User Help - Help For the End User
Table of contents
- 1. Sample Page:
- 1.1. Navigation
- 1.2. Login
- 1.3. Creating Pages
- 1.4. Attaching Files
- 1.5. Inserting Images
- 1.6. Notifications
- 1.6.1. Watched Pages
- 1.6.2. RSS Feeds
- 1.7. Comments
- 1.8. Tools
- 1.9. Features
Please add new "task" bullets, or add information which explains how to perform one of the "tasks" below to an end user.
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Basic: WYSIWYG Editing (this section is for users with basic knowledge of how to use MS Word or the equivilant)
- How to use styles and what is their purpose
- Text formatting (Font Color, Font Background, Bold, Italics, Underline, etc.)
- How to use bullets
- How to attach images, clips, etc
- Using undo and redo
- Table's (how to create; how to manage formatting inside of cells)
- Indent
- Making a link
- Page etiquette
- Moderate: (This section is for users who have mastered MS Word but have little little or no web editing experience)
- How to incorporate extensions
- More advanced tables (background images, merge cells, nested tables, etc.)
- Linking to a fileshare
- Shortcuts to speed workflow
- Incorporating tables, extensions, and images for content rich pages
- Checking browser compatibility; compatibility with multiple resolutions
- Advanced: (This section is for users people with advanced knowledge of HTML and the Web)
Sample Page:
This page contains instructions on how to do certain things with the wiki. The small pictures are thumbnails, and clicking on them will enlarge them.
- 1. Sample Page:
- 1.1. Navigation
- 1.2. Login
- 1.3. Creating Pages
- 1.4. Attaching Files
- 1.5. Inserting Images
- 1.6. Notifications
- 1.6.1. Watched Pages
- 1.6.2. RSS Feeds
- 1.7. Comments
- 1.8. Tools
- 1.9. Features
Navigation
The pages of the wiki are organized in a tree structure, seen to the left. Clicking on a link to the left will take you to that page. If there are sub-pages, as seen with the "Departments" page, the tree will open up to reveal those pages.
A faster way to navigate if you are looking for something specific is to search for it. At the top right of the wiki is a search box. You can type any word or combination of words, and it will search all pages for that word. For example if you are searching for a particular AutoCAD problem, this will bring up any pages that mention that search term.
Login
Before you can create, modify or comment on pages, you must first log into the wiki. Underneath the logo is the log-in button. Type in your username and password. This will be the same username and password that you use for your computer. Once logged in, the wiki will remember you for a day or two, but if you do not use the wiki for over 1 day you may have to log in again.
Creating Pages
Pages are created according to where you current are in the tree structure. For example, if you are viewing the main page, any new pages will be directly underneath the main one, similar to the department pages. If you are viewing a department page, such as "Engineering", new pages will be created underneath "Engineering". .PNG?size=webview)
To create a new page, click the "New Page" button just below the logo:
This will create a new page, which you can then modify. The new blank page appears like this:
You can replace "Page Title" with what you want the page to appear with in the tree structure. Then continue to edit the page as you see fit, using the controls provided.
You can add bullets and lists, tables and headings. Font size, colour and type can be changed, as well as justification of text.
Tags
You may wish to add tags to your pages as well. This enables simple searching for pages, which will become especially useful when the Wiki becomes too large to efficiently use the tree structure. To do so, click the "More" menu at the top of the page, and select "Tags", as shown here:
Headings
You can use "Headings" to automatically format the page for navigation. To do so, type your heading, such as "Creating Pages". Then on the formatting bar, using the Style box, choose a heading, with #1 being the largest. What this will do is automatically change the size and bolding, as well as auto-create the index list, which can be used for the Table of Contents.
Linking
Links can be added to a page that point to another page in the wiki, or an external site. To do so, click the "L" button on the formatting bar, as the picture shows:
A new window will open, which will allow you to search for the page you want to link to.
To browse for your link, select the "Browse" tab and click the arrows to navigate to the page you wish to link to. The following image explains what the icons are for:
To create a link to an external website, simply type or paste it and the wiki will auto-format it.
Linking to a file server is possible. You can do this with the following format:
file://///servername/folder/file.pdf
For example, if I want to link to a newsletter, I would type:
file://///Servername/Newsletters/September%202007.pdf
The %20 that you see in the link is used instead of a space. If you had a file named Atco Pipeline.xls you would need to use the name Atco%20Pipeline.xls.
Signature
To auto-add a signature to the bottom of a page, you can just type 3 'tildes':
~~~
This is the key to the left of the #1. Holding Shift and pressing that button 3 times returns: jadus. Holding Shift and pressing that button 4 times returns: jadus 08 April 2008.
When you have finished, you need to save the page. To do this, click the "Save" button which is at the top left of the tools menu.
Attaching Files
To insert a file or image so that it is available for use and sharing on the wiki must upload it to the site first. This is done on a page-by-page basis. First, navigate to the page you want to add a file/image to. Then click "Attach file or image" near the bottom of the page, as shown here:
This will add the file or image to the page. Anyone can view or download that file by going to the end of the page, where all uploaded files are listed. To insert an image into the page, such as these examples, see the next section.
