User talk:Martha Forsyth
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[edit] Welcome to Wikipedia!
Here's a link to my user page. -Pete
And this should be a link to my "playpen": User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Playpen
(but how do I create a new page?? --Martha Forsyth
- just make a new link, like at the end of the sentence. Actually, this is where your playpen SHOULD be - I put it in the wrong place before. You should copy your stuff over there, before somebody deletes it! User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Playpen
What's this all about? I don't get the difference between "Edit" and "+" - they seem to go to the same place.
More or less true. The "+" is a special case of "Edit." It only appears on "User/talk" pages (the discussion pages for individual WIkipedia members.) It is basically a shortcut to creating a "new section," or new topic for discussion. The "subject" area becomes a header (being surrounded by pairs of equal-signs.) Tha's all. -Pete 07:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] ==Welcome!==
Mom, this is some kind of boilerplate "welcome message" somebody left me on my talk page way back. It has links to editing tips, guiding principles, etc. Hope it helps!
Welcome!
Hello, Martha Forsyth, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- Help pages
- Tutorial
- How to write a great article
- Manual of Style
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!
[edit] some answers
Mom,
Yes, the best place to leave me messages is at User talk:Peteforsyth because that way I'll get a notification of New Messages when I log in. You're right, I'm paying closer attention right now, to all your pages, but in the long run that's the best place.
Sorry about the "Playpen" deletion...I should have warned you better. It was my mistake, I made a sub-page of the nonexistent Martha Forsyth page - as in, the encyclopedia entry for Martha Forsyth, rather than making a sub-page of your own home page. So I moved it to the appropriate place, the place I meant to put it the first time. Otherwise, sooner or later somebody else would have arbitrarily deleted it, without copying anything!
"Sub-pages" - that is, "blahblah/sub-page" - are a strange animal, and their use is generally discouraged. Your own "home page" aka "user page" is really the only major exception to that. Basically, Wikipedia is fundamentally non-hierarchical, in terms of how its content is presented. I guess that's pretty much like a regular encyclopedia. "Categories" are the way to link similar content, and the advantage of Categories is that you can have multiple categories for any article.
So, there should not be a page that is called "Mammals/Kangaroos" - rather, "Kangaroos" would be its own page, and it would have the categories "Mammals" and "Marsupials."
The advantage of a sub-page for your home page, though, is that you get a nice link up to your home page, up top.
That all make sense?
- Yup! I left you a message on your talk-page, as suggested. Is it true, then, that the way I "make" a sub-page is, e.g., User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Code-samples ? Guess this will be a "try it and see"! --20:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] little gift
Mom: I see you've been playing with wiki tables. It's good stuff huh! Nice to have a way to make tables that is intuitive, it's very handy for making simple little ones.
Sometimes, you'll find that you want to make a big table, and you don't want to deal with the tedium of all those pipes and dashes. You want software that will let you create the structure of the table, and then just fill in the table's cells in a visually sensible system.
My solution is this: use either Macromedia Dreamweaver, which makes HTML tables directly; or a spreadsheet like Excel or OpenOffice.org, which will allow you to export to HTML.
Then use an HTML-to-Wiki-table converter, such as the one found here.
Have fun!
(I used this extensively in my most significant Wikipedia creation: Oregon statewide elections, 2006.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Peteforsyth (talk • contribs) 07:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC).
- Good suggestions, will need to check this out when I get to this project "for real". I was figuring on doing it in WordPerfect, and putting in the mark-up with search-and-replace.... -- Martha 19:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Wow!
Did you see today's Featured Picture?
[[Image:Karandila2.jpg]]
[edit] check out my draft of a letter to state Senators/Legislators
Mom, take a look at this, tell me what you think:
[edit] format question
Hi Mom, I'm guessing that was you :)
Did you make that big ol' page? Cool! Wish I knew how to read it. Basically, the "boxes" you've discovered are not "really boxes." Rather, they are an indication that the wiki software is presenting the text enclosed literally - among other things, as you discovered, it will not break lines unless told to do so.
So, you have two choices:
- (not optimal): break the lines explicitly (main drawback: it will look the same even if someone has a huge or tiny monitor)
- make a box by other means. If you take that approach, I'd suggest scouting around on WP for a box you like, and then look to see how they made it. You could, for instance, make a
| simple table |
- But I doubt that's quite what you want. The user boxes people tend to use on their own pages are probably closer to what you want.
Take a look around, and let me know if you need more help.
-p. Pete 22:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
