Summary: Don't worry, it's easier than HTML

Wiki formatting is very simple and is based on text with extra little annotations. From plain text you get nice formatting. It's a little bit like the emoticons in instant messenger :-) (DeathToEmoticons)

Note that almost all of these rules are available as hover-tips on the side of the page when you're editing a topic.

Feel free to try these out on the PlayPage

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Basic Formatting

Simple Text Formatting

Two ticks (' ') for italics
Three ticks (' ' ') for bold.
Bang (!) at the start of a line for H1
Bang Bang (!!) at the start of a line for H2
etc. (!!!, !!!!, ...)

Links

Any PascalCased word becomes a link.
Surrounding a word with square brackets word will let you do non-pascalcased words. Generally this is considered "odd", so you should try to use PascalCased words where possible.

Any URL becomes a link (http://www.msn.com).

You can also make arbitrary links using the Textism formatting below.

Lines

Four dashes (- - - -) at the begining of a line give you an HR

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Lists

Unordered lists, a line with a tab (or 8 spaces) followed by a star:
*item 1
* sub item 1
*sub item 1
* item 2

Ordered lists, a line with a tab (or 8 spaces) followed by a 1.:

1. item 1
1. sub item 1
2. sub item 2
2. item 2

NOTE You can't nest ordered and unordered lists for now.

Emoticons

All of the usual emoticons work (see WikiEmoticons for the full inventory).

(y) (n) (b) (d) (x) (z) (6) :-[ (}) ({) :-) ;) :( :| :'( :-$ (H) :-@ (A) (L) (U) (k) (g) (f) (w) (p) (~) (T) (t) (@) (c) (i) (S) (*) (8) (E) (^) (O) (M)

Tables

A line that starts and ends with || is a table row. Cells are divided with ||. See also TableFormattingInWiki

For example:

		 ||Containers||(n)||
		 ||MIL||(y)||
		 ||Managed Code||(y)||
		 ||After work||(d)||
	

Containers	(n)
MIL	(y)
Managed Code	(y)
After work	(d)

Advanced Formatting

Preformatting or Code

Any line starting with whitespace becomes PRE

		 Public Class [MyClass]
		    Public Sub New()
		        [DoCoolStuff()]
		        If [IsReallyCool] Then
		            [DoSomethingEvenModeCool()]
		        End If
		    End Sub
		 End Class
		 public class [CSharpExample] {
		    [CSharpExample()] {
		       int n = 5;
		       object[] test = new object[n];
		    }
		 }
	

Text inside of a PRE block doesn't get hyperlinks automatically added to it.

Images

To put in an image, just link to an external URL that ends in jpeg/gif/jpg/png:

		 http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/images/billbio.jpg
	

http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/images/billbio.jpg

External Wiki References

To reference a topic on an external wiki (that is a topic not from this website), you add (anywhere before the link)

		 @siteName=http://myserver/mywiki/default.aspx/$$$
	

Then, anywhere after that you can use

		 [TopicName@siteName]
	

The casing of "siteName" is arbitrary, there are no restrictions. Also, you can create a topic called ExternalWikis which will be loaded for every topic, allowing for a "header file" of common external wikis.

The $$$ in the definition URL will be replaced with the topic name provided.

Textile formatting

http://www.textism.com/tools/textile/index.html

		 text: _emphasis_
		 text: *strong* 
		 text: ??citation?? 
		 text: -deleted text- 
		 text: +inserted text+ 
		 text: ^superscript^ 
		 text: ~subscript~ 
		 text: @code@ 
		 text: [url:this is a link (optional tooltip)|http://www.microsoft.com]
	

Which renders:
* text: emphasis
* text: strong
* text: ??citation??
* text: -deleted text-
* text: inserted text
* text: ^superscript^
* text: ~subscript~
* text: @code@
* text: this is a link (optional tooltip)

Delete

To delete any page, just edit the page to contain only the word "delete".

Properties

A property is any line that contains a word (including PascalCased words) followed by a colon, and then some text. Properties are shown at the top of a wiki page. They're commonly used to give Summary information (which shows up as a tooltip), and SeeAlso information.

		 Summary: This is my home page - it's mine, all mine!
		 [SeeAlso:] Information, [WikiSignature]
	

Escaping

If you want to prevent TopicNames from being linked, you can use the double-quote escape: surround the text with a pair of double-quotes on each side and you'll prevent the formatter from turning these into links. This also works for much other run-level formatting (e.g., bold, italic, URL linking, etc.). For example, ""NormallyThisWouldBeLinked"" and ""this would be bold"". You get that with:

		 ""NormallyThisWouldBeLinked"" and ""*this would be bold*""