User blog:Pezminer12/Your Ultimate Mapper Guide To Using Wikia

Hello, Mappers!

I am Pezminer12, an emailconfirmed, autoconfirmed user, poweruser, and chat moderator on TheFutureOfEuropes Wikia.

I have seen that lots of you Mappers, Chat moderators, and administrators are having trouble with editing and configuring the Wikia, like infoboxes, templates, modules, MediaWiki pages, and source editing. Since you might need help, I have written a guide on how to use Wikia.

First things are first.

Navigation=

Navigation

Navigation. It is easy, simple, and an important part of using Wikia.

When you are on the main page or the Wikia Activity page of the Wikia, you may or may not see some tabs above you.

You can use these tabs to navigate to certain parts of the Wikia. For example, if you click "Wiki Activity", you may see the activity of the Wikia, which includes certain pages being edited or commented on. Random Page will take you to a random page, Videos will show you uploaded videos onto the Wikia, Photos will show you uploaded photos onto the Wikia, and Chat will take you to the Chat. The: "Forum" button will take you to the forums, and the Maps button will take you to a Maps sections which displays certain maps created by Users.

There are other tabs to which display more buttons, such as "Popular pages" and "Community". You can highlight these tabs with your mouse and see more tabs. If you hover your mouse over: "Popular pages", you can see: "Most visited articles", which show you the most visited pages on the Wikia based on results for the past week, "Blog posts", which show trending Blog posts, and a administrator-customized tab that may show different things, and, in this case, "Nations", which show most visited pages with the category: "Nations" over the past 7 days.

The "Community" tab will show you: "Recent blog posts" and "Forum". The "Recent blog posts" will show you the most recently created Blog posts, whilest the "Forum" button will show you the Forums.

This navigation bar can show you throughout the Wikia, and of course you can skim through articles with the power of clicking links.
 * -|Contribution=

Contribution

Contribution on a Wikia is one of the most important things to do on a Wikia. It can be achieved by editing a pre-existing page or creating a new page to edit.

The first thing you can do is going to the "Contribute" tab in the upper-right corner.

Then, hover over it, and click: "Add a page". A new dashboard should appear on your screen, darkening its surroundings.

The dashboard displays two tasks. You first have to name your page. So, click the white box, and type in the name of the page. Then, click a circle that best describes the page that you want it to be. Will it be blank? Standard, with pre-existing headers, text, and video & photo placeholder. There might also be a Top-10 list article type that you can create. For this guide, you can press the option: "Standard". It will take you to a page described in this guide: pre-existing section headers, text, and placeholders for photos and videos.

Editing a page

The page dashboard shows up when you created the page. The first thing that you should notice is that there are several tabs and buttons to the right, displaying certain things that you can add to your page, like photos, videos, slideshows, sliders, galleries, and tables. Below the: "Add features and media" tab, which showcases the buttons that were just mentioned, is the tab labeled: "Categories". It has an engine that when you type in a name that describes your page in the "Add category..." box, and the category is entered, it automatically is added as a category to the page. When the page is created, the category will show up.

Below the "Categories" tab is a tab called "Templates".

Templates are a useful way to display large information that won't fill up your page, like infoboxes and navboxes. We will cover this later.

To configure your article, click: "Write the first paragraph of your page here.", and delete it. Then, you can write an opening paragraph to your article. When you are finished, you can edit the headings. Repeat the procedure above with the first heading, and rewrite the first heading's name. Then, you can edit the text below it.

Headings can be used to summary a topic in one or two words, like a paragraph about historic topics below can header the paragraph as: "History". If it is about economics, then: "Economics". Poltics, "Poltics". Government, "Government". This is how headers work. They are also sorted into the Table of Contents that show up when the page is created.

Repeat the procedure with deleting the text for the next header and text, and your article is created! However, there are still placeholders, which are there to help out the User editing the article. If you want to add a photo to the article, you can click on: "Add a photo" on the placeholder. However, we will cover adding photos in a different chapter.

If you think the page is complete, then go to: "Preview". It can show you what your article will look like when you hit: "Publish". If you are using a computer, then click on: "Desktop". If you are using a mobile phone, then click: "Mobile". It will show what the article will look. If you are satisfied with your changes, click: "Publish".

Your page is now done and published to the public! Congratulations!

If you would like to edit the article again, press: "Edit" on the upper-left corner of the article.

Then, if you made some changes, click: "Desktop" to see what it would look like, then click: "Publish" if you like it. When you have published changes to an article that has been created, you have made a revision.
 * -|Photos & Videos=

Photos & Videos

Photos and Videos are ways to show viewers of your page what the topic is about even clearer. They show the viewer what the page is talking about in a photo or video.

To add one to a page, go to the page that you have created, then click: "Edit".

Here, you are able to see the placeholders that have been automatically created for you when you clicked: "Standard" when creating your page. Now, click: "Add a photo" on the placeholder, and a menu should pop up.

This menu displays options. The one that you want to do is to choose a file from your computer.

Click: "Choose File", and a menu should pop up on your screen, displaying items on your computer. Click the one you want, and another menu should pop up.

This menu should show more options that can be used to configure how the photo will look on your page, like: "Layout", and "Alignment". For this photo, choose: "Thumbnail", and the photo alignment to the left. Then, if you want a caption, type it in using the white box. Then, click: "Add photo".

Ta-da! Your photo has been added to the page. If you want to add a video, click: "Add a video" on the video placeholder, then, a menu should pop up.

The menu should display two boxes.

If the video you want to add is from YouTube, then go to the video that you want to add, highlight the URL of the video and copy it, then paste it in the: "URL" box. Then, click: "Add". Another menu should pop up, displaying options like: "Name", "Description", "Caption", "Width", and "Position".

For the options, leave the name and description how it should be, then add a caption and type in what you want in the : "Caption" box. Then, leave the width how it is and choose the postion; left, center, or right? Choose what you want, and click: "Add a video". The video should now be added to the page.

Now, click: "Desktop" under the "Preview" options, see if that is how you want it to be, then click: "Publish".

The photo & video should now be added to the page.

Note: Remember that the photo and video can be configured at any time. Edit the page, then hover over the photo or video, and click: "Modify". You should be able to configure the photo or video how you did before.