Welcome!

First off, welcome! Consider this site as Your site.

Why wiki?

I am told that "wiki" means "fast" in Hawaiian. So, I suppose that a wiki site is a site that can be created or edited fast. This is certainly true, since a wiki site can be edited within the browser.

The way I tend to think about a wiki site is that it is a sort of a hybrid between a traditional web page and a traditional application. It can be read like any other web page, but it can also be created, edited, and deleted, all within a browser.

Layout of wiki page in Griffin (top)

Let us examine the basic layout of a wiki page in Griffin. The following image shows the top portion of a wiki page. It shows four different vertical areas: top header (1), navigation links (2), page trail (3) and body (4).

Layout of wiki page in Griffin (top)

Top header (1)

This is where the page title, the user information, and the search box are shown. All of these are active elements, i.e. links, input field, or buttons. Note that the search box becomes fully visible only when the mouse hovers over it. The search box can be used to locate pages.

Layout of wiki page in Griffin (top)

Navigation links (2)

There are four different groups of links.

• Group 1 contain generic links, e.g. "E" for edit, and "RC" for recent changes.

• Group 2 consist of any global links/bookmarks defined (by the system) for this wiki.

• Group 3 consist of your personal links/bookmarks (cf. "Settings").

• Group 4 consist of some system wide links that may be helpful, with "Help" being one of them.

Layout of wiki page in Griffin (top)

Here is the annotated view of the

• Note that the current page and the home page ("FrontPage") of the current wiki are marked in distinguished manners, if they appear as part of navigation links, which is very likely.

Page trail (3)
This is a history bar, showing a few most recently visited wiki links. The current wiki page is likely one of them, and, if so, is marked differently than other links.

Layout of wiki page in Griffin (bottom)

The following image shows the lower portion of a wiki page. It consists of body (4), page info (5), edit bar (6), and footer (7).

Can I edit?

As a rule, most pages within a wiki in Griffin are editable by all "group members." Group members are defined per wiki, and if you have any question about the membership, you need to drop an email to me.

There is an easy way to tell whether you are able to edit a page or not. If you visit a page, and if the first link in the navigation bar is "E", then it is editable. You will also see an "edit bar" near the bottom of the page as well. That is a slightly purple bar just below the golden strip at the end of the page. The menu launched by the "pencil icon" and the menu provided at the "edit bar" are identical except the last menu item. Additionally, there will be a link named "Ed" with a small gear symbol in front it in the navigation bar – that link is there for convenience and is identical with the first link available in the edit bar.

Edit how?

There are two editing modes, TEXT and GUI. I rarely use the GUI editor, as the GUI editor is a bit slower. But it might be easier for a first time user.

Of course, you do not have to actually edit a page after clicking an "Edit" link. Often, the sole purpose of clicking "Edit" is to find out how certain things are done, and copy and paste the "source code" to another page. Or, you can choose the "Raw Text" menu from "More Actions."

Another method to trigger the edit action is to double-click! The advantage of the double-clicking is that the editor scrolls to show the text corresponding to the area that you double click.

How to create a page?

If you see that a page is editable, chances are that you can create a page in that wiki as well. Try it!

To create a page, create a link in a document first and then click on that link. You will then be asked to create a page. Alternatively, enter, in your browser, a URL that points to a non-existent page within your wiki. Then again, you will be given a chance to create that page. In the latter case, that page won't be linked from any existing page.

Some simple formatting syntax

You can write plain text, bold faced text, italic text, striked-out text, underlined text, _subscript, $_\mathrm{sub}$script again, ^superscript, $^\mathrm{super}$script again, latex math expressions (e.g., $\Im m\, \Sigma(\vec{k},\omega)$), etc. MathJax supports latex math expressions. Displayed equation is possible, too. Read more about MathJax, if you like, following a link below ("Wiki (Griffin or General)").

• This is an indented paragraph can be written like this.
  • And a more indented paragraph.

Here comes a bullet list.

• The "Edit (TEXT)" menu link is useful.

• Another useful menu link is "Attachments" menu, either by mouse-over or at the bottom of each page (the menu at the bottom is identical with the mouse-over menu except the last one). The image on the right is an example of an attachment link (in the source code, "lia = link image attachment" is a local macro name. cf. la = link attachment). Click it, and you will be opening a new page corresponding for attachments belonging to this page.

