Restructuring the how to use the Helpwiki Page Layouts

From Help Wiki


Page layouts and templates provide a format that can be utilized to structure your page.


Page Layouts Using Templates

  • Templates allow the user to format pages into preexisting layouts without needing to know HTML.

How to set up a template

  • There are two steps to utilize templates when creating pages in the Evergreen HelpWiki
Step One: Copy and paste template syntax.
  1. Navigate from the home page to the category Web Publishing and click Wiki Admin
  2. From the Wiki Admin catagory, click on the subcategory Page Layouts
  3. Select the page that utilizes the template you want to use for your page
  4. From the template page navigate to the ... icon and select edit source
  5. Highlight the syntax in the editing box included in the curly brackets
Links to templates you can use
Where to click to find the Edit Source button
Copy and paste the text in red to utilize templates in your page
Step Two: Utilize the template to format your page
  1. Navigate back to your page and select Edit Source
  2. Paste the syntax you copied from the template example page into the editing box for your page
  3. Follow the instructions included in the syntax in order to fill in the template with your content

You can contact Academic technologies if you need any help creating a MediaWiki page

Editing pages built using templates

Pages using layout template cannot be edited via visual editor. To enable Visual Editor editing, you'll want to convert your page from template format to HTML using the subst command.

  • input subst: right before the start of the template and save the page.
  • The template syntax will be replaced by the html layout tags

Syntax to flatten TwoColumn template would look like

{{subst:TwoColumn ...
}}

When To Use a Template

Basic

A page that uses the Basic template is the home page for the Evergreen Helpwiki

Below is the syntax for the basic template that you can copy and paste into your page.

__NOTOC__
{{Basic
|lead=
Lead text / brief overview of the page content. 
|content=
===Page Content===
====Task heading (optional)====
#
#
#
#
}}

Two Column/Sidebar

A page that uses the Two Column or Sidebar template is the I forgot my Username or Password page

Below is the syntax for the TwoColumn or Sidebar template that you can copy and paste into your page.

__NOTOC__
{{TwoColumn|lead= 
Succinct description of what this page is about. Could be two lines but shorter is better.
|content=
===Page Content===
====Task heading (optional)====
#
#
#
#
|sidebar=
====Sidebar information====
*Links to related content
----
{{GetHelp}}
}}
  • Two Column is the official name of the template that is used within the syntax, but it is also refered to as sidebar becuase it is preformated to include a sidebar
  • Link to the Two Column/Sidebar layout page/example
  • This is the most commonly used template within the Evergreen Helpwiki

Landing

A page that uses the Landing template is the Accessibility Help page

Below is the syntax for the landing page template that you can copy and paste into your page.

<pre>
__NOTOC__
{{Landing
|lead=
Lead text or brief overview of the page content. 
|content=
Page content that falls under the main page, and not in a subcolumn.
|col1=
====Bulletted items under column 1====
*
*
*
|col2=
====Bulletted items under column 2==== 
*
*
*
|sidebar=
====Sidebar information====
*Links to related content
----
{{GetHelp}}
}}
  • Link to the Landing layout page/example
  • Use the landing page template when creating a hub to list pages that are related
  • You can Include the 3 Box or 2 Box template to add further structure to your landing page