across the top of each page that link to any of the other pages in the guide. This row of buttons is called a persistent navigation header, and created by using Templates. They look like this:

Here's how to create your own persistent navigation header:

1. Navigate to the page on which you want the Template to appear (for example, the "Cheats" page of a game).
2. Click on the "Edit" link.
3. Type the following, filling in the "Title of Game" with whatever's appropriate: {{Template: Title of Game Header}}
4. Click "Save Page."
5. The Template link should now appear on your page in red letters. Click on the link.
6. You must now construct your template. If you want to create a header for every sub-page of a particular game, then write it like this: <center> <button>[[Title of Game - PS3 XB360|Main Page]]</button> <button>[[Title of Game - PS3 XB360/Cheats|Cheats]]</button> <button>[[Title of Game - PS3 XB360/Walkthrough|Walkthrough]]</button> And so on and so forth until you've gotten all the pages there, replacing the "Title of Game - PX3 XB360" with the game's actual title and platforms.
7. Click "Save Page" to save the template.
8. Go to each of the game's subpages (Walkthrough, Quick Strategies, etc.) and type in {{Template: Title of Game Header}} at the top of each one and clicking "Save Page" after each one.

NOTE: If you ever need to change a template, click "Edit" on a page that has the template displayed on it, then click on the "Template: Title of Game Header" link that appears near the bottom of the page to bring it back up.