Quick Start

For a short crib sheet for formatting text, adding links etc, see Help:Editing.

A quick guide to adding information to the FIBIWiki.

Creating an account

To edit the FIBIwiki you need to quickly create a free account. This will let you keep track of your own changes and have more control generally. Click on create account at the top right of the page.

Editing

Have a play and try adding some content. It's really easy, all you do is click on the edit tab at the top of the article you want to edit, or click on one of the red coloured links on any of the pages (this means that article doesn't exist yet). Then just type what you want to appear on the web page. You can practice editing using the FIBIwiki:Sandbox.

Before you click 'Save page' you can 'preview' how your changes will appear. This helps to eliminate unnecessary mistakes. You can also leave a brief edit summary to explain what changes you have made and can check the 'minor edit' box if applicable (if you have only made minor changes that do not affect content, such as changing spelling or formatting).

Spacing

Spacing can make a difference. Make sure you start typing at the very edge of the page, so that there is no empty space, otherwise the layout will be changed. Spacing may also be significant to the layout when you are adding a website link (URL), refer below. You may need to click on the backspace button on your keyboard, in front of the enclosed website link, if the layout when you view the preview is not satisfactory.

Paragraphs

To start a new paragraph, leave an empty line. You can also start a new line by typing <br> at the start of the new line, or the end of the previous line.

Toolbar on a page being edited

A toolbar appears on every page being edited which includes functions such as ‘bold text’, ‘italic text’, ‘internal link’ etc. This is an alternative to typing the required symbols yourself.

Headings

There is some specialist syntax for formatting the text, for example to create the following 3rd level heading

Regiments

you simply type ===Regiments===.

Links

Internal links

To create a link to another article you just surround the word with [[ ]]. For example to link to the Indian Navy page you type [[Indian Navy]].

External links

To create a link to an external website, use single square brackets around the full link. At the end of the link you can include a space and then some text that will appear as the link's name. So, typing [http://en.wikipedia.org English Wikipedia Homepage] will produce English Wikipedia Homepage.

Lists

To create a bulleted list just precede every item by an asterisk. For example type:

*first
*second
*third

and it will appear on the web page as:

• first
• second
• third

See, I told you it was easy.

See also

For more detailed help see:

• Citing sources This sets out how to add footnotes.
• Help:Editing pages
• Help:Formatting
• Help:Links
• Help:Images
• Help:Tables. For examples of tables, look at the structure in 'view source' mode of the tables in Newspapers and journals online and for a similar table with a heading on top, Stations of British Troops in India. For a different style of table with multiple categories per line , see Bengal Ecclesiastical Returns Index - the wording 'class="wikitable sortable"' produces a sortable heading and should be deleted if not required. The number in 'cell padding' determines the width of the space between lines. The higher the number, the wider the space.