Wiki Code Cookbook

Basic Font Stuff

It's much easier to change a font's style, such as into bold or italic, using the WYSIWYG interface. But we do have a few NETwiki standards for these font styles to help keep our wiki readable.

Bold: Used sparingly to bring emphasis to text.

Italic: Not really used in the NETwiki at all, and should be avoided because it is difficult to read. An exception should be made for narrow uses like scientific names or in some source citations. Otherwise, its use will usually be rejected by editors.

Bold italic: Bold italic is an acceptable use of italic style in NETwiki for bringing emphasis.

Underline: Should never be used, as it makes text difficult for some people to read. Narrow and specialized uses, such as with a source citation, are allowed in NETwiki.

Strikethrough: Often has a very narrow use case. It's not banned from NETwiki, but an article needs to have a good reason to use it.

ALL CAPS: This is usually used for emphasis, but only used in NETwiki when bold or bold italic won't work for some reason. It's also very annoying to read, so the writer needs a good reason for using it.

Big and Small styles: No hard rules in NETwiki governing their use, but they shouldn't be used to emphasize text. These are more useful styles for design reasons (for example, using Big text at the top of a table column).

'''Bold:''' Used sparingly to bring emphasis to text. 

''Italic:'' Not really used in the NETwiki at all, and should be avoided because it is difficult to read. An exception should be made for narrow uses like scientific names or in some source citations. Otherwise, its use will usually be rejected by editors.

'''''Bold italic:''''' Bold italic is an acceptable use of italic style in NETwiki for bringing emphasis. 

<u>Underline</u>: Should never be used, as it makes text difficult for some people to read. Narrow and specialized uses, such as with a source citation, are allowed in NETwiki.

<s>Strikethrough</s>: Often has a very narrow use case. It's not banned from NETwiki, but an article needs to have a good reason to use it.

ALL CAPS: This is usually used for emphasis, but only used in NETwiki when bold or bold italic won't work for some reason. It's also very annoying to read, so the writer needs a good reason for using it.

<big>Big</big> and <small>Small</small> styles: No hard rules in NETwiki governing their use, but they shouldn't be used to emphasize text. These are more useful styles for design reasons (for example, using Big text at the top of a table column).

Emphasis in Type

Sometimes you need your words to pop in order to place emphasis on them. For the most part, these tools should be used sparingly. For one thing, it might make a page more difficult to read for persons with sight impairments. And after all, if everything is emphasized, nothing is.

Essential/Non-essential headers

If you are writing a particularly long article and/or an article required for Basic NET training, you may want to indicate some sections as "essential" reading and other sections as "supplemental". This is not a trick with text so much as it's a very small table that sits at the top of a page section. For an example in context, see: Basic NET Class Goals.

NETwiki standard:

• "Essential" should be a single line table in "firebrick" red, spanning 25% of the page, white bold text.
• "Supplemental" should be a single line table in "gold", spanning 25% of the page, white bold text.

Section Importance: Essential

{|class="wikitable" style="width: 25%; "
|+
| style="background: firebrick; color: white" |'''Section Importance: Essential'''
|}

Section Importance: Supplemental

{| class="wikitable" style="width: 25%; 
|+
|style="background: gold; color: black"|'''Section Importance: Supplemental'''
|}

Simple yellow highlight on text

Wiki syntax comes with a simple and easy way to place a yellow highlight on selected text. Simply brace it inside the code you see below.

Example: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

'''Example:''' <mark>The quick brown fox</mark> jumps over the lazy dog.

Elaborate text highlights

Highlighting text in a color other than yellow can be done, but it's a pain in the ass. Still, if you gotta have that je ne sais quoi, there is a way to do it by marking it up with a <span>. For example:

All PBEM employees must stop crying before returning to work.

<span style="background:black; color:white">'''All PBEM employees must stop crying before returning to work.'''</span>

For design reasons, you may want a space before or after the sentence that is the same color as the highlight so it doesn't look quite so cut off. That's an extra layer of code. The syntax will just cut off a blank space even if you have it inside the brackets. So instead, you have to have a symbol, like an asterisk, bookending your sentence that is the color of the background.

*All PBEM employees must stop crying before returning to work.*

<span style="background:black; color:black">*</span><span style="background:black; color:white">'''All PBEM employees must stop crying before returning to work.'''</span><span style="background:black; color:black">*</span>

In that example, I also made the text white. But naturally, you can change the color of the text and background to create all manner of page design monstrosity.