Help:Basic formatting and functions

Creating pages
On the Wiki, there are two primary ways to make pages. These same methods can also be used to create categories, templates, and to upload images.
Search bar
At the right end of the Wiki's top bar, there is a search bar with the text "Search The Build-A-Bear Wiki." If you search the name of a page that doesn't exist, even if matching text appears in other page titles or in other page content, at the top of the search results will be text reading "Create the page "[search term]" on this wiki!" If you click the red link, it will take you to the page creation space.
Red link trick
Description | You type | It appears as |
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Linking to the page normally | [[Build-A-Bear Wiki Exclusive Bear]] |
Build-A-Bear Wiki Exclusive Bear |
Linking to the page using Template:Bearlist | {{Bearlist {{!}}bear1=Build-A-Bear Wiki Exclusive Bear {{!}}image1=BABWiki-Exclusive-Bear.jpg }} |
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Text formatting
There are a few different types of formatting supported by The Build-A-Bear Wiki, including Wiki markup and HTML. Some basic formatting options are described below.
Description | You type | It appears as |
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To italicize text, use two apostrophes ('') on either side of the text you want italicized. | ''Glisten and the Merry Mission'' |
Glisten and the Merry Mission |
To bold text, use three apostrophes (''') on either side of the text you want bolded. | '''Maxine Clark''' |
Maxine Clark |
To bold and italicize text, use five apostrophes (''''') on either side of the text you want bolded and italicized. | '''''Furry Friends Hall of Fame''''' |
Furry Friends Hall of Fame |
To make a bullet-pointed list, start a new line with an asterisk (*) and start writing what you want after the asterisk. It will automatically format as a list entry. Adding additional asterisks will indent the list entry. | *List item *List item **Indented list item **Indented list item ***Indented list item 2 ***Indented list item 2 |
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Inserting links
Wiki markup uses square brackets ([]) to create links. It uses this same convention to display images - for more on images, scroll down to Inserting images!
Description | You type | It appears as |
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To link to another page on Build-A-Bear Wiki, enclose the exact page name in double square brackets ([[]]). | [[Hokusai The Great Wave Bear]] |
Hokusai The Great Wave Bear |
Note: On-Wiki links are CaSe SeNsItIve! Your link must match case with the page you are trying to link to, otherwise it will display as a broken link.
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[[hokusai the great wave bear]] |
hokusai the great wave bear |
To change the display text of your on-Wiki link, place a vertical pipe character (|) and the new text of the link inside your double square brackets after the page name. | based on a painting by [[Hokusai The Great Wave Bear|Katsushika Hokusai]] |
based on a painting by Katsushika Hokusai |
To link to a page not hosted on Build-A-Bear Wiki, enclose the URL of the link in single square brackets. | [https://www.buildabear.com] |
[1] |
To change the display text of your off-Wiki link, place a space and the new text of the link inside your single square brackets after the link URL. | [https://www.buildabear.com Build-A-Bear Workshop (US)] |
Build-A-Bear Workshop (US) |
Adding categories
Categories are an organizational function wikis offer. When a page is added to a category, it will automatically appear on that category's page and be sorted alphabetically with the rest of the pages. Categories are added to a page in the same way as on-Wiki links, using [[square brackets]]. Regardless of where they are placed in the text of the page, categories appear in a list at the bottom.
Description | You type | It appears as |
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To add a category to a page, enclose the category name in double square brackets ([[]]). | [[Category:Bears]] |
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Note: You must include the Category: namespace for categories to display correctly. Otherwise they will link to a page with the same name.
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[[Bears]] |
Bears |
You can create a new category using the same red link trick as normal pages. | [[Category:Build-A-Bear Wiki exclusives]] |
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Uploading images
Images can be uploaded to the Wiki in one of two ways.
Special:Upload
Special:Upload (called "Upload file" on the sidebar menu) is a direct link to the file upload page for the wiki. Clicking the "Browse" link will open the file explorer on your computer, allowing you to upload images to the Wiki. Be sure to rename the file (if necessary) using the "Destination filename" box under the "File description" section - this will be the name used to display the image in a page (See below: #Inserting images).
Red link trick
Description | You type | It appears as |
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Linking to the file normally | [[File:BABWiki-Exclusive-Bear.jpg]] |
File:BABWiki-Exclusive-Bear.jpg |
Linking to the file using Template:Bearlist | {{Bearlist |bear1=Build-A-Bear Wiki Exclusive Bear |image1=BABWiki-Exclusive-Bear.jpg }} |
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Linking to the file in a gallery | <gallery> BABWiki-Exclusive-Bear.jpg BABWiki-Exclusive-Bear.jpg|Build-A-Bear Wiki Exclusive Bear </gallery> |
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Inserting images
Wiki markup allows us to insert images the exact same way we make on-Wiki links, using double square brackets ([[]]). Images are stored on the Wiki with a filename resembling a page title, and placing that filename between the double square brackets displays the image on the page.
Description | You type | It appears as |
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For most pages, if you're not using Template:Bearlist or Template:Bigbearlist, you will want to use a right-aligned thumbnail to insert an image. To do this, add |thumb|right after your filename inside your square brackets. |
[[File:Smallfrys-BlackCat.png|Caption|thumb|right]] |
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For a full gallery of images, use <gallery></gallery> tags. Your images can be placed each on separate lines between the tags, and vertical pipe characters can be used to indicate a caption. | <gallery> Example.jpg Example.jpg|Example with caption </gallery> |
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Templates
A template is a special type of wiki page that allows pre-formatted content to be basically copied and pasted onto a second page. There are two main benefits to using templates: they help ensure formatting consistency across pages, and they allow us to use complex formatting on a page without the bulk of that formatting cluttering up the text editor. Templates are invoked by putting double curly brackets ({{}}) around the template name; in templates with fillable fields, placing a vertical pipe character (|) inside the brackets after the template name tells the wiki you're about to fill in the fields. Templates have individual requirements to be used correctly, so click on the template names for full breakdowns of how to use each one as well as visual examples.
Template | Description |
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{{Infobox bear}} | Creates a right-aligned infobox with optional fields for basic bear information, including photo, release date, the countries a bear was available in, birth certificate information, hangtag information, and alternate names a bear is known by. |
{{Reflist}} | Collects all the references tagged throughout a page and displays them in a neat little list at the bottom. Reflist is also responsible for creating the superscript numbers (e.g. [1]) that link to entries on the reference list. |
{{Bearlist}} | A template that can be used to create lists of bears with thumbnail-sized images. It's more suitable for collection or category pages with many bears. |
{{Bigbearlist}} | Also a template that can be used to create lists of bears, but its images are 225px wide. It's more suitable for collection or category pages with few bears. |
{{Bearbuttons}} | A template designed for navigation pages, with decorative labeling. Unlike Bearlist and Bigbearlist, Bearbuttons allows a link to have custom display text, which makes it more suitable for navigation. This template is meant to be used for pages that link to collections, not for the collection pages themselves. |
{{PAGENAME}} | While not technically a template, for our purposes it functions as one. If you write {{PAGENAME}} in a page's text editor it will display instead on the live site as the title of the page. {{PAGENAME}} can be useful in that it allows a page's name can be changed without the body text having to be changed, but sometimes writing a bear's name manually results in less clunky less clunky text than using its full page name.
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{{Contentbox-row}} {{Contentbox-plain}} & {{Contentbox-contrast}} |
A set of templates used to create standard-design text boxes, for decorative use in areas such as the home page or backend guides (like this!). Most basic bearchivist activities won't require these templates, but they are included here for the sake of comprehensiveness! |