If its found that a large amount of files need to be added to the wiki, we can explore the use of software that is installed on the computer to easy the uploading of a large number of documents.
Inserting Images
Images can be inserted into pages, such as the images on this page, however they must first be attached. If this hasn't been done, see the previous section.
They can either be set as thumbnails, so that clicking the picture shows the full size, or they can be inserted full size.
To place them directly in the page, you must edit it. Click the "Edit Page" button which is right beside the "New Page" button. Then using the tools at the top of the page, click the icon that looks like a picture (3rd from the right).
If you hover over it, it will say "insert image". Clicking that will then show you the images that are currently available, and you should see a little preview. Here you can adjust the size and justification of the image. It will insert where your cursor currently is. Then save the page.
Notifications
It is probable that you will want to be notified when a page is changed or modified. There are currently 2 ways to do this. The first is through Watched Pages, and the other is through RSS feeds. Currently email notifications are not available.
Watched Pages
You can mark pages as "watched", so that its easier to access them. This is handy if the amount of pages increases but you don't want to search for your page every time you use the wiki.
To mark a page as watched, navigate to that pace. Click the "more" menu right beside the "New Page" button, and select Watch.
To view your watched pages, click the "Tools" menu near the top of the page, and select "Watched Pages". This will list any pages that you've marked as watched, as well as list the last time they have been modified, and by whom.
RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds are available two ways. One is if you are using Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), and is not possible on Windows 2000. To determine what version of Internet Explorer you have, click the "Help" menu at the top of the window, and then "About Internet Explorer". If you do not see a "Help" menu, then you most likely already have IE7, as this menu is hidden by default. If you do not have IE7, please speak to IT who can update your computer with it.
The other way is through Outlook. This requires the install of a separate tool by IT. If you are interested in having RSS notifications in Outlook, please speak to IT.
The instructions below detail setting up RSS feeds for IE7.
RSS Feeds are a way to view changed information without browsing the wiki. It is an efficient way to monitor changing information. RSS stands for "Rich Site Summary".
It is recommended that you set up your Watched Pages first, as they can be used with the RSS Feeds.
To begin, select "Tools" from the wiki menu bar and pick "RSS Feeds". This will take you to the RSS Feed list. There are 3 types of feeds
- What's New
- Watched Lists
- Contributions
As shown in the image above, you can see feeds for What's New, your own Watched Pages, other users's Watched Pages, and other users' contributions.
To add a feed, click on one of the links provided. The page that opens is called an RSS preview page. It is showing you what the RSS page will look like if you subscribe to it. You subscribe to RSS Feeds to that they are easier to get to.
You subscribe to an RSS Feed by clicking the "Subscribe to this feed" button at the top of the page
Once subscribed, your feed will appear in your favorites menu. To access it, click the star icon on the top left of Internet Explorer, and then select the "Feeds" tab. This is shown on the image below.
You should see an entry for the feed you just added. At any time you can click this shortcut to go directly to the feed. If the name of the feed is in Bold, that means there are new entries.
By default, your feed's update themselves once a day. When a feed updates, it takes all of the new changes and puts them at the top of the page. You may wish to set your feed to update more often. To do so, right click on the feed shortcut and select properties.
The properties page allows you to change the schedule of updates. It is recommended to set the custom schedule to 1 hour (insert image).
When you view your feed, any new items will have a title in blue, as shown below
When you leave the feed and come back, anything that was displayed before will now have a grey title bar.
Comments
There is the ability to add comments at the end of every page. These can be thought of as a discussion area depending on the content of the page. To add a comment, simply type in the box provided, and click "Add a Comment". The comment will show up at the bottom of the page with your name and a timestamp automatically attached. This allows for discussions with automatic naming and timing to take place.
If you have comments about the wiki, or feature suggestions, or constructive critisism about what doesn't work or what could work better, please add them to this page.
Tools
The tools menu at the top of the wiki can be used to access a few useful features.
- Watched Pages - see the Watched Pages section above.
- My Contributions - This will display any pages that you have created/modified.
- Users - This is a list of all users that have logged into the wiki. From here you can view their contributions, or personal pages.
- Templates - If multiple pages are being created that look the same, a template can be created, and then each new page can start with the template. This will speed up creation of pages if they are similar.
- Sitemap - This page lists in tree view all of the pages on the wiki. You may wish to use this if you do not want to browse through the wiki to get to a page that is deep in the tree structure.
- Popular Pages - This page will list the most popular pages, based on how many 'views' they have had.
Features
Other features are available through the wiki. These include:
- Personal Pages - This is a page editable only by yourself, where you can put notes and other information. It is viewable by others, but not easily.
- Page Versioning - You can view previous versions of pages, by clicking the "last modified" link at the top left of the page. This displays previous versions of the page, when they were modified, and by whom.
- Page Permissions - You can modify the permissions on a page and sub-pages so that only certain users can read, or write to the page. This can be access from the "more" menu beside the "New Page" button. Click "restrict access" and configure accordingly.
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