RuneScape:Editing/VisualEditor basics



This is part 2 of the series of editing guides of the RuneScape Wiki. This guide is a step-by-step process on VisualEditor basics - or, how to use the most common tools the VisualEditor offers.

This guide is made from the perspective of a logged-out user (or a logged-in user with default preferences). It also assumes you have read the first guide; if you haven't, please do so first!

This guide covers four very common things:
 * Links
 * Bold and italics
 * Bulleted and numbered lists
 * Images

Starting
For this demonstration I'll be showing abyssal whip, but not saving any of my edits. This is just to show how to do things. The following sections were done in this order, but you don't have to follow that if you don't want to.

Open up the edit screen.

Links
Links are probably the most important thing to use after plain text. First off, click (left or right) the "Slayer" link here to show this window:

The icon shows what the action is—a link has a chain—and the text shows something about the element; for links: the destination. Clicking either the icon or text opens the edit window (this is universal).

This is the link edit window. As you can see, it is pretty simple. You can change the destination, remove the link, or open the destination (in a new tab/window). Changing the destination won't change the text (you do that by just typing where it says "Slayer" in the prose).

Here's another example further down the page, where the text says "PvP combat" and the link is to "Player killing".

Adding a link is as simple as selecting the text you want to link, then clicking the link button. This will open the link edit window with the default text of the highlighted word(s).

That's really all there is for links.

Link policy is fairly simple and is covered by the style guide. The main take-aways for the VisualEditor are:
 * Policy
 * If you mention the same thing on a page several times, in general it should only be linked once, unless the page is very long (excluding things like tables, templates, and navboxes).
 * Avoid linking to skills with a different text; e.g. "This item is obtained through Mining from...", not "This item is mined from...".

Bold and italics
This is simpler than links, but generally less important, so here it is. Bold and italic are simply applied by selecting the text and clicking the B or I in the toolbar (exactly like a word processor).

Removing bold/italics is done in exactly the same way - highlighting the text and clicking the button. Bold and italics can both be applied to the same thing by clicking both buttons. This is also covered by the style guide.
 * Policy
 * Bold and italics should generally be used sparingly.
 * Using both at the same time should be done even less often.
 * The first mention of the article's name (in the opening sentence, usually) should be bolded. Other instances should not.
 * Titles of works (i.e. real-world books, TV shows, movies, video games, etc.) should be italicised.
 * This includes the name of the game RuneScape - but take care when referring to the name of the in-game world/planet RuneScape (as a synonym for Gielinor - in general use that instead to avoid confusion).
 * Bold and italics can be used for emphasis, but this should be done only when necessary. It is common for editors to bold the word "not"; however, most cases are unnecessary. Bolding an entire sentence is never appropriate. If a section of prose is important enough that it needs to stand out, then the text should be reworded to emphasise that point; for example, you could place this text at the beginning of the paragrah, or separate it as its own paragraph.

Underlines should be avoided, so they are not covered here.

Lists
Lists come in two forms - bulleted lists and numbered lists - which are essentially interchangeable in terms of setting them up. Numbered lists are generally for things that require an order, like a list of instructions, whereas bulleted lists are for unordered lists, like a shopping list.

Lists are added by clicking the relevant button in the top toolbar:

If your cursor is on a line with text already (including if you have any text selected), the entire line/paragraph will become the first item in the list. To have a blank first item, add a linebreak (press enter) before clicking the button. You can also click the button to remove the list (or change the type).

Once you have one bullet/number, the next bullet/number is added by pressing enter at the end of a line. Pressing enter when the item is empty removes it and finishes the list.

There are currently no guidelines on how to use lists, but common sense should prevail.
 * Policy

If you're writing out bullets with each having the same type of information each, in a specific pattern, consider using a table instead (tables covered in the next guide).

Images
Images are the most complex thing covered in this guide, but they're used very often so they're pretty important.

Images are added by clicking the icon on the top bar. (You can remove images by just clicking on them and pressing backspace or delete.)

This opens the image insertion dialogue, which offers to upload an image or search for one. Uploading will be covered in a future guide, so we're just going to search for now. Our images adhere to a specific naming guide (see below), so you should easily be able to find what you're looking for. For now, I'm just going to search "abyssal whip" and use the first image, which is the detailed icon of the augmented abyssal whip.

Clicking the image in this dialogue shows the full view of the image, and clicking the + in the top-right of the image adds it to the right-hand side, which shows all images that will be added by this action. Clicking "Apply changes" adds all of the selected images to the article at your cursor. I've only selected one, for now.

Now the image is on the page, in an odd position. It can be moved around by clicking and dragging it, resized using the drag handles in each corner, and you can enter the settings by clicking it and clicking the icon/text in the popup.

In the settings, you can set a caption in the "General settings" page, which will appear below the image. Captions can contain links, bold, italics, and so on, like normal text.

The "Advanced settings" page is about position and size of the image. This is where you can specify a size, rather than using the drag handles. You can also specify whether to float left, right, or centered on the page.

Be aware that editing an image too much will often make it unable to be positioned properly - you may have to use source mode.
 * Notes

There are many other features of images that the VisualEditor cannot use - these will be covered in the source mode guide.

Image usage policy is, again, covered by the style guide.
 * Policy
 * Images should mostly be right-aligned, with left and center alignment used sparingly
 * An exception being the detailed item image or chathead, which is left-aligned at the start of the article.
 * Captions should end in a full stop if they are a complete sentence, and not have a full stop if they are not. Captions should not be entirely italicised (only specific words if appropriate).

Policy on uploading images is covered by the images and media policy. This will be covered in more detail by the uploading guide.

To help you find images, here's some basic information on image names (for full details see RS:IMG):
 * Image naming
 * Items and monsters are &lt;page name>.png
 * Detailed items are &lt;page name> detailed.png
 * Chatheads are &lt;page name> chathead.png
 * Equipped items are &lt;page name> equipped.png
 * Pets are &lt;page name> pet.png

The next guide
The next guide in the series is RuneScape:Editing/VisualEditor advanced, about using the VisualEditor to edit references, tables, and templates. You may prefer to see the source mode version of this guide at RuneScape:Editing/Source mode basics.

You may also want to read about editing policies at RuneScape:Editing/Policies.

See RuneScape:Editing for a list of all guides.

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