Help:Preferences

If you are logged in you can use your preferences to adjust the way the wiki works. The preferences you set will be used whenever you are logged in.

User profile

Username

This is the name you selected when you created your account. You cannot change your username.

Email

You do not have to give an email address. However, if you do, we will be able to email your password to you if you forget it. You will also be able to send email to other users who have given their email address. If you untick the Enable e-mail from other users option, other users will not be able to send email to you. If you tick the Send me copies of emails I send to other users option, you will be sent a copy of any emails you send. This copy will not include the email address of the other user.

Nickname

You can specify a nickname to appear instead of your username when you sign your edits using ~~~ or ~~~~. You cannot include external links, images or templates in your nickname. If you tick the Raw signature option, your nickname must be wiki text include any links you want generated. If this option is not ticked, your nickname will automatically be linked to your user page.

Password

You only need to fill in this section if you want to change your password. Enter your old password and the new password. To avoid problems with mistyping, you must enter your new password a second time.

If you select Remember my login on this computer, you will automatically be logged in whenever you visit this wiki unless you log out or don't visit the wiki for more than 30 days. Do not use this option on a public computer as it will allow other users to make user of your username.

Skins

The skin you choose will determine how the wiki pages are laid out. This wiki supports eight skins - Chick, Classic, Cologne Blue, Modern, MonoBook, MySkin, Nostalgia and Simple. Monobook is the default. You can see what the home page looks like in each skin by clicking on the "Preview" links. Note that Classic, Cologne Blue and Nostalgia provide slightly less functionality than the other skins.

Files

You can limit the size of images on image description pages. If the image is smaller than the size specified, it will be displayed at its normal size. However, if the image is larger than the size specified, it will be displayed at the largest size possible that preserves its aspect ratio and fits the limit you specify here. Since the image is resized on the fly by the software, this allows you to limit the amount of data you have to load in order to display the image. You can always get to the full size image by clicking on the link below the image on the image description page. Note that specifying a size of 10000x10000 will result in images being displayed full size, even if it is larger than 10000x10000.

You can also specify the default width of thumbnail images.

Date and time

You can specify the format to be used for dates and times and the offset between UTC and your timezone. This allows times generated by the wiki (i.e. not those in the text of pages) to be adjusted to your timezone. The Fill in from browser button will attempt to calculate this offset automatically.

Editing

Editbox dimensions allows you to set your preferred size for the text box used for editing page text.
Enable section editing via [edit] links. If you select this option, a link will appear to the right of each heading on most pages allowing you to edit that section of the page.
Enable section by right clicking on section titles. This option uses JavaScript so may not work on some older browsers and will not work if JavaScript is disabled. If you select this option, right clicking on a heading will allow you to edit that section of the page.
Edit page on double click. This option uses JavaScript so may not work on some older browsers and will not work if JavaScript is disabled. If you select this option, double clicking on any page will have the same effect as clicking the edit this page tab.
Edit box has full width. Selecting this option will result in the edit textbox always being as wide as possible, regardless of the number of columns specified in the dimensions.
Show edit toolbar. This option uses JavaScript so may not work on some older browsers and will not work if JavaScript is disabled. A toolbar with buttons for frequently used markup options will be displayed over the edit textbox.
Show preview on first edit. Selecting this options will result in a preview being displayed when the edit page first appears. You can override this option by adding "preview=yes" or "preview=no" to the url.
Show preview before edit box. This option is normally selected so that any preview is displayed above the edit box. The preview will appear below the edit box if this option is unchecked.
Mark all edits minor by default. If this option is selected, the "This is a minor edit" checkbox will be checked when you edit a page.
Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary. If you leave the edit summary blank and click "Save page", the edit will normally be saved with a blank summary. If you select this option, you will be prompted to enter a summary. This serves as a reminder only - clicking "Save page" again when the prompt appears will save the edit with a blank summary.

Recent changes

Days to show in recent changes allows you to specify what time period should be covered by the recent changes page. The default is 7 days.
Titles in recent changes allows you to specify the number of lines to be shown in recent changes. The default is 50.
Hide minor edits in recent changes. You can choose whether or not minor edits should appear in recent changes. If you choose to hide minor edits, only major edits will be displayed.
Enhanced recent changes enables the "Enhanced recent changes" feature.

Watchlist

Days to show in watchlist allows you to specify what time period should be covered by your watchlist. The default is 3 days.
Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes. If this option is selected, the maximum number of days will be ignored.
Maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist. If the "expand watchlist" option is selected, this field allows you to specify the maximum number of entries to show when viewing your watchlist.
Hide my edits from the watchlist. Select this option to exclude your edits from the watchlist.
Hide minor edits from the watchlist. If this option is selected, only major edits will be shown in the watchlist.
Add pages I create to my watchlist. If you are creating a page, the 'Watch this page' checkbox will be checked or unchecked depending on this option.
Add pages I edit to my watchlist. If you are editing an existing page, the 'Watch this page' checkbox will be checked or unchecked depending on this option.
Add pages I move to my watchlist. If you are moving a page, the 'Watch this page' checkbox will be checked or unchecked depending on this option.
Add pages I delete to my watchlist (administrators only). If you are deleting a page, the 'Watch this page' checkbox will be checked or unchecked depending on this option.

Search

Hits per page allows you to specify the number of matching pages to show in search results. Lines per hit allows you to specify the number of lines of each matching page to show in search results. Context per line allows you to specify the number of characters displayed either side of the matching word or phrase.

By default, searches only check pages in the main namespace. You can alter this by selecting the namespaces that you want to search.

Miscellaneous

Threshold for stub link formatting. If this is non-zero, any link to a page where the wiki text is smaller than the specified size will be displayed as a stub link. Stub links are usually brown whereas normal links are blue.
Underline links. Select whether links should be always underlined, never underlined or left for the browser to decide.
Format broken links. You can specify whether broken links appear in red or as a question mark following the link text. Formatting in red is generally preferred as it makes it easy to see which words make up the link. This is less obvious with the question mark. On some versions of Internet Explorer, the question mark option may not work correctly.
Justify paragraphs. Setting this option justifies text, avoiding jagged line endings.
Auto-number headings. Select this option if you want the headings in articles to be numbered to match the table of contents. If this option is ticked, headings will be numbered even if there is no table of contents on the page.
Show table of contents (for pages with more than 3 headings). If this option is selected, a table of contents will appear automatically on any page with more than 3 headings. If you turn this off, the table of contents will only appear on those pages that use the __TOC__ or __FORCETOC__ magic words.
Enable "jump to" accessibility links. Selecting this option adds some accessibility links to the head of every page to jump to the search and navigation boxes. Depending on your styelsheet, these links may not be visible.
Do not show page content below diffs. By default, a diff shows the contents of the more recent revision below the diff. If you want diffs to appear without displaying the contents of the more recent revision, select this option.
Show hidden categories. When you display a page, a list of categories to which the page belongs appears at the foot of the page. Normally, this list does not include any hidden categories. If this option is selected, both hidden categories and normal categories will be listed.

Saving your preferences

When you have finished changing your preferences, click on "Save". Clicking on "Reset" restores the settings on the page to your most recent saved settings.

Note that you may not see the changes instantly after you save your preferences. You may need to force your browser to refresh pages otherwise it may use a version it has saved which was generated with your old preferences.