A Wiki is a collection of web pages that anyone can edit and add to using their web browser - in this case, anyone who is a member of the AlternateHistory.com discussion board. Click “Edit Page” on the menu bar up above, and you can edit the current page in a text editor window. Wiki pages are not as complicated as normal web pages, so they use simple options for things like bold and highlighted text.

What makes a Wiki really easy is the ability to create new web pages. Basically, within the Wiki you can add a link to a page whether or not it already exists yet. Putting square brackets around a word or phrase [[Like this]] creates a link to a page named “Like this”. If a page by that name has already been created in the Wiki, you now have a link to it. If it hasn't been created… just click on the link and you will get the option to “Create this page”!

You could say that these are the three basic principles of the wiki:

• Can be edited by anyone
• Links and new pages can be added almost instantly
• Used straightforward, text-based formatting to control how the page looks rather than web page code

The rest of this document describes all of the various options for formatting text. But always remember that the toolbar on top of the editor window has shortcut buttons. For example, you can just highlight a block of text and hit the “H3” button and it will make it into a size 3 header.

The four rightmost buttons on the editor bar can be very useful:

• The smilies menu
• Special characters menu
• Signature, which inserts your username and the current date and time
• Add File/Image, which lets you upload files to the Wiki and browse files to include in a page (the Wiki's folder tree is on the left of the browser)

DokuWiki supports some simple markup language, which tries to make the datafiles to be as readable as possible. This page contains all possible syntax you may use when editing the pages. Simply have a look at the source of this page by pressing the Edit this page button at the top or bottom of the page. If you want to try something, just use the playground page. The simpler markup is easily accessible via quickbuttons, too.

DokuWiki supports bold, italic, underlined and monospaced texts. Of course you can combine all these.

DokuWiki supports **bold**, //italic//, __underlined__ and ''monospaced'' texts.
Of course you can **__//''combine''//__** all these.

You can use _subscript and ^superscript, too.

You can use <sub>subscript</sub> and <sup>superscript</sup>, too.

You can mark something as deleted as well.

You can mark something as <del>deleted</del> as well.

Paragraphs are created from blank lines. If you want to force a newline without a paragraph, you can use two backslashes followed by a whitespace or the end of line.

This is some text with some linebreaks
Note that the two backslashes are only recognized at the end of a line
or followed by
a whitespace \\this happens without it.

This is some text with some linebreaks\\ Note that the
two backslashes are only recognized at the end of a line\\
or followed by\\ a whitespace \\this happens without it.

You should use forced newlines only if really needed.

DokuWiki supports multiple ways of creating links.

External links are recognized automagically: http://www.google.com or simply www.google.com - You can set Linknames, too: This Link points to google. Email addresses like this one: andi@splitbrain.org are recognized, too.

DokuWiki supports multiple ways of creating links. External links are recognized
automagically: http://www.google.com or simply www.google.com - You can set
Linknames, too: [[http://www.google.com|This Link points to google]]. Email
addresses like this one: <andi@splitbrain.org> are recognized, too.

Internal links are created by using square brackets. You can either just give a wiki:pagename or use an additional Title Text. Wiki pagenames are converted to lowercase automatically, special characters are not allowed.

Internal links are created by using square brackets. You can either just give
a [[pagename]] or use an additional [[pagename|Title Text]]. Wiki pagenames
are converted to lowercase automatically, special chars are not allowed.

You can use namespaces by using a colon in the pagename.

You can use [[wiki:namespaces]] by using a colon in the pagename.

For details about namespaces see wiki:namespaces.

Linking to a specific section is possible, too. Just add the sectionname behind a hash character as known from HTML. This links to this Section.

This links to [[syntax#internal|this Section]].

Notes:

• Links to existing pages are shown in a different style from nonexisting ones.
• When a section's heading is changed, its bookmark changes, too. So don't rely on section linking too much.

You can also use an image to link to another internal or external page by combining the syntax for links and images (see below) like this:

[[http://www.php.net|{{wiki:dokuwiki-128.png}}]]

Please note: The image formatting is the only formatting syntax accepted in link names.

The whole image and link syntax is supported (including image resizing, internal and external images and URLs and interwiki links).

You can add footnotes ¹⁾ by using double parentheses.

You can add footnotes ((This is a footnote)) by using double parentheses.

You can use up to five different levels of headlines to structure your content. If you have more than three headlines, a table of contents is generated automatically – this can be disabled by including the string ~~NOTOC~~ in the document.

==== Headline Level 3 ====
=== Headline Level 4 ===
== Headline Level 5 ==

By using four or more dashes, you can make a horizontal line:

You can include external and internal images with curly brackets. Optionally you can specify the size of them.

Images can be uploaded with the “Add File/Image” button on the right of the text editor button toolbar. You can use files and images that you upload, or browse for files uploaded by others. On the left side of the file browser is the Wiki's folder structure, allowing you to choose various folders to view and save files.

