Read Me First

WELCOME
Looking for CoCo help? If you are trying to do something with your old Color Computer, read this quick reference. Want to contribute to this wiki? Be sure to read this first. This CoCo wiki project was started on October 29, 2004. --OS-9 Al

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This page was last updated on 09/1/2016. Total Pages: 744. Total Files: 994.

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Home / Help - Read Me First

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Here are a few quick things to know about using this wiki.

Page Layouts

The ultimate goal is for each page to have a similar look-and-feel. When a new page is created, there is a bit of text you should paste in to the new page. These can be found on the Page Templates page.

To explain what all those items do, read on...

Templates

This website uses MediaWiki, which is the same software that runs the Wikipedia.

MediWiki supports Templates. A template is a page with the name "Template:TemplateName". Anything on that template page will appear anywhere you include it on another page as "{{TemplateName}}". For example, if there was a page called "Template:UltimateAnswer", and that page contained the text "42", you could include that text on any page just by adding:

{{UltimateAnswer}}

You should not need to make your own templates, but it is useful to know how they work since this site uses them extensively.

Navigation Templates

A set of Wiki templates have been created to help with categories and navigation of this site. When creating a new page, or editing an existing one, please ensure that the top of the file begins with a Nav template, such as:

{{NavArticles}}

There are currently Navigation Templates for most major areas of the site:

• Template:NavArticles
• Template:NavCompanies
• Template:NavConventions
• Template:NavHardware
• Template:NavPeople
• Template:NavSoftware

...and many for sub-sections:

• Template:NavCoCoNextGen
• Template:NavCoCoRelatives
• Template:NavComputerDoc
• Template:NavDriveWire
• Template:NavEmulators
• Template:NavFAQs
• Template:NavHelp
• Template:NavHome
• Template:NavInternetResources
• Template:NavProgramming
• Template:NavPublications
• Template:NavScams
• Template:NavSoftwareGame
• Template:NavSpecialProjects
• Template:NavTimeline
• Template:NavTop
• Template:NavUsers
• Template:NavVaporware

If you truly are creating a new section big enough that it needs its own navigation link, here is how they currently work:

Each Nav template is made up of other templates as well as a category for pages that use that template. In the case of the NavArticles template, it contains the following:

{{Home}}{{Articles}}{{PageName}}
<includeonly>[[Category: Articles]]</includeonly>

2016/8/24 Update: The "includeonly" tag just makes the template not show up in that category. I will work on a way to simplify this in the future. Categories used to be part of the "Articles" section but to prevent Templates from showing up in the category, it had to be moved to the final big template.

The Home template contains the link to the Main Page of this wiki (with some text before it to be shown on every page of the site), and a custom text for the link (so it says "Home" instead of "Main Page"):

[[Main_Page|Home]]

Next is the Articles link:

{{Delim}}[[Articles]]

Above, it will first contain a Delimeter (which is currently " - " for this Wiki), then a link to the top level page for Articles.

Lastly, is the PageName template:

 - '''{{PAGENAME}}'''
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This will just display a non-breaking space, dash, non-breaking space, then the current page name in bold. (" - Read Me First"). The four dashes on the next line will create a horizontal line to separate the content of the page from the navigation links at the top.

So, when you start a page in an existing section, be sure to start with the appropriate NavXXX template reference at the top. You can find it by editing a similar page in that section. If it is an entirely new section/category, you will have to create a new NavXXX template.

Creating a new Navigation Template

If you are creating a new section of the site, create the new page (such as "Digitizers"), and add a reference to the soon-to-be-created NavTemplate at the top of the page, using the following format (such as "NavDigitizers" or "NavPrinters"):

{{NavSectionName}}

When you save the page, that will be a new link to an empty template page. When you view this page, click on the new link, and fill out your new NavSectionName template like...

{{Home}}{{SectionName}}{{PageName}}
<includeonly>[[Category: SectionCategory]]</includeonly>

Section Name would something like "Digitizers" or "Printers" and should match the main page name for that section. "{{PageName}}" is a template that uses a special macro built in to the Wiki that will show the current page name. Save this, and you will get a link to the new empty SectionName and "PageName" will show up with the current page name. Click and edit the new SectionName and make it look like this "Articles" example above:

{{Delim}}[[PageName]]

"[[PageName]]" is the link to the main page of that section, which is usually just the section name, and matches the category. i.e., if you create a category called "Digitizers", the main page should probably be "Digitizers".

Once we get all this cleaned up, we will have an easier to navigate template. Plus, I can edit the Home link at any time to out a message or alert on every page of the site.

There should be no pages without this navigation.

See Also

I am not sure if this is still relevant, but I also have this page: Using Navigation Templates

InfoBox Templates

Templates can also contain parameters, passed in as variables. There is a "Template:InfoBox" that does this. Inside the template, it can reference named variables by their name with three curly braces around them, like "{{{variablename}}}". When the template is called, variables are specified with "name=value" like this:

{{InfoBox |
| name       = Bloc Head
| photo      = Blochead.gif
| year       = 1982
| notes      = A Q-bert type game.
| infosource = Allen
}}

Then whatever code for "InfoBox" will appear, with the values for each variable substituted where it goes. "Blochead.gif" would appear wherever {{{photo}}} was in the template.

NOTE: All the InfoBox templates are going to be cleaned up and made consistent with automatic categories and such.

See Also

For more details and examples, see InfoBox Templates.