Creating a new wiki page
Creating a new wiki page is a 2-step process:
- first create a link to the new page in an existing page, where you want users to click;
- then follow the link and create the new page.
This might sound counter-intuitive at first: How can you create a link to a page that doesn't exist? But it makes sense when you think about it. It ensures that all pages have at least 1 link pointing to them. This prevents the creation of "orphan pages" — orphan pages are pages without any links pointing to them; orphan pages are never read because nobody can reach them.
There are a few other benefits as well:
- You can add links first, and create the pages later.
- You can create the links, and have another user create the pages.
- Overall, this allows you to define the structure of your the wiki's contents, and "fill in the blanks" at a later stage.
The procedure in detail
Creating the link to your new page
The first step is to create a link to your new page. Browse to the page where you want to insert the link and edit it . Once in the page editor, insert an internal link to your new page wherever you think appropriate. This can be anywhere on the page (page headings excepted). Links can be embedded within the text of a paragraph.
An internal link is so called because it is a link to a page within your wiki. It is created by enclosing the target page id in double square brackets, like so: %%[[new_page_id]]%%.
By default, the link will display the page id. Oftentimes, this is not appropriate, especially if the link is embedded within the text of a paragraph. You can change the appearance of the link by adding a title, like so: %%[[page_id|title]]%%. The title part will be displayed instead. You should note that once the page is created, the link will display the page's title by default (this can be disabled via the wiki's admin page ). If this is suitable for your purpose, just don't add a title to the link. Read more about internal links.
The page id is a unique identifier for your page. A page id may only contain the characters a-z (lowercase), the digits 0-9, hyphen - or underscore _. You can also use namespaces and relative ids. Follow these links to read more about page ids , namespaces and relative ids .
Follow the link and create your page
An internal link to a non-existent page will be displayed in a special way to indicate that the target page does not exist. This may vary according to theme you selected for your wiki, but by convention will be red or a red-ish color. For example, this link points to a non-existent page.
When you click on such a link, you will see a warning message notifying you that the page does not exist (the appearance of this warning may vary according to the wiki's theme.)
The page you are looking for does not exist.
If you are authorized to create the page, the warning will include a link or button to create the page.
The page you are looking for does not exist. Would you like to create it ?
Click on this link or button to open the page editor for the new page.
Once the page editor opens, you are now able to input the new page's content. When done, save the page.
The page editor for a new page works exactly like the page editor for an existing page, except for one difference: if you cancel editing the new page, it won't be created at all. Of course, this will not delete the link you created in the already existing page. Also, any files uploaded while editing the new page will not be removed. Read more about editing pages.