Let's talk about what a wiki is and why this system was invented. The term Ward Cunningham coined the term in 1995. At the same time, the first wiki environment appeared. By the way, the word "wiki" was borrowed from the Hawaiians, which means it is "fast."
The term “wiki” has several meanings:
- A special kind of page and post that any site visitor can edit. You can edit here not only texts with pictures, but also the structure of the site.
- Constructor for creating extensive virtual encyclopedias.
- A whole philosophical theory and special technologies.
What is a wiki layout
Do you want to know how to make a VKontakte wiki? But before training, you must definitely review our theoretical material, in which we offer you all the information about the wiki.
Today, the most famous wiki site is the huge Wikipedia. The second place is occupied by the Wikia multi-user project, followed by various small encyclopedias. But how are such resources organized? What components do they consist of? Let's figure it out!
An electronic encyclopedia can have many pages, headings, sections, etc. All these components are intertwined into one common network, form a common space. To create such a huge resource helps a special tool - wiki markup. The important thing is that with its help you can not only do all kinds of encyclopedias, but also arrange all kinds of VKontakte communities.
Wiki markup - special tags that allow you to create an individual look for your group. This tool makes it possible to join the community with many additional pages and links. Thus, you can organize a small encyclopedia within your community. At its core, a wiki is an analogue of the HTML language, but such markup is much easier and simpler than its own relative.
How are wikis and VKontakte connected?
You and I will learn about what VKontakte wiki is, and also learn how to use it. But first, let's see what benefit this tool can bring for VK.
This type of markup allows you to create an original menu, labels, plates, as well as add new navigation elements. Thus, you must come up with a beautiful unique design that will distinguish your community from many competitors.
Important! Before you change the design of the group, learn how to use its constituent elements. These include "Video", "Photos", "Wall" and more. You must also select interesting and useful information, otherwise your community will not be able to attract and retain new subscribers.
Wiki Benefits
We want to figure out how to make a VKontakte wiki. But first, let's see why this tool is so good.
First, wikis are much lighter than the HTML language. This means that anyone can easily master it. The second advantage is that the wiki markup saves all the changes that you made on various pages. You can compare all options of the same material at any time and choose the best one.
Some Wiki Secrets
To become a wiki markup professional, you need to spend a lot of time. However, you need to know something at the first steps in this system.
For example, pictures with a size smaller than 131 pixels become poor quality. One page should contain up to 17 tags, and a line - no more than 8 components. If you put down the width of the picture, its height will change independently, taking into account all the proportions. The <br/> tag is responsible for creating lists.
VKontakte Wiki: Links to pages in a group
In order to create a fresh page in your community, it is enough to indicate a link to a new article in the text. In addition, additional pages appear immediately after a set of new text material.
These brackets [[text]] are responsible for entering links in the wiki. The characters inside these brackets will certainly become a link, clicking on which, you will immediately be taken to a new page. Now it needs to be filled and edited. New page is ready! The VKontakte wiki allows you to create many of these pages. The result may be a miniature site within your group.
Please note that beautifully designed text is of particular importance. It is convenient for reading and reading. Be sure to work out the headings, alignment, letter styles, etc. For each type of formatting, the wiki has its own tags. But you can also use some characters from HTML. This is explained by the fact that wiki markup uses not only special tags, but also many characters from the HTML language. And this in turn means that in most cases you can use the dual designation of certain functions.
Interestingly, wiki is a smart thing. Having noticed elements from HTML markup in your text, it can replace them with characters from its own language.
How to make an anchor link
Links can become cute buttons or serious anchors. The VKontakte wiki allows you to create both. But remember one important rule! Text is always placed to the right of the link, and the picture is to the left of it.
Next, we will learn how to attach the anchor to the link. Open the square brackets and insert the desired link. Next, we put the sign for separating the elements - ǀ, and after it we write the required text. Now you can close the brackets.
It should look something like this: [[link.ru ǀ My site]].
How to connect a link to a photo
Now create a button. To add a picture we will use the word “photo” and its number in the album of your community. Again, enclose all information in brackets. First, we prescribe a photo, and then a reference.
You should get, for example, such a button: [[photo12345_67890 ǀ link.ru]].
Pay attention to the functions available to work with our picture!
- plain - a text link to a photo without an image;
- noborder - remove the frame from the picture;
- box - open the image in a new window;
- nolink - remove the link to the photo;
- nopadding - remove spaces between pictures;
- NNNpx - width of the picture;
- NNNxYYYpx - photo dimensions (width * height).
These functions must be inserted before the reference, alternating them with a separation sign. Together with these elements, you can also insert a caption to the picture, not forgetting to separate it from the rest of the characters.
Creating Tables Using a Wiki
What else can the VKontakte wiki do? She can create tables. This is done as easily as with all other objects. Special characters are also used to insert tables into the text.
First, let's see what the tablet consists of:
- {| - open the table;
- | + - the heading of the table aligned in the center (optional element);
- | - - a new line;
- | - make the plate transparent;
- ! - dark cells;
- |} - close the table (an optional element used to prevent errors).
Two penultimate operations are variable! If, for example, you made a dark cell, you cannot apply the Transparency function to it!
Now fill the resulting plate:
- | - open the cell;
- || either !! - we separate one cell from another.
The result will be something like this (1 * 3 size label):
{|
| -
| '' 'Beauty' '' || '' 'Health' '' || '' 'Sport' ''
| -
|}
You can insert anything you want into your table: pictures, links, texts. It is only important to consider the rules that the VKontakte markup offers us.
We make the menu
Let's see how the wiki markup for the VKontakte menu is done. To do this, we need a beautiful drawing and knowledge.
Please note that the menu happens:
- Textual (you need to create anchor links).
- Graphic (you need to connect links with cute buttons).
- Tabular (all menu items must be entered on the tablet).
Pre-prepare a picture whose width should be no more than 610 pixels. Please note that this width is due to the size of the wall of your group. Open the image in Photoshop or another editor so that you get the right number of buttons. Label each button with the name of a menu item.
Go to your group. Here you need to go to the control panel and connect the “Materials” tool. If you return to the main page, you will see the “Latest News” link above the discussions. By editing the "News", you can create a beautiful menu based on them.
Next, upload previously prepared images to the group. There are two ways to do this.
- Save pictures to some group album.
- Paste them directly in the article "News", using the built-in visual editor.
Now you can do the editing of "News". To do this, from the visual editor, you need to switch to the "VKontakte" wiki layout ("<->" button). Further, taking into account everything described above, connect the pictures with links to various menu items.
Where to learn how to do wiki markup?
VKontakte is an official group dedicated entirely to wiki markup. There you can read training materials, get practical advice. The administrators of the social network decided to make their use of the wiki language as easy as possible. To do this, created a variety of applications on which you can practice the design of the group.
There are also community designs here. With their help, you can quickly create a group if you do not have time at all. In addition, editing templates is a good practice for novice group administrators. Do you still poorly understand what a VKontakte wiki is? Design templates in this case will be an excellent assistant for you. You can find such design samples not only in the official wiki-markup community, but also in the vastness of the World Wide Web.
For those who have difficulty learning the wiki, there are also many tutorials and guides. In addition, you can consult with more experienced users. As a result, you get an original design for your community!