Help:Preferences

User data

 * Real name: This may be used to give you attribution for your work. Other users of the wiki will not see this! It probably won't be used for anything, either, though, as most wikis will credit you by your username.


 * E-mail address: Your preferred email address. It is strongly recommended that you give an email address you use and are likely to have for a long time. If you forget your password, this is the only way you can get it sent back to you!


 * Nickname: The name you would like to have displayed when you sign posts. If you leave this blank, posts will be signed with your username. (For example, if your username is "jbrown123" but you would like to sign as "Jeff", put "Jeff" in the nickname field. If you would like to sign as "jbrown123", leave it blank.) There are lots of ways you can customize your signature using HTML. If you'd like to see how you can do that, see the Central help page at Wikia:Help:Signature. The "Raw Signature" box is for those using more advanced customized signatures, which you can find out about at the signature help page.


 * Language: Which language you would like the interface (buttons, system messages) to be in. This can be different from the language that the wiki is in! The articles will stay in whichever language they were originally written in.


 * Change password: Use these fields if you would like to change your password. "Remember across sessions" stores a cookie on your machine so that you do not have to enter your password every time. (If you use a public computer, such as a library or school lab computer, you probably don't want to do this. But if you're using your home computer that no one else uses, it can be convenient.)


 * Email: Check the box if you do not want other logged-in users to be able to contact you via email. (Normally, the "e-mail this user" link, which is on the side of the screen when you look at any user's user page, will allow users to email you without seeing your email address.)

Skin
Select one of the options to decide how you want the pages to look. MonoBook is the default, and there are many things that look or work better on this skin than others. Select the "preview" link by any skin to test it out before selecting it.

Files

 * Limit images on image description pages to: allows you to choose a size that will fit on your monitor when you click on an image to see the information about it.


 * Thumbnail size: allows you to choose how big images should be when small "thumbnail" versions are put on a page. Choose a size that you like and works best with your monitor.

Date format
Choose the option that best matches your preferred date format. (Several options, including American and European date formats, are available.)

Time zone
Specify how many hours your time zone is away from GMT/UTC so that times show in your local time. Clicking "fill in from browser" should do this automatically. If it doesn't, try finding your offset from the Wikipedia list.

Editing
Options with "{JavaScript)" require you to have JavaScript turned on in your browser.


 * Rows/Columns: This sets the size of the edit box for when you edit a page.


 * Enable section editing via [edit] links: When selected, this allows you to edit only part of a page at a time by showing an "edit" link for each subheading. This makes it easier to find the part you wanted to change, though it does clutter the page with "edit" links.


 * Enable section editing by right clicking on section titles (JavaScript): When this is selected, right-clicking on a subheading will let you begin editing that section.


 * Edit pages on double click (JavaScript): When selected, this wil cause double-clicking on a link to another wiki page open an edit window for that page.


 * Edit box has full width: If this box is checked, the edit box (when you click "Edit this page") will be the width of the browser window.


 * Show edit toolbar (JavaScript): A toolbar with editing buttons can be displayed. (A few browsers don't support it yet.)


 * Show preview on first edit: When pressing the edit button or otherwise following a link to an edit page, show not only the edit box but also the rendered page, just like after pressing "Show preview". This is especially useful when viewing a template, because even just viewing, not editing, typically requires both.


 * Show preview before edit box: If you select this option, the preview will be displayed above the edit box when you click the "Show preview" button while editing a page.


 * Add pages you edit to your watchlist: If this option is selected, any pages that you create or modify will be automatically added to your "watchlist", a list of pages you can select to keep track of.


 * Mark all edits minor by default: This option automatically selects the "This is a minor edit" checkbox when you edit pages. If you will be doing a lot of small edits, such as fixing typos or links, rather than writing new material, you may wish to select this option.


 * Use external editor by default: Use an external program to edit pages rather than your browser window. This requires extra setup; see the central help page at Wikia:Help:External editors.


 * Use external diff by default: Show "diffs" (the difference between one version of a page and another) in an external program rather than in your browser window. This requires extra setup; see Wikia:Help:External editors.

Recent changes and stubs
Options with "{JavaScript)" require you to have JavaScript turned on in your browser.


 * Threshold for stub display: This allows you to show links to very short pages ("stubs") in a different color. The number here is the size (in bytes) of the largest page that should be shown in this color. Leaving this number as 0 will show all links to existing pages in the same color.


 * Titles in recent changes: Select the number of changes to be shown on the Recent Changes and Watchlist pages by default. (You may choose to view a different number by following a link on the page itself.)


 * Hide minor edits in recent changes: Logged-in users may choose to mark very small fixes to pages as "minor". You may choose not to see these edits in Recent Changes, though they will be visible when viewing your watchlist.


 * Enhanced recent changes (JavaScript): When selected, this feature allows you to group recent changes per day by article, display the titles of the changed articles in order from new to old latest change, or in the case of hiding minor edits, latest major change.

Search

 * Hits per page: You may choose the number of results returned on each page of search results.


 * Lines per hit: Specifying a number n means "do not show any context if the search term occurs beyond line n in the page." Setting this to 5000 or more gives context for every occurrence.


 * Context per line: The number of characters of context per occurrence; however, the context is anyway restricted to the "line" (anything without a line break; usually a paragraph) it occurs in. To get the whole line, choose a large number like 5000.


 * Search in these namespaces by default: Choose which types of pages you would like to appear in searches by default. (You will be able to change these options from the search page.) For example, selecting "Main" only will return only articles, selecting "Main" and "Talk" would search articles and their discussion pages.

Misc

 * Underline links: Choose whether you would prefer links to be underlined. "Browser default" underlines links to wiki articles the same way your browser settings are set for other web links.


 * Format broken links like this (alternative: like this?): Choose whether you would prefer links to pages that do not yet exist to be underlined and in red.colored red or to show as question marks at the end of the word. (Either way, following these links will take you to an "edit" page.)


 * Justify paragraphs: Select if you want article paragraphs formatted to avoid jagged line endings, or "justified".


 * Auto-number headings: This adds hierarchical outline-style numbering to headers in articles.


 * Show table of contents (for pages with more than 3 headings): If selected, automatically shows a box with a table of contents after the first section for pages with more than 3 section headings (for example, this page). This can make it easy to jump to the section you would like, in a long page, and to copy a direct link to that paragraph so that you can reproduce it elsewhere.


 * Disable page