Standard Editing Procedure/Wiki 102

Welcome to Standard Editing Procedure - Wiki 102. Here, we're going to introduce a little bit more advanced (keywords, little bit) wiki editing by use of inserting external content into the wiki article, such as images, as well as the introduction of templates, which are crucial to editing in not only wiki, but especially here on Sasukepedia.

102a - Images

Adding images is a very simple process. The tricky part, if you can call it that, is figuring out what options you want the image to have, and there are quite a few depending on your needs for adding the image to the article.

The syntax and options below may look quite confusing the first time you read through it, but don't fret. It's simple to catch onto and as soon as you try it a few times you'll have it down in no time. Another way to learn how to use images as well, is to look at existing articles and see what options are used to put images on that page, referencing this page while you do so may increase your knowledge of the various options as well.

Syntax & Options

The full syntax for displaying an image is:

[[File:filename.extension|options|caption]]

where options can be zero or more of the following, separated by pipes (|):

• Format option: one of border and/or frameless, frame, thumb (or thumbnail);

  Controls how the rendered image is formatted and embedded in the rest of the page.

• Resizing option: one of
  • {width}px — Resizes the image to fit within the given maximum width in pixels, without restricting its height;
  • x{height}px — Resizes the image to fit within the given maximum height in pixels, without restricting its width;
  • {width}x{height}px — Resizes the image to fit within the given width and height in pixels;
  • upright — Resizes an image to fit within reasonable dimensions, according to user preferences (suitable for images whose height is larger than width).

  Note that the image will always retain its aspect ratio, and can only be reduced (not increased) in size unless it's in a scalable media type (bitmap images cannot be scaled up).

  The default maximum size depends on the format and the internal image dimensions (according to its media type).

• Horizontal alignment option: one of left, right, center, none;

  Controls the horizontal alignment (and inline/block or floating styles) of the image within a text (no default value).

• Vertical alignment option: one of baseline, sub, super, top, text-top, middle, bottom, text-bottom;

  Controls the vertical alignment of a non-floating inline image with the text before or after the image, and in the same block (the default vertical alignment is middle).

• Link option: one of
  • link={target} — Allows to change the target (to an arbitrary page title, or URL) of the generated link, activable on the rendered image surface;
  • link= (with an empty value) — Displays an image without any activable link; e.g. [[File:Example.jpg|20px|link=]] renders as .

! Link does not work with thumb, thumbnail or frame.

• Other specific options:
  • alt={alternative text} — Defines the alternative text (maps to the HTML attribute alt="..." of the generated <image /> element) of an image that will be rendered if either the referenced image cannot be downloaded and embedded, or if the support media must use the alternative description text (e.g. when using a Braille reader or with accessibility options set by the user in its browser).
  • page={number} — Renders the specified page number (currently only applicable when showing a .djvu or .pdf file).

The options can be given in any order. If the given options conflict each other, the latter is applied, except for the format options, where the options take the priority in the order of: frame; thumb (or thumbnail); frameless and/or border.

If a parameter does not match any of the other possibilities, it is assumed to be the caption text. Caption text shows below the image in thumb and frame formats, or as mouseover text in border, frameless formats or when the format is omitted. Caption text displayed in the thumb and frame formats may contain wiki links and other formatting. In the other options, wiki-formatting will not work though transclusion will.

If no caption text is supplied, a caption is automatically created showing the file name. To completely remove the caption, set it to <span title=""></span>. For example, [[File:Example.jpg|20px|<span title=""></span>]] renders as .

Uploading Images

There are two ways you can get an image on to a wiki, both of which are almost exactly the same in process, just moved around in which the order it is carried out.

The first option would be to edit the wiki article in question, adding in the image filename that will be used in the article, whether it be a floating image or included in a template. By doing this, you are telling the wiki to look for an image that doesn't exist, and as such it will leave you with a broken link to a nonexistent file. When you click the link, it will take you automatically to the file upload page where you can upload the image needed, and with the filename you specified already filled out in the correct field, there's no need to rename the file, simply upload and you're done. Hooray.

The other, second option, would be to upload the image via Special:Upload; selecting the image from your computer and filling out the fields on the page. Afterwards, you can then take the filename given to the image after upload, and use it in your editing, whether it be floating images, or for use in a template. The major difference between this option and the above is primarily the difference in how easy you want to make it for yourself. By using the first option, you clear out the need to remember what you named the image when you uploaded it, but on the flipside of things, by using this option you can (if you wish) upload more images at once, and as a result work with more images.

102b - Images in Templates

Another big thing to do on wiki is to put images inside of templates for easy readability and organization. Using a template will do all the necessary formatting and options typically required of adding images, the only difference being that you only supply the image name. But, there's also a catch. The catch being that you need to know what template you are using and how that template will be using that image. With that in mind, if your going to create an article about a person, you would want to use the appropriate person template, as opposed to a template for a vehicle. Knowing which template to use is half the battle in this regard.

Template Usage

Typically, most if not all templates come with some sort of pre-defined options that you would fill out like a survey in order for the template to populate with information. This is pretty run of the mill and easy to do, just look for a blank copy of the template with all of it's parameters (options) available, and fill them out as you see them. There's really not much more that can be said about templates since they are pretty self explanatory in that regard. Where it says name, you put the name of the person, vehicle, or thing that the template will be summarizing.

Templates & Images

Images are quite simple in templates. Typically images need their own syntax options to be displayed, but when templates are involved, they do all of that for you and all you need to do is supply the filename of the uploaded image. Don't get confused however, and put something like [[File:Example.jpg|200px]] in the image options for the template, because it won't work. Templates are already formatted to look inside the File: namespace, so when you put [[File:Example.jpg|200px]] in the image field, it's going to look for [[File:File:Example.jpg|200px]] instead. If you simply add Example.jpg to the template, it will render no problem since it is already looking in the file namespace for the image.

Some templates also allow the use of options such as sizing, but not much more than that due to the fact that templates are already coded to work within a certain scope of articles, such as entirely on the top right, or at the very bottom, and with (usually) strict options controlling their behavior. In the cases in which you are given the ability to add something such as an image size, chances are you are going to be using one of two commonly available options in template imaging. The first would be simply adding a pipe, |, and then the width in pixels of the image followed immediately without break by px. For example, this option would be along the lines of Example.jpg|200px. The second option would be an entirely separate option given by the template to control image sizing. In this case, there will typically be two separate options for images, one being simple image, where you supply the image name so the template can locate the image, and imagesize to specify the size of the image. In the case with imagesize, you simply add the width of the image in pixels, in this case an example would be 200px.

102c - Video

It is quite rare that video is ever added to a wiki for multiple reasons. Videos can and are most commonly hosted on external third party video sharing sites such as YouTube. Videos may also vary in file size, dimensions, and bandwidth usage. In addition, a default MediaWiki (the software that powers most wikis) installation does not include support for video embedding and a plugin must be installed.

With regard to these reasons alone, it would be more beneficial to a wiki to link to external sites hosting videos instead of uploading them directly to the wiki. If for some reason that the video absolutely must be uploaded, it should be discussed with the community via talk pages on how the article in question should be handled and whether or not the video is detrimental enough to warrant an upload.