Help:Contents

From The Air Combat Wiki

How to Search for Information

To search for information on any subject, simply type your key word(s) into the search box on the left column and click the Search button. If there is anything related to your key words, the result will show a list of page title and/or page text matches.

For example, let's say you want to look at a particular plane page. While the search system has problems with short designations and dashes, such as P-47 or Bf-109, it does great with individual words, such as Thunderbolt or Messerschmitt.

If you can't remember the name and want to look at a list, search for a term that will be used on any plane page, such as "Engine(s)" or "Ordnance".

The beauty of the wiki is that it lets you do more sophisticated searches than just looking at a list of all planes. For example, say you want to find a list of all planes that used Allison engine or that used the Hispano cannon, type those terms into the search box.

How to Edit an Existing Page

Click the edit tab at the top of the page to get an edit box and control buttons.

Click the Show preview button to see what your page will look like if you save it. This is a good tool to see what your edits look like as you are making them.

Click the Save page button to save your changes. Don't worry about overwriting and losing anything. The Wiki software we are using has a built-in "version tracking" system, that allows a page to be restored to a previous version, so we could go back and retrieve the missing information to restore into the current page.

How to Create a NEW Wiki Page

There are thousands of potential pages that need to be added. You can help us out by creating any that you can think belong on this site, which is anything having to do with Air Combat - equipment, people, battles, tactics, units, games - if it has to do with planes dropping things on or shooting at the enemy, it belongs here.

To create a page, first search to see if there is already a page that covers the subject material. If the page is mis-named or should have a better name, we can fix that later, but all information that belongs in that subject should go on the same page.

Second, if the page doesn't exist in anything you can find, go ahead and create a new page. To do this type the complete name for the page in the search box and click the Go button. The system will search for the page in vain, and will tell you that the page doesn't exist. Click the create this page link.

This will put you on a blank edit screen for your new page. Go ahead and type or paste your information into the edit box. The edit buttons are the top of the edit box will apply changes to any highlighted text. There are more sophisticated formatting techniques, similar to html, but the data is the most important thing and formatting can always be done later.

Check your page with the preview button and when you are satisfied that it is "finished", click the save button. It is important to remember that the nature of the wiki is such that no page will ever be finished, so don't worry about being perfect. This is a living encyclopedia of air combat that will evolve as more imformation is put into it. For most pages, the editing buttons at the top of the edit box will provide all the functionality anyone will really need.