Tips and Tricks

General

  • Before editing, make sure you understand the wiki rules and the License.
  • Beginners can read only the Basic Editing Page. It contains 99% the syntax needed for this site.
  • Remember that Online documentation is available. It is recommended to use the Sandbox for practice.
  • Use the preview capability for checking before actually saving any change. Preview will appear at the bottom of the edit page, below the help box.
  • Please fill the Summary, Author and Minor Edit boxes when editing. This makes life much easier to track the changes.
  • Please keep the same Author name. Each Author is entitled to a profile page automatically linked to the Author name. You can edit at will your profile page to introduce yourself to readers.
  • For long text, it is easier to prepare the text in your favorite editor and then cut/paste into the edit form.
How to quickly create my profile page?

Once your contributions are done, go to the All updates page. Click on your name next to the page changed. This will create your personal profile page ... to edit.

Tables

The quickest way to create a table is to copy / paste from Excel (or Word) and then use the "Convert" button . Table style will be set automatically when saving.

An example, after the "Convert" button, a table will look like this:

||class=tabtable
||! Engine n° ||! Year built ||
|| KL46001    ||       1957||
|| KL46002    ||       1957||
|| KL46003    ||       1964||
|| KL46004    ||       1971||
Engine n°Year built
KL460011957
KL460021957
KL460031964
KL460041971

Uploads

File size is limited at 400Ko. Larger files are accepted on request to the webmaster.

Don't use special characters like +"'(* in file names. I recommend also to avoid blanks and uppercase letters for compatibility with some old systems.

Uploads folders are organized by groups. Life will be easier for the webmaster if files are uploaded in the proper folder (i.e. steam engines in "Steam", tramways in "Urban", ...)

Once uploaded, a file cannot be deleted nor overwritten (this is a security measure). Don't worry about errors: the webmaster will clean up orphaned files.

Attachements

Use the Attach: command to display a small image, an icon, a Word, Excel, ... document. Like this:

Attach:TCDD_sincan_s.jpg

Pictures

The rule of this website is to display thumbnail pictures linking to the full size pictures to allow low speed or wireless connections (as opposed to high speed internet users). To do this, use Mini: command. This command will handle the creation of the thumbnail in the website standard size.

Mini:haydarpasa001.jpg
haydarpasa001

To go further, add a caption (when the pointer flies over the thumbnail) and a legend like this:

Mini:haydarpasa001.jpg"This is the caption"|This is the legend
This is the caption
This is the legend

For the pros, I use a table to display two pictures side by side

(:table class=pictures:)

(:cellnr:)Mini:haydarpasa001.jpg"This is the caption left"
This is the legend left

(:cell:)Mini:haydarpasa001.jpg"This is the caption right"
This is the legend right

(:tableend:)
This is the caption left

This is the legend left

This is the caption right

This is the legend right

Remember that each picture ought to have a caption. Railfans like to read: number of unit (loco, train, ...), exact location, date (and time?) of picture.

Picture sizes and naming

Full size picture size should not exceed 1024 x 768 which is the screen size of 90% of the readers. The trend towards larger desktop PC screen is outweighted by laptop and smartphone with smaller screens. Interrestingly, 1024 x 768 is also the size of an Ipad screen.

JPEG quality factor of 90 is usually fine. A good freeware viewer like Irfanview allows resizing and renaming in batch mode.

Picture file name should be as descriptive as possible to allow proper indexation by search engines. Picture file name should be in lower case and avoid spaces and special caracters to ensure proper viewing of all kind of browsers.

Default thumbnails pictures are 200 pixels tall.

If this is too large, Mini can produce smaller thumbnails. Use like this:

  • Mini1: 150 pixels tall
  • Mini2: 100 pixels tall
  • Mini3: 300 pixels wide
  • Mini4: 200 pixels wide
(:table class=pictures:)

(:cellnr:)Mini1:haydarpasa001.jpg
This thumbnail is 150 pixels tall

(:cell:)Mini2:haydarpasa001.jpg
This thumbnail is 100 pixels tall
(:tableend:)
haydarpasa001

This thumbnail is 150 pixels tall

haydarpasa001

This thumbnail is 100 pixels tall

Pictures: step by step upload process

Step 1: In the page, insert the following command:

This command is composed like this:

Note: the picture file name should not contain any spaces nor any special caracters

See above regarding more details about the Mini command. Caption and Legend are optionnal but recommended.

Step 2: Save the page. The command will now appear underlined in blue with a triangle next to it. Click on this link to open the file upload dialog box.

Step 3: The upload dialog box is now open. Navigate to you picture using the Browse button (this button may appear in a different langage)

Step 4: Click on the upload button

Step 5: the message successfully uploaded appears when the process is complete. You can now return to the original page to check the results.

Troubleshooting: the most common errors are due to the following:

  • The file is not a picture (.gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .bmp, .ico, .wbmp).
  • The file is already uploaded.
  • Another file exist with the same name: in that case rename the file and start again.
  • The files size exeeds the upload policy.
  • The file name contains a space or a special caracters.

Feel free to contact the webmaster for support.

UTF8 Encoding

This site uses UTF8 encoding to allow special Turkish letters.

I only request to avoid special letters in page names.

For example to create a page name "Çamlık":

  • use Camlik as page name
  • use directive (:title Çamlık:) in order to display correctly the page name.

Footnotes

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'''Notes'''
[^@^]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet1 , consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed non risus. Suspendisse lectus tortor, dignissim sit amet, adipiscing nec, ultricies sed, dolor. Cras elementum ultrices diam. Maecenas ligula massa, varius a, semper congue2, euismod non, mi.

Notes

1 footnote text 1 to appear at the bottom

2 footnote text 2 to appear at the bottom

Security

  • IP adresses of all the authors are recorded.
  • Email addresses are encrypted in the database in order to prevent automatic "farming" from spamers.
  • Page history is kept for 3 years to allow quick repair of pages defaced by vandals.
  • Some words like "via.gra" or like "amat.eurs-xxx" are forbidden to discourage abuse. Please contact the webmaster if this creates problems.
  • External links must be approved by the Administrator to be activated.
  • Some pages, critical to the site operation, are locked by a password.
  • File size for upload is capped at 400Ko to prevent "stuffing". Larger file are not a problem, contact the administrator to upload them.
  • Uploaded files cannot be deleted nor overwritten. Only the administrator can delete uploads
  • Upload of some file types are forbidden to prevent uploading of active program like viruses.
  • Group creation is locked.
  • Only the administrator can lock pages.
  • The administrator gets a mail report each time the site is updated.
  • And finally, the content is routinely and securely backed up outside the server.

The whole security is based around the concept of quick repair in case of attack: defaced content can be restored in seconds.