Book Chapter Writing
using MediaWiki
Xin Li
PhD student
Department of MIS
U of A
Outline
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Wiki and MeidaWiki
The AI_Wiki Website
Edit an Existing Page
Keep Track of the Changes
Add New Pages
Naming Rules
Demos
Wiki and MediaWiki
 A wiki is a website that allows the
visitors themselves to edit and
contribute to the website’s content.
 MediaWiki is a software that can be
used to construct a wiki website.
 GNU General Public License
 PHP + MySQL or PostgreSQL
The AI_Wiki Website
 Ai_Wiki is a wiki for the MIS 596A
open textbook project.
 http://seurat.ecom.arizona.edu/
~ai_mwiki/index.php/Main_Page
Function
Tabs
Navigation
Area
Content
Area
Edit an Existing Page
 After sign-in, a user can modify the
unprotected pages.
 The format of
content is
controlled by
special tags.
Formatting
Shortcuts
Summary of
the Changes
(Optional)
Preview of
Your Editing
Edit an Existing Page
 A comprehensive list of formatting tags
can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Wi
kitext_examples
 Tags may be used in chapter writing
 Highlight
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''italic text'' -> italic text
'''bold text''' -> bold text
'''''bold italic text''''' -> bold italic text
<u>underlined text </u> -> underlined text
Edit an Existing Page (cont.):
Layout
 Tags may be used in chapter writing
 Layout
 Sections:
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== Section headings ==
=== Subsection ===
To get more levels of subsections, please add more =.
 Lists:
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* First level unordered list
** Second level unordered list
# First level ordered list
## Second level ordered list
The two types of lists can be nested.
To get more levels of lists, please add more asterisk
symbols or pound symbols.
Edit an Existing Page (cont.):
Table
 Tags may be used in chapter writing
 Table
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Row
Indicator
Column
Indicator
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
|+ The table's caption
! Column heading 1 !! Column heading 2 !! Column heading 3
|! Row heading 1
| Cell 2 || Cell 3
|! Row heading A
|Cell B
|Cell C
|}
Edit an Existing Page (cont.):
Figure
 Tags may be used in chapter writing
 Figure
 File type: PNG, JPG, GIF
 Upload the file
click the link in the toolbox at the leftbottom corner.
 Use the file
[[Image:AILABLOGO.png|This Ai Lab's
logo]]
Edit an Existing Page (cont.):
Math Formulas and References
 Tags may be used in chapter writing
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Formulas
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Please follow the Tex markup to create formulas.
A comprehensive introduction can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula
Example:
<math>\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{x^n}{n!}</math>
Superscripts and subscripts: X², H₂O
References
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Citing area
<ref name="Miller 2005">Miller, E: "The Sun.", page 23.
Academic Press, 2005.</ref>
< ref name="Miller 2005"/>
Reference area
<references/>
Keep Track of the Changes
 The system keeps a copy of every version
of the updated pages.
 A user can compare
the differences
between versions.
Add New Pages
 Create a link to the non-existed page
 [[Webpage Name]] or [[Webpage Name|Appear
Name]]
 When a link is created, click the link and
the new page will be created.
Naming Rules
 File name is the only identifier of a page.
 We need to follow strict naming rules.
 The pages of a book are organized as a hierarchical
structure.
 The name of a page should be the name of its
parent node + "/" + the topic of the page.
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E.g., "WikiISI" (book name), "WikiISI/Background" (chapter name),
"WikiISI/Background/What is ISI" (section name), etc.
 The name of a figure used in a page should be page
name+"_"+figure topic after replacing every "/" to
"-". The system will automatically replace every
space in the file name as "_"
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E.g., "WikiISI-Background-What_is_ISI_System_Architecture.PNG"
Demos
 Examples of the
individual tags
http://seurat.ecom.ari
zona.edu/~ai_mwiki/i
ndex.php/Format_exa
mple
Demos (cont.)
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A sample
chapter is
provided at
http://seurat.e
com.arizona.ed
u/~ai_mwiki/in
dex.php/Examp
le_ISI/Chp_4
Demos (cont.)
Q&A