• Try other links as well. A caveat. Except the "Edit" and "Attachments" links, I haven't tried much, and so I know what they exactly do!

Lastly, on a calendar, you can follow a date link. If the date page does not exist, then you will be asked to create a page. Any headings at the level equal to or higher than the first heading encountered in a date page will appear in a tooltip message triggered to pop up when the cursor hovers over that date.

LaTeX

The wikis at Griffin use MathJax, which support LaTeX math expressions. Check out this wonderful book on the web if you are not familiar with LaTeX, or even if you are.

GUI and customization

You will notice that at the top portion of this wiki page, there is a navigation menu startig with "Home" and ending with "Help". You can add any personal links by using "Settings → Preferences". They will appear before "Help." You will also notice that there are many other options offered at "Preferences." For most of them, I am not sure what they do – if you find something cool or problematic, please let me know!

Other useful GUI elements are the page trail (a "history") bar, just below the navigation bar, and a search box in the upper right corner (move your mouse over in that area and it will become fully visible). The page trail bar will show several links that you last used, and I find them quite useful, in addition to the navigation bar. The search box lets you search for pages with certain strings in the title ("Titles") or any where in the page ("Text"). This is very useful, also.

Note that if you choose a different theme, GUI elements will show up differently, and some of them might even be messed up. This wiki site is intended for use with the default theme ("griffin").

Preferences

If you follow "Settings → Preferences", you will see a list of preferences that you can adjust. Note that you are not allowed to modify your account name and email address. This is because these are critical for security and authentication. If it is absolutely necessary, then can be changed though. In that case, you have to let me know.

No worries

Feel free to create/edit/rename/delete any pages. The backup system is reasonably extensive, and so even if you "mess up," it will probably be possible to clean and restore.

Security and access

All wiki sites in griffin, including this one, run on a certified SSL. So, no plain text (e.g. for your password) will be transmitted between you and griffin. Even if you mistakenly type http:// instead of https://, the address will be automatically corrected and the SSL will be used.

Once you login, your login is valid for a certain period of time. For instance, if you login in the morning, then your login may still be valid when you re-launch your browser in the afternoon.

Note that the account that you use with wiki sites in griffin works like any Linux/Unix account in the following sense. You know the password, but nobody else, including the superuser, does, as the password is saved as a hash. However, if you forget the password, it can be reset (you will be notified by an email with a link to follow).

New as of June 18, 2011: now some wiki pages accept your Google credential, if you've got a Google email account. The login screen should tell you about this, if your wiki allows this. There are two scenarios for this.

1. If you create an account with your Google credential, then your account will be different from a local account in two ways. First, there is no local password. Second, your email address will be your Google email.

2. If you add your Google credential to an existing account (this can be done by typing your existing username), then there will be no change made to your existing account (password or email address). In this case, you will have two ways to login to your existing account, now! However, depending on whether your existing email address is identical with the Google email address (case insensitive), there will be a subtle difference between the two ways. This difference arises when you use more than one wiki on this site. The local authentication is valid for any wiki, transparently. The Google authentication is valid for any wiki transparently, only if your email address is the Google email address. If not, then the first time that you access a new wiki with your Google credential, you will be prompted for the local username and the password, again. If you have this "inconvenience," and would like to have your email address changed to your Google email address, you have to let me know.

Most wikis in Griffin are private, accessible to group members only, while some are public, notably those related to teaching. However, if you have some information that you like the world to be able to access, please let me know. It is very simple to make a certain sub-tree of wiki, or any pages, world-readable (and more if so desired and if reasonable to do so).

CamelCase not recommended

Finally, the CamelCase is turned off, by default, in Griffin. This is regardless of what the Moin help document will say to you. When CamelCase is on, words like "CamelCase" are recognized automatically as wiki links. This has been one feature of MoinMoin that I was not really impressed with. It is much more sound stylistically to forgo CamelCase and explicitly enclose wiki links with double angle brackets.

The CamelCase can be turned on a per page basis. For instance, this has been done for all help pages provided by MoinMoin. To turn on CamelCase for any page use #pragma camel-case on. Note that this setting, as with any other settings, will affect all subpages as well.