20-Minute TWiki
This step-by-step, hands-on tutorial gets you up to speed with all the netfrag.org basics, in mere minutes...That's it! You're now equipped with all the TWiki essentials. You are ready to roll. NOTE: When first using TWiki, it will probably seem strange to be able to change other people's postings - separated messages is the online rule, with email, message boards, non-Wiki collaboration platforms. Don't worry about it. Nothing gets lost, you can always check previous versions, and copy-and-paste from them if you want to revert after saving a change. Use TWiki for a short while, and you'll want this sort of natural communications freedom...everywhere! -- PeterThoeny - 13 Sep 20011. Get set:
Open two browser windows, side-by-side, so that you can follow these steps in one window, while trying things out in the other.2. Take a whirlwind tour:
A netfrag.org site is divided into webs; each one usually represents one area of collaboration. You can navigate the webs from the upper right corner of each web page.
- Each web has hyperlinked topics, displayed as pages in your browser.
- The home page in each web is the Home topic.
- To browse a netfrag.org web, just click on any highlighted link. These links are called WikiWords and comprise two or more words with initial capitals, run together.
- Follow the WikiWord link and learn what it is.
- If you know the name of a topic, you can jump directly to it by typing its name into the Go field on the top of the page. Type
WebSearchto jump to the search page. Hint: Do not confuse the Go field with search.- You can search each netfrag.org web. Enter a search string in the Home topic or the WebSearch topic accessible from the
Searchlink on each topic. netfrag.org searches for an exact match; optionally, you can also use RegularExpressions.3. Open a private account page:
To edit topics, you need to have a netfrag.org account.
- Go to the TWikiRegistration page to create your netfrag.org account.
4. Check out netfrag.org Users, offices and groups:
- Go to the TWikiUsers topic in the netfrag.org.Main web; it has a list of all users of netfrag.org. Your WikiName will be in this list after you register.
- Go to the OfficeLocations? topic in the netfrag.org.Main web; it has a list of corporate offices already entered into netfrag.org.
- Go to the TWikiGroups? topic in the netfrag.org.Main web; it has a list of groups which can be used to define fine grained TWikiAccessControl in netfrag.org.
5. Test the page controls:
Go to the Home page to find out what you can do. The bottom of the page has action links:
- Edit - add to or edit the topic (discussed later)
- Ref-By - find out what other topics link to this topic (reverse link)
- Attach - attach files to a topic (discussed later)
- Diffs - topics are under revision control. Diffs shows you the complete change history of the topic, e.g. who changed what and when.
- r1.3 | > | r1.2 | > | r1.1 - view a previous version of the topic or the difference between two revisions
- More - additional controls, like Rename/move, version control and setting the topic parent.
6. Change a page and create a new one:
Go to the Test.Home topic of the netfrag.org.Test web. This web is the sandbox where you can make changes at will.
- Press the Edit link. You are now in edit mode and you can see the source of the page. (Go to a different topic like TestTopic3? in case you see a "Topic is locked by an other user" warning.)
- Look at the text in edit mode and compare it with the rendered page (move back and forth in your browser.)
- Notice how WikiWords are linked automatically; there is no link if you look at the text in edit mode.
- Now, create a new topic, your own test page:
- In edit mode, enter a new text with a WikiWord, i.e.
This is PaulsSandBox topic.- Preview and save the topic. You can see a linked question mark after the topic name. This means that the topic does not exist yet.
- Click on the question mark. Now you are in edit mode of the new topic.
- Type some text, basically, like you write an email.
- A signature with your name is already entered by default. NOTE: The
Main.in front of your name means that you have a link from the current web to your personal topic located in the Main web.- Preview and save the topic.
- Learn about text formatting. You can enter text in WikiSyntax, a very simple markup language. Follow the WikiSyntax link to see how, then:
- Go back to your sandbox topic end edit it.
- Enter some text in WikiSyntax: bold text, italic text, bold italic text, a bullet list, tables, paragraphs, etc. Hint: If you need to look up the WikiSyntax, click on the TextFormattingRules link located below the edit field.
- Preview and save the topic.
7. Upload files as page Attachments:
You can attach any file to a topic, not unlike attachments to an email.
- Go back to your sandbox topic and click on the
Attachlink at the bottom.- Browse for any file you would like to attach; enter an optional comment.
- Upload and attach the file.
- Do this again with a JPG or GIF image file.
- Checkmark the box "Create a link to the attached file at the end of the topic."
- Upload and attach the image file.
- The image will show up at the bottom of the topic. To move the image, you can edit the topic and move the last line (bullet containing
%ATTACHURL%) to anywhere you like.- If you have a GIF or JPG image of yourself, why not upload it now to your personal topic?
8. Get email alerts when topics change:
It is very important that team members are kept in sync of changes.
- WebNotify (one per netfrag.org web) is a subscription service to be automatically notified by email when topics change in a netfrag.org web. This is a convenient service, so you do not have to come back and check all the time to see if something has changed.
- It is strongly recommended that you subscribe to the netfrag.org web(s) relevant to your work.
-- MikeMannix - 14 Sep 2001
