Create pages

It is an important aspect of the wiki principle that every user can create articles.

Creating new articles

There are four ways to create a new article in BlueSpice.
You should normally, however, first look to see if the article already exists. Search for the term and for synonyms. If your search does not have any hits, you can create the page.
Good to know:

• To create an article in a different namespace, you must write the namespace before the article name, for example [[NewNamespace: First_Article]].
• After entering the page title, a menu will appear which contains the wiki's specific page templates.
• The following symbols cannot be used in titles: { } & ? < > \ and ,
• The symbol / should only be used when you are creating a subpage!

Using templates

Screenshot: Choosing a template

It does not matter which of the methods described below you use, you will always be forwarded to an overview page where you can choose from different templates (if they are available). If you do not want to use a template, click on empty page or directly on create.You will then be able to write content to the page. As soon as it is saved, the article exists.

Creating a new article via the search function

Screenshot: Create a page via the search function

First, search for a term or content using the search function. Also try searching for synonyms and similar terms. If your search returns no hits, then you can click on "create", directly below the search box. You are then forwarded to the page to be created.

Create a new article via URL

Just like creating a page via a link in some text, you can also just enter the URL.

To do this, go to your browser's address bar. You will see something like http://help.blue-spice.org/index.php
Add a slash and the page name after this, and press the return key. You will automatically be forwarded to the start form for the new page.

http://help.blue-spice.org/index.php/Enter_URL

Create a new article via a link in the text

A classical way to create articles in MediaWiki is by using "Red links". These are links in the text to the article to be created, and clicking on these creates the page. This means that the wiki pages are immediately linked to each other.

Suppose we want to, for example, create the article "Training". It is not absolutely necessary, but it is useful to have this new page linked to other pages in the wiki. To create this connection, generate a reference to the page "Training". This is done by changing to the edit mode. Then add the following to a page of your choosing:

[[Training]]

Confirm the creation of the link by saving it.

Screenshot: A "Redlink" in a text

The double square brackets make the wiki software recognise the phrase "Training" as a reference to the article "Training" and so display it as a link to this page. Because this page does not yet exist, this link is in red. All redlinks are listed in the wanted articles. If you now click on this link to "Hello World", the editing view appears automatically. You can enter whatever text you like here. After saving, you will see the page you have just created.

It is useful to create links to the new page from a selection of places, particularly the topic's portal page, so that others can find the new page.

Active links to already existing pages are coloured blue.

Create a new article in a namespace

New articles/pages in a namespace can be created by using the "Create new page" form simply by creating an article whose address starts with the namespace, for example "Help:New Article".

Tips for creating pages

• Try not to use the back button whenever possible. Many browsers use the page cache to lower loading times, so you may be given an older version of the page. The worst case scenario is that the browser resends data from the edit form from the edit view, which could overwrite newer changes.

Note: Do you think that an article will often be searched for using a synonym? Then add an article with this name and use a redirect.

• The Choice of a suitable title is extremely important. Especially for wikis with many entries, it is common for authors to "take a chance" by inserting links to pages which they see as important for their input. You should, therefore, take care that the title is as succinct as possible and precisely describes what the page is about. Individual words are often very good, but short sentences such as "Why wikis work" can also be useful names. On top of this, descriptive page titles also help readers to navigate and search for entries more easily.

• When linking to a page that already exists, you should take care to use the title exactly as written. If, for example you write [[hello world]] instead of [[Hello World]], it will create a new article because the links are written differently. So make sure you take capitalisation and spaces into account.