Wiki formatting.

[Kai]

So, I'm making this wiki: http://keroplatidae.wikispot.org/Front_Page

It's for my research. The front page pretty well says the purpose.

I'm having a problem however. I'm trying to create distribution lists for this page: http://keroplatidae.wikispot.org/Nearctic_Checklist

They need to be on the right side and they should start in a straight line along a column. I've been working on that page for a while now and can't quite get them to line up. I can use the table option with three columns at 33% width but the ones at the left don't line up straight, they're all zig-zaggy.

So I was wondering if anyone could provide some insights.

Apologies if this doesn't make sense, I've been drinking whiskey water.

[Cain]

Cant help, sorry.  Tables were always the thing to catch me out on wiki style pages.

[Triple Zero]

One important thing to be aware of is the type of Wiki engine that site is based upon.

Wikipedia as well as BlackIronPrison.com both use the MediaWiki engine, which is really popular cause Wikipedia uses it, but this particular site never mentions MediaWiki (which I believe is required by MediaWiki's license) and after a bit of clicking around, indeed I find they use a different engine: the Sycamore wiki engine.

I'm not really familiar with that one, but it's important to be aware that Wiki formatting codes from Wikipedia:FormattingHelp or something possibly won't work on a Sycamore wiki.

So short advice, check that Sycamore page for layout/formatting docs, and maybe that'll make you wiser.

(Other examples of Wiki engines are MoinMoin which is written in Python, or Trac which is used for bugtracking systems, and a cool fun one called TiddlyWiki, which is a Javascript Wiki, completely self-contained in one single HTML file, useful for personal notes taking and easily carried around on a USB stick or something)

Drifting, sorry.

Additionally, I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish. I see a document with headings and subheadings and lists, and you want all of that in a column on the right? Then what will be on the left half of the screen?

[Kai]

One important thing to be aware of is the type of Wiki engine that site is based upon.

Wikipedia as well as BlackIronPrison.com both use the MediaWiki engine, which is really popular cause Wikipedia uses it, but this particular site never mentions MediaWiki (which I believe is required by MediaWiki's license) and after a bit of clicking around, indeed I find they use a different engine: the Sycamore wiki engine.

I'm not really familiar with that one, but it's important to be aware that Wiki formatting codes from Wikipedia:FormattingHelp or something possibly won't work on a Sycamore wiki.

So short advice, check that Sycamore page for layout/formatting docs, and maybe that'll make you wiser.

(Other examples of Wiki engines are MoinMoin which is written in Python, or Trac which is used for bugtracking systems, and a cool fun one called TiddlyWiki, which is a Javascript Wiki, completely self-contained in one single HTML file, useful for personal notes taking and easily carried around on a USB stick or something)

Drifting, sorry.

Additionally, I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish. I see a document with headings and subheadings and lists, and you want all of that in a column on the right? Then what will be on the left half of the screen?

Thanks Zero!

What I'm trying to accomplish is a checklist, with species on the left, and distributions (ex: USA (Georgia, South Carolina).) across from the species on the left hand side, in an in line column. This would make the list look cleaner, as opposed to putting the distributions right up next to the species like this:

Cerotelion johannseni Fisher 1940 (Keroplatus) USA (Connecticut, Delaware,     Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia).

I can't even figure out a way to show it here.

The way I tried to do it was to set up a table with three columns, with one third the width of the page each, the middle one blank. But for some reason the right column start doesn't want to line up and start at the same place for every entry, especially with the shorter distribution lists.

In code, I tried: ||<33%>species||<30%>||<30%>distribution||

[Triple Zero]

Ok, then I suppose you already found http://www.projectsycamore.org/Help_on_Editing and especially http://www.projectsycamore.org/Help_on_Tables .

I tried out a littlebit of table formatting in the Sandbox page of your wiki: http://keroplatidae.wikispot.org/Wiki_Sandbox

Is this sort of what you're trying to accomplish?

I added <tableborder="1"> to the very first line of the table so you get lines in your table. Of course preferably the middle blank cell would not have lines, but I couldn't figure out how to clear that. I think it's useful to have the borders anyway, so you can see if something goes wrong Also by changing the background colour of some rows, with <rowbgcolor="#..."> it's easier to read. Finally, you might notice that text in cells is vertically centered by default. If you don't want that, you need to add <^> to the firtst cell of every row. Or if the row has a colour, add it in the brackets like <rowbgcolor="#..."^>.

Also, I must say that this is one of the more awkward wiki formatting languages I have come across so far.

One final question, does WikiSpot easily allow you to download all of your pages at once, or perhaps somehow export all of your pages to a file download in some format? Just because, if you're using a public service, well remember the fiasco with attheforums.com a few years back, when we lost quite a bit of good writings because the idiots crashed their server (or more probably just didn't care to recover anything). It's good to know if you have some way of backing up all of your work. (And then of course also use it)