Help:How to Make Links and New Pages

Intro to Linking

To create a link to a page on this wiki, like Peer to Peer, you just type

[[Peer to Peer]]

You'll immediately notice the double brackets. This is "mediawiki markup". This double bracket link is used for an internal link; it points to a page on the wiki called "Peer to Peer".

Link Colours

When you see a red link like Page Does Not Exist it means that the page does not yet exist. If you click on the link you will be given the opportunity to create the page (please don't!). This is a simple way to create new pages when you are editing on the wiki. Just make a link to a page that doesn't exist; then, submit the page, and click on the link to edit the new page. When you do create new pages, please put some meaningful content in the new page straight away.

External links have arrows attached to them like this: http://commonstransition.org/ . Even if a link seems like it might be to a page on the wiki, if it is to an external site outside the wiki, it will have an arrow attached to it. For example P2P Foundation

Making Internal and External Links

There are two types of links in a wiki, internal and external.

• Internal links use double brackets to surround a page name, and the page name appears as written. If you type

[[P2P Foundation]]

then P2P Foundation shows on the page.

• External links use single brackets to surround a URL. If you type:

[http://commonstransition.org/]

with brackets, the URL is not shown, but instead replaced with a number: [1]

• To show a plain URL, write the external link without any brackets: http://commonstransition.org/

Alternative Text for Internal and External Links

When you want to write a link that uses different text you will also need to use some special markup.

Internal links with alternative text are written like this with double brackets and a 'bar' to separate the name. In each instance where you want to use the alternative text you will enclose your link with the link text inside the brackets. When you create an internal link you will use the Page Name including the spaces. In this example we will use the text "The Foundation for P2P Alternative". For ease of reading, best to put a space on either side of the bar (the "|" character) but that is not strictly necessary.

Internal Link using double brackets and a bar ("|") to use alternative link text

[[P2P Foundation | The Foundation for P2P Alternatives]]

This markup creates: The Foundation for P2P Alternatives

When you want to use alternative text for an external link you leave out the bar ("|") and simply leave a space between the link and the start of the link text.

External links with single brackets and a space before link text [http://p2pfoundation.net P2P Foundation]

This markup creates: P2P Foundation

Creating New Pages

There are two very simple methods for creating a new page.

1. Type the address into the address bar, with underscores (_) in place of any spaces. Example:

   http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/New_Page_Name_Here

   1. The wiki will use this as a prompt to create a new page with the title "New Page Name Here"
   2. Be sure to capitalize everything that you want capitalized, and to check your spelling.

The second method was covered above

1. Visit a page and create a new internal link
   1. Click on the link and you will be taken to the new page.
   2. Edit and save your new page.