Real size:

Resize to given width:

Resize to given width and height:

Resized external image:

Real size:                        {{wiki:dokuwiki-128.png}}
Resize to given width:            {{wiki:dokuwiki-128.png?50}}
Resize to given width and height: {{wiki:dokuwiki-128.png?200x50}}
Resized external image:           {{http://de3.php.net/images/php.gif?200x50}}

By using left or right whitespaces you can choose the alignment

{{ wiki:dokuwiki-128.png}}
{{wiki:dokuwiki-128.png }}
{{ wiki:dokuwiki-128.png }}

Of course, you can add a title (displayed as a tooltip by most browsers), too.

{{ wiki:dokuwiki-128.png |This is the caption}}

If you specify a filename (external or internal) that is not an image (gif,jpeg,png), then it will be displayed as a link instead.

For linking an image to another page see Image Links above.

Dokuwiki supports ordered and unordered lists. To create a list item, indent your text by two spaces and use a * for unordered lists or a - for ordered ones.

• This is a list
• The second item
  • You may have different levels
• Another item

1. The same list but ordered
2. Another item
   1. Just use indention for deeper levels
3. That's it

  * This is a list
  * The second item
    * You may have different levels
  * Another item

  - The same list but ordered
  - Another item
    - Just use indention for deeper levels
  - That's it

DokuWiki converts commonly used emoticons to their graphical equivalents. More smileys can be placed in the smiley directory and configured in the conf/smileys.conf file. Here is an overview of Smileys included in DokuWiki.

Remember that the editor toolbar has a menu button that allows you to choose from the available smilies.

• 8-)
• 8-O
• :-(
• :-)
• =)
• :-/
• :-\
• :-?
• :-D
• :-P
• :-O
• :-X
• :-|
• ;-)
• ^_^
• :?:
• :!:
• LOL
• FIXME
• DELETEME

DokuWiki can convert simple text characters to their typographically correct entities. Here is an example of recognized characters.

→ ← ↔ ⇒ ⇐ ⇔ » « – — 640×480 © ™ ® “He thought 'It's a man's world'…”

-> <- <-> => <= <=> >> << -- --- 640x480 (c) (tm) (r)
"He thought 'It's a man's world'..."

Please note: These conversions can be turned off through a config option and a pattern file.

Some times you want to mark some text to show it's a reply or comment. You can use the following syntax:

I think we should do it
  
> No we shouldn't
  
>> Well, I say we should
  
> Really?
  
>> Yes!
  
>>> Then lets do it!

I think we should do it

No we shouldn't

Well, I say we should

Really?

Yes!

Then lets do it!

DokuWiki supports a simple syntax to create tables.

Table rows have to start and end with a | for normal rows or a ^ for headers.

^ Heading 1      ^ Heading 2       ^ Heading 3          ^
| Row 1 Col 1    | Row 1 Col 2     | Row 1 Col 3        |
| Row 2 Col 1    | some colspan (note the double pipe) ||
| Row 3 Col 1    | Row 2 Col 2     | Row 2 Col 3        |

To connect cells horizontally, just make the next cell completely empty as shown above. Be sure to have always the same amount of cell separators!

Vertical tableheaders are possible, too.

As you can see, it's the cell separator before a cell which decides about the formatting:

|              ^ Heading 1            ^ Heading 2          ^
^ Heading 3    | Row 1 Col 2          | Row 1 Col 3        |
^ Heading 4    | no colspan this time |                    |
^ Heading 5    | Row 2 Col 2          | Row 2 Col 3        |

Note: Vertical spans (rowspan) are not possible.

You can align the table contents, too. Just add at least two whitespaces at the opposite end of your text: Add two spaces on the left to align right, two spaces on the right to align left and two spaces at least at both ends for centered text.

This is how it looks in the source:

^           Table with alignment           ^^^
|         right|    center    |left          |
|left          |         right|    center    |
| xxxxxxxxxxxx | xxxxxxxxxxxx | xxxxxxxxxxxx |

You can include non parsed blocks into your documents by either indenting them by using the tags code or file.

This is preformatted code all spaces are preserved: like              <-this

This is pretty much the same, but you could use it to show that you quoted a file.  

To let the parser ignore an area completely (ie. do no formatting on it), enclose the area either with nowiki tags or even simpler, with double percent signs %%.

This is some text which contains addresses like this: http://www.splitbrain.org and **formatting**, but nothing is done with it.

See the source of this page to see how to use these blocks. One tip is that nowiki can be used to strip formatting within a paragraph, while code will create a highlighted block across the entire screen.

DokuWiki's syntax can be extended by Plugins. How the installed plugins are used is described on their appropriate description pages. The following syntax plugins are available in this particular DokuWiki installation:

• Info Plugin 2020-06-04 by Andreas Gohr
  Displays information about various DokuWiki internals