Frequently Asked Questions

German Version of the FAQs
A collection of frequently asked question about CoLab is provided here:

Create new page

To create a new page, enter the title of your page into the search window on the main page (e.g new page):

If the title is not forgiven, you get the following result:



Follow the red link.



Now you can edit the page.
To get a preview of page, click on Show Preview. To save the page, click on SavePage.

Text design

1.) Wiki-Syntax
The MediaWikiSyntax is used for formatting of text in wiki pages. The Sandbox offers a good opportunity to pratice or testing. For a detailed description click here.

2.) Textcolor
An additional useful formatting, write in color. To color the text, you have to insert <font> tags. This <font> color="green"> green text </ font> appears in text, as follow: green text. Possible colors are: magenta (color="magenta'),yellow (color="yellow") or purple (color="purple"). Another Possibility: Define colors via hexademical codes like the color FF6600 (color = "# FF6600").

Contents

Tables of contents will created automatically, if three or more headings on a WikiPage are defined.

=Überschrift=
==Überschrift==
===Überschrift===

To suppress tables of contents, insert

 __NOTOC__ 

into the text.
To force tables of contents, insert

 __TOC__ 

into the text.

Create Category

To create a category in an article, insert

 [[Category Example]] 

into the text.
The item is automatically assigned to the category example. If it not exist, follow the red category- link. The Page will be opened in edit mode. Special case: to the categories already assigned article, will displayed before the large text field (at smaller screen resolutions it looks like the category is already available).

Add Category

Categories are assigned to pages, by inserting

 [[Category:Example|XY]] 

into the text. The page is automatically assigned to the appropriate category.

Alphabetical Sorting of Categories

It should always be taken care, that categories be sorted alphabetically.
Example: Assigning a page with the title Meeting to the category Example:

 [[Category:Beispiel|Meeting]] 

The page Meeting appears among M at the category Example.

Search by Category

To search for a category, click on the search button without entering a search item.
It appears the advanced search.
Disable the Namespace Main und activate the Namespace Category.



The search item can now be entered to the searchbox.

References

References:The Cite-Template was installed at Colab, to faciliate the citing of sources. Quotes or cross references are issued as a nowiki><ref...></nowiki>-tag.
Formating and Output are possible at any place e.g. :

[...]
Digital Library Federation."<ref name="mets standard">http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets - METS homepage</ref> 
[...]
==References==
<references />

Access Control

If you want to set up an access control for certain groups, you have to insert

 <accesscontrol>MPDL</accesscontrol> 

or

 <accesscontrol>MDPL,GAVO</accesscontrol> 

at the top of the text.
Caution: Only authorized user groups have access to your page! It is not necessary to use the ',,' separator at the end of the element content.

Upload Files

To Upload files at Colab, click on the third point of toolbox: Upload file.


Now you can choose files and add a description. Finally click on Upload file (bottom of page).
Following formats can be used : png, gif, jpg, jpeg, wmz, mm, pdf, doc, xls, ppt, zip, java, txt.
If the file is already uploaded to Colab, appears a warning message. Its also possible to upload the latest version of a file.
Now you can insert the file into your Page:

 [[File:Example.jpg]]

An other opportunity: click on this symbol at the tool-bar.

Link to a Wiki Page

It's possible to create links to internal Wiki Pages.
Therefor you have to insert the title of page, as follow e.g. Sandbox:

 [[Sandbox|link to sandbox]] 

It´s also possible to assign individual names for links, after a vertical bar.
After saving accrues a link to page e.g. link to sandbox.

Link to External Page

Similar to create links to internal Wiki Pages, it´s possible to create links to external pages. Therefor you copy the URL of page.
The next step is to paste the URL into the text as follow e.g. MPDL:

 [[http://www.mpdl.mpg.de/link to MPDL]]

It´s also possible to assign individual names for links.
After saving accrues a link to page e.g.link to MPDL.

Calendar

this extention is not installed anymore Grossmann (talk) 12:09, 13 March 2014 (CET)

The Calendar used the Categories-tool in background.
Once a page is assigned to a special Date-Category(e.g."2007/07/03"), the page is listed at [[Special:Events].
To create a Calendar, you have to insert:

 <calendar/> 

into the text. <calendar/>

Create Short Links

Short Links of a page are created by TinyUrl.
Therefor you copy the URL and paste it to following window:



Afterwards click at Make TinyURL!.
Now you can use the short version of your URL.

Create Tables with TableEdit

TableEdit is a PlugIn to create tables on a easy way.
A detailed description, you find here.

1.) Integrate a blank table:

 < NewTableEdit/> 

2.) Integrate a table with predefined headings:

  <NewTableEdit>

heading 1
heading 2
heading 3 
etc.. 

</NewTableEdit> 

Afterwards save the text to create the table.
The Table accrues as follow:

heading 1	heading 2	heading 3
edit table

To edit the table, click onto the blue edit table link.

Create Simple Tables

A detailed description, you found here.

1.) Create a simple table:

heading	heading	heading
example1	example2	example3
example4	example5	example6
example7	example8	example9

{|
|-
! heading !! heading !! heading
|-
| example1 || example2 || example3
|-
| example4 || example5 || example6
|-
| example7 || example8 || example9
|}

2.) Create a table with frames and highlighted box heads:

heading	heading	heading
example1	example2	example3
example4	example5	example6
example7	example8	example9

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! heading !! heading!! heading
|-
| example1 || example2 ||  example3
|-
| example4 || example5 || example6
|-
| example7 || example8 || example9
|}

3.) Create a table with a line break at box head:

head- ing	head- ing	head- ing
example1	example2	example3
example4	example5	example6
example7	example8	example9

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! head- <br/> ing !! head- <br/> ing !! head- <br/> ing
|-
| example1 || example2 || example3
|-
| example4 || example5 || example6
|-
| example7 || example8 || example9
|}

Cooperative Work – Discussion & Comment

First please see the Editing policies.

1.) Discussion:
For every Wiki Page is automatically created a discussion page.
Thereby it´s about a " Meta-page".
Informations about an article can placed there e.g. " We need more Examples..." or " We need more passages ...".
The discussion page is reachable from every page, s.a. discussion page

2.) Comment:
If you want like to forgive an intelligible comment for an articel, you may want to insert a colon and a signature.
Therefor the comment will closed with four tildes:

  ~~~~  

It will automatical create a signature with Username and timestamp.
The signature appears as follow:
--Tanja 08:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC).

Any other Question?

If you have any other question, please feel free to contact the CoLab-Support. A German version of the FAQs is provided here.

Collaboration Laboratory

Table of Contents

Collaboration Laboratory

Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard

Max Planck Digital Library

German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory

Portable Document Format

Filename Extension for Text Files

Uniform Resource Locator

Central European Time

Coordinated Universal Time