TotalcmdWiki:Style

This article contains style guidelines for writing in this wiki.

Naming a page

When creating a new page in the wiki you have to think of a new name. Take the following guidelines into account when naming a page.

Namespace

Certain pages belong in a certain namespace. Choose an appropriate namespace when naming a page. A page can be put in a certain namespace by adding the corresponding prefix in front of the name. The main namespace with all pages about Total Commander is the default namespace and does not require a prefix.

• Main namespace (no prefix) - All articles about Total Commander.
• TotalcmdWiki namespace (prefix "TotalcmdWiki:") - All pages about this wiki.
• Help namespace (prefix "Help:") - All pages about how to use this wiki and all pages with explanations of wiki terms.

Certain pages are put in the appropriate namespace automatically by the way they are created (e.g. categories, templates, talk pages). Other pages have to be put in the proper namespace explicitly (e.g. TotalcmdWiki and Help namespace).

Capitalization

Capitalize first word only except when words are always capitalized in English. One could argue that using book title capitalization would be proper English, but using sentence style capitalization is more practical.

Example of Book Title Capitalization
Example of sentence style capitalization (preferred for page names)

There are a number of reasons why sentence style capitalization is more practical for page names.

• A lot of people have trouble using correct book title capitalization.
• It is much easier to make links to pages. Links to pages are case sensitive except for the first letter. So if sentence style capitalization is used for page names and you want a piece of text to link to another page, it is often enough to add square brackets around the text.
• If someone wants to go to a page directly by entering the name of the page in the search box and clicking the "Go" button, he does not have to worry about upper or lower case when sentence style capitalization is used for page names. Because the search for these pages is case insensitive. When book title capitalization is used for page names and one or more words in a page name does not have a capital letter, to go to that page would require to match the case of all letters.

Sometimes different capitalization should be used. For example the program IrfanView has a capital V. In such cases create a redirect page using sentence style capitalization for easy accessing and linking.

Singular or plural

If the page name is a noun use singular rather than plural. For categories use plural rather than singular.

Structure of an article

When writing an article use the structure below. The listed elements are to be used only when needed.

• Main article contents
• See also section - A section with links to relevant information in this wiki.
• Notes - A section with footnotes.
• External links - A section with external links to relevant information.
• Categories
• Interwiki links

Main article contents

Small introduction

Start with a small introduction without putting a section header above it. This way the introduction will appear before a possible table of contents and people can start reading immediately and determine if they want to read further.

The small introduction should explain in short the subject of the article. Preferably mention the subject of the article as soon as possible and write the subject in boldface. Only the first occurrence of the article subject on the article page should be boldfaced. Example:

Total Commander is a file manager ..

Sections

After the small introduction more detailed information follows which may be divided into sections. Sections in turn may be divided into sub sections. Start with section level 2. (Section level 1 is the article itself.) Do not choose a certain section level for cosmetic reasons.

== Section 1 ==
=== Sub section 1 ===
== Section 2 ==
=== Sub section 1 ===
=== Sub section 2 ===

See also section

Use the following format for the See also section.

== See also ==
* [[Christian Ghisler]]
* [[Christian Ghisler]] is the author of Total Commander.
* [[Christian Ghisler]] - The author of Total Commander.

External links section

Use the following format for the External links section.

== External links ==
* [http://url.1.example.com Description of link 1]
* [http://url.2.example.com Description of link 2]