h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hello seadiver!

it's farlander responding to your guideml sos. i hardly felt it suitable to reply directly to your posting in pr because it's generally a place where people go in to comment on your article content.

anyway, the first thing you should realise about guideml is - (take a deep breath) guideml is *easy*. it's basically just telling the text on a given page how to behave. of course the thing i probably forgot to tell you is that for guideml to work you need to have the preview set to 'guideml' and not to 'text'!

LESSON 1: UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS

try adding a new entry, just for the sake of practicing your guideml. don't enter any text. click 'guideml'. you will now see that your text box is no longer empty, but looks like this:







to break it down - the tags mean that whatever is between them is in guideml. the tags mean that whatever is between them constitutes the main body of your article - where your text, graphics and links go.

so now we take it one step further. here is the rule about guideml (and html, while we're at it) - the tags are for telling the text what to do. for example, if you want the text to become a paragraph, you tell it where to start being a paragraph with the tag , and you tell it where it ends as a paragraph with the tag . notice the second tag has a slash (/). the slash, in markup language, means the end of whatever behaviour you wish of your text.

rule: tell the text to start behaving however you want it to, key in the text, then tell it to stop.

which means that if you want a sentence to be in bold type, you start off with a , followed by your text, and then close it with a .

you with me so far?

try typing some text in between the tags now. then format them into paragraphs with the tag, and have a look at it. you can try these other tags (remember to add the slash in the closing tag):

- for bold type
- for italics
- for a block of quoted text (you'll notice it seems to be set in a small box with invisible borders
- for headers
- for subheaders
- to add footnote. for example, if your text were to read " this is a meaningless block of textof course that i just decided to type", then what you'll see when you preview it is:

this is a meaningless block of text(1) that i just decided to type

and at the bottom of the page, you see (1) followed by 'of course'.

LESSON 2: SINGLE TAGS

things that don't require a start and stop tag:

- for a break in the text (if you don't want a huge paragraph gap). the beauty is that a tag like this closes itself.
- to draw a line separating paragraphs

(there are some more listed at the guideml clinic. go check them out)

LESSON 3: LINKS

the link tag works the same way the other normal tags do. the only thing is that the tag is *slightly* different depending on where your link leads to:

- means that you are linking to another article within hootoo. your link needs only be the article number (say A1001854). it goes between the inverted commas. it would therefore look like this: whatever text. notice that you don't close it as . that's because the parameter - the bit telling the parser what type of link it is - doesn't figure in the equation.

- means that you are linking to a page outside of hootoo. you will need to specify the *complete* url starting from the http bit. eg. http://www.google.com which would look like this: GOOGLE!



try fiddling with these tags, and see if you can get the ones at the guideml clinic to work. when you feel comfortable with them, i can teach you how to do tables and stuff if you want.

best of luck!

I really don't know how to thank you. I'm starting to implement your lessons in practice right away.

Sorry to bother you again. I followed your instructions and was very prowd with myself. Then, all at once, the moment I clicked on 'Preview', I saw the following at the end of the entry:
Bad closing element BODY expecting P

And it wouldn't update! What is it expecting me to do? Could you help me?
By the way, is it possible to insert pictures that are not in h2g2?

the problem with guideml is that, unlike html, it's awfully pernickety. in html, you can have an opening tag without a closing tag and vice versa without the page having any problems. with guideml, if you *miss* just one of those tags, or misplace a slash, this results in total disaster (as you have just found out the hard way). in your case, "Bad closing element BODY expecting P
" means that you have missed a tag somewhere, OR you have used a tag where you should have used a . i'm afraid there's no way around it but to go through your test article paragraph by paragraph to see where it was that you made the mistake, because the parser's not going to let you go until you've rectified it.

what i would recommend is - enter everything in plain text first. *then* put in the tags, and preview it regularly (it doesn't have to be completely tagged, so long as you make sure you seal everything). it's harder to make mistakes that way.

unfortunately, you can't insert pictures that aren't from h2g2 because of possible copyright problems (even if you've done them yourself). for that matter, you can't upload any pictures either. the only ways you can put pictures on your page are by:

1. using the pictures available in the gallery;
2. getting a community artist to do a picture for you (you'd have to make a request); OR
3. cheating like the rest of us do by doing table art.

but whoops, i haven't taught you how to do tables yet.....

Thaks! I think I finally made it! Would you mind taking a look? All of your corrections and ideas are welcome. I wanted to insert two small pictures: one of the portrait of Vlad and the other of the original edition of the book "Dracula". What are these tables you keep telling me about?

hi seadiver just passing through you might find this page useful A991316 if you have any questions please feel free to ask

Star Fleet Ace

Thanks for your tip. I read it, I got slightly dizzy . I 'll have to think it over before I sink my teeth into it .

if you have any problems just ask

Star Fleet

seadiver - i'm sorry to have to disappoint you, but if this is going to be an edited entry you can't put pictures in (pictures are only for non-eg articles and personal pages). the only two ways that pictures can get into an eg are (1) if it becomes a headline article (so cross your fingers!) or (2) if illustration is *crucial* to a certain part of your article.

tables are ... well, for when you need to present data in a table form in an eg. also, if you're doing a non-eg article, it's an excellent way of formatting your text, especially if you want two columns instead of one. if you want, have a look at my personal page - i've done a lot of table formatting there. if you're interested, i can teach you how to do it.

hello again!

i've gone through your article - and your code - great work! here's my :

1. i'm sorry i forgot to tell you this earlier, but usually the eds prefer all guideml in upper caps. i didn't learn that until about my 17th article or so! the sub-ed dealing with it will usually fix that, but i think it might be better if you went and changed your all your to . (well, you can just cut and paste the P)

2. your lists (dracula's characteristics and the vampire cases) might look better as lists rather than paragraphs - either as ordered or unordered ones. you can try 'em out for yourself and see which looks better. to do lists, you need for unordered (ie bullets), or for ordered (1,2,3). then between those tags you insert Insert text for each item:

for example:

Tall
Has a deathly pale countenance


(notice you don't have to specify numbers. oh and yeah, in upper caps)

3. i'm not sure about this one, but i *think* that if you're using non-english words or phrases (Visum et Repertum), it might be a good idea to put them in italics. that's what they do in books, isn't it?

4. in your jean marigny quote, i noticed [...] which i initially thought was a placeholder for credits. er, that's just to indicate that there's text that you've omitted, isn't it? if so, you don't need the brackets. ... will do just fine. at least, nobody's ever corrected me when i did that.

5."The genesis of the Dracula Image which dominates the 20th century" - i don't think you need to break it up into header and subheader, unless of course you have more than one sub-section. i know what you're thinking - it looks ugly as one big fat header, doesn't it?

6. while we're on that section, you forgot to leave a space between 'vampyre' and 'first'.

7. i'm not sure what the sub-ed will think of your:

'This is not the case with

The Film Industry (subheader)

which practically adores the vampire as a main character'

(i'm not sure if that's acceptable format) but it looks good! it's got a great flow...

8. i'm afraid you can't do your article title in upper caps! you can capitalise the first letter of every word, but not every word itself.

9. oops, looks like you got the link concept wrong. your "According to Elizabeth Miller" is an empty link! (you did this twice in the article - the second time is in the section 'the impact') it should be

According to Elizabeth Miller

because you need a word to act as a link (remember the rule about how you tell a word to behave, and then tell it to stop?)

other than that, well done! it's very well divided now, and only the *densest* of readers would get lost reading it. (and i see you've caught on to guideml really fast - congratulations!)


cheers,
far.

ps: if you find any other articles in h2g2 that are related to yours, you can place links to them if you like. some you might like to link to -

A315893 - 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' - the TV Series
A273566 - Vampires
A793721 - 'Dracula' - the Hammer Horror Film
A588233 - Bram Stoker - Author

if you want to place links to them, you can link them from words in the text, or under references, between the tag (you only need one set. everything goes in between them). it's not compulsory, but it's something we all commonly do just in case the reader's interested and would like to read similar stuff

Thanks again. I do need some time for your lessons to sink in. I wonder if it's possible to mention your help and give you credit for it in the article? Now I'll go back to your message and start implementing the points you mentioned one by one.

seadiver -

re: credit - thanks but it's not common practice to credit someone who's helped with the technical aspects of an entry. one usually adds the name of another researcher if the other researcher has contributed to the content of the article, but usually not otherwise. anyway, it's a great entry, and you should have the honour of having just your name on it for a debut article

(well, if you really want to, i wouldn't say no to a little statement like 'thanks to farlander for the guideml lessons' in your personal page just kidding!!!)

i'll have another look after your next edit.

cheers,
far.

Thanks again Farlander! I followed your instructions and am very proud with myself! About those links you suggested ... I included two of them - the one about Bram Stoker and the one about the Hammer film. I am sorry to say that the link A273566 - Vampires is not accurate as far as vampires in Bulgaria go. Belive me - I'm Bulgarian and have been dealing with vampire myths for quite a while. I have read all the authorities in Bulgarian ethnology and am still researching the myth and its origins. I've even done some field work - not among vampires, of course but among villages in Blgaria. Do you think I should do something about this article? Inform someone about its inaccuracy, etc.?
By the way, can I add you in my space as a friend? And if you allow me to do that, could you tell me how?

hi seadiver,

just had a look at your article - it looks excellent! sorry about the vampires article - being my lazy self, i simply did a bbc search and gave you all the links without bothering to check them myself. and yeah, if you find any factual inaccuracies, you can inform the editors about them at the feedback forum.

yeah, you can add me as a friend! (hey, you don't need my permission, do you? ) just go to my personal page, and click the link 'add to friends' (it's below?above? 'leave a message'). as you can see, i've already added you to my list...