Help

From Clavis Canonum

Welcome to the Help page of the Clavis Wiki. It provides practical help on common issues and basic problems on various issues - feel free to edit it yourself.

Log in - and start editing!

All registred users can edit any page on this Wiki. Make sure you are logged in (via the Login page, where you can also reset your password should you have forgotten it). In the upper right corner of any article, you will see the options to Edit or to Edit source. Both ways you can edit any page; the look-and-feel is that of a simple word processor. The Edit mode is better suited for the beginner; simply try it out - and do not forget to save any changes you have made, and if possible please fill out the "summary" field as well. Once you hit Save changes, the new version of the article is online, and can be further revised by you or any other registred users. The best way to learn about editing is to try it out - and don't be too shy; if you really make an error, any changes can also be undone (see below). The preview function can also help if you are nervious what your changes look like.

Tutorials

In addition to our help pages, there also are some tutorials; as of 2023, we have published only two of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDSPUM2cKyM (5 min) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAiR6htX-j8 (15 min).

Undo changes

Any change made to any page is documented in the version history; click History in the upper right corner, and you will see a list of all versions of the respective page, complete with information on when the relevant changes were made and by whom. You can also compare any two of these versions, and undo the most recent change. If you undo the changes someone else made, it is particularly important that you use the summary; often, it is best to address any problems on the discussion page first, or otherwise reach out to the user who made the chages you are about to undo.

Discussions

Every page has a discussion page ("Discussion" beingt highlighted blue, or in red when the page is still empty). Click on "+ new topic" in the upper right corner to start a discussion, or "[ reply ]" below existing posts to reply to others. Please do not use "edit source" on discussion pages.

Create a Page

How to create a page

To create a new page, the easiest way is first to create a link: choose Edit, highlight the word(s) you want to contain the link, then click on the "link" icon (next to the "bullet list" icon), and enter the name of the new page (see below for naming conventions). Save the change, and you should see that the word(s) in question are either blue (if the page already exists) or red (if not).

If it exists, go to the page and start improving; if not, simply click on the red link, and you will prompted to create the page. Simply start typing, do not forget to save your changes, and once you saved your entries for the first time, the page exists. You can go back to the page with the red link, refresh it, and the red link should now turn blue.

In order that the new page is found by other users, insert links to the new page in other articles (and vice versa), and if can, place it in at least one category (if you don‘t know how to do this, leave this to others).

Naming manuscripts

The page name for an article on a manuscript should consist of "place name, library name, shelfmark", with names in the local language. For details, see Conventions on referencing manuscripts.

Naming collections

The Clavis Wiki refers to canon law collections by their conventional names. However, at the same time we try to be consistent and to avoid giving the same name to two collections. The three goals are sometimes difficult to reconcile. In practice, some collections have to be renamed, especially to distinguish between eponymous collections (e.g. Collectio Sangermanensis). See the Checklist for good articles for details, but above all do not worry too much about the correct name if you start a new article. It can always be changed later.

Insert links

Inserting links is both important and easy. In addition to the instruction right below, there also is a tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAiR6htX-j8.

Edit modus

The quickest way to insert a link is simply by turning on the edit mode. So go to the page you want to edit, choose "edit", highlight the word(s) you want to contain the link, then click on the "link" icon (next to the "bullet list" icon). A menue will open. There are two options:

  • To insert an internal link (i.e. to another Clavis Wiki page), enter the page name, for example "Collectio Dionysiana I". A drop-down menue will suggest titles of existing pages as you type; simply select the respective title and confirm.
  • To insert an external link (any pages outside the Clavis Wiki), enter the URL in the same menue, for example "https://www.mgh.de".

In any case, use "save changes" in upper right corner, and confirm when prompted. Links to existing pages appear in blue.

Edit source modus

If you insert many links and want to control all options, you may find the "edit source" modus convenient. When you choose the "Edit source" mode, you will see what the links look like; you can also correct the link texts directly at this occasion.

External links

External links are all links to sites outside this wiki. Inserting them is easy:

  • If you simply type (or copy&paste) a URL, this will create a link. Easy! See example no. 1 below.
  • The URL has to start with "https://" - if not, there will be no link see example no. 2 below.
  • If you place the URL between square brackets, the link will have a running number as its name (see example no. 3).
  • If you want the link to have a link text (so the ugly URL is no immediately visible), simply insert it after the URL, with a space between URL and link text (no. 4).
  • You can insert canon-specific links to the Clavis database. The easiest way is to copy&paste the URL from your browser. Note that "context" refers to how many entries before and after the canon are displayed. The key is part of the URL and also a good link name, so insert a space and the key at the end. See no. 5 below.

Examples:

  1. https://www.mgh.de/de results in: https://www.mgh.de/de
  2. www.mgh.de results in: www.mgh.de
  3. [https://www.mgh.de/de] and [https://www.dmgh.de/] results in: [1] and [2]
  4. [https://www.mgh.de/de MGH] results in: MGH
  5. [https://beta.mgh.de/databases/clavis/db/search?context=3&key=DU01.090 DU01.090] results in: DU01.090

Internal links

Internal links are links within this Clavis Wiki, e.g. from the description of one collection to that of another one.

Internal links are enclosed in double (!) square brackets, with the optional link text separate with a "|" (no space needed). If no site exists, placing a term between double square brackets will create a red link. While there is no page of that name, any user can click on a red link to create a new page of rhat name.

Examples

  1. [[Cresconius, Concordia canonum]] results in: Cresconius, Concordia canonum (simple internal link).
  2. [[Cresconius, Concordia canonum|Cresconius]] results in: Cresconius (internal link with link name different from page name).
  3. [[Cresconius, Concordia canonum|Cresconius, ''Concordia canonum'']] results in: Cresconius, Concordia canonum (internal link with formatting).
  4. [[Collectio ficta]] results in: Collectio ficta (red link).

Links to categories

  • If you want to link to a category (not add the article in question to a category!), place a colon (":") before "Category". This will create a link, so e.g. [[:Category:Wishlist MSS Digitization]] becomes Category:Wishlist MSS Digitization. If you only insert [[Category ... (withou the colon), the relevant page will be placed in the respective category, and a link will appear not in the article itself but on the side bar.