Though we have a lot of information on the site dedicated to helping improve writing skills1,2,3,4, there are some useful functions to do with formatting and editing that tend to escape the average user. As such, here is a short guide to the Source Editor's less obvious features. While not as intuitive, it ultimately offers more variety and freedom than the Visual Editor, which makes it handy to know. Obviously, there are Fandom-created walkthroughs that outline both of them in more detail1,2,3, so the focus here is on tools you may not have been aware of that can assist you on a fiction-oriented wiki like this one.
Attribution[]
The 'by' template allows you to claim authorship over your work at the end of the page, or attribute a story to someone else. {{by|your name}} will create a plain text footer while {{by-user|your username}} will create a link to your account. You can also use {{by/by-user|name|date}} to add the date of upload to the footer (you will have to type it out yourself).
Disclaimers[]
To communicate information about your story in a header, the {{AN|disclaimer}} template can be used. {{NOTE|disclaimer}} is the non-author version of this.
Headings[]
Using four or more headings in one article will automatically create a table of contents at the top of the page. This can be removed by adding __NOTOC__ anywhere. The template {{tocright}} will force a table of contents to appear wherever it is placed, while __NOEDITSECTION__ will remove the edit prompt that appears next to headings by default. __FORCETOC__ can be used to create a table for pages with three or less headings.
{{DISPLAYTITLE:title}} can be used to alter the title of a page. This is useful for stylistic titles, such as ones that begin with a lowercase letter. Using it to create a completely different title is not allowed, however; if you want to do so, reach out to an admin, who will move the page to the desired new title.
Breaks[]
Four dashes in a row ---- by themselves will form a line that spans the width of the page. {{centerdash}} can also be used to separate blocks of text with a small hyphen. {{***}} will add three left-oriented asterisks as a break.
<br> will insert an artificial gap wherever it is placed, which is often more reliable than simply leaving out text to create a gap.
Sequencing[]
{{nav-bottom|prev=|next=}} can be used to link together stories connected in a series. It looks like this on a page:
< Previous | Next >
{{nav-bottom|title=|prev=|next=}} will produce the same result with a title.
Title
< Previous | Next >
Image Formatting[]
Much easier on the Source Editor, because it can be done through simple text editing rather than having to fill out a menu each time. The three main factors relevant to images are frame, size, and orientation, all of which should be included in the image link for optimal results. For example, [[File:Spazm.png|frameless|100px|center]] looks like this:
The frame, size, and orientation can be written in any order. Changing the frame to 'thumb' will make the image shows up as a thumbnail in previews and embeds. This can only be done for one image or video, of course. It also allows for a caption to be written under the image. [[File:Spazm.png|thumb|100px|center|Caption.]] looks like this:
Caption.
The caption must be the last thing included in the image link.
Sorting[]
Pages with titles that begin with "A" or "The" should have a sort template, which alphabetically classifies the title's second word rather than its first. For example, a page titled "The House" should have a template that looks like this: {{Sort|House, The}}. This isn't a necessity, but it does make pages easier to find.
Final Words[]
I hope you were able to learn something from this guide. The best way to learn to use more features like this is to look at how they are implemented on the respective pages. There's no stealing when it comes to formatting; these functions are available for everyone to use, so don't be afraid to crib interesting ones that you find and use them in your own contexts.
Written by Cornconic
Content is available under CC BY-SA
Taken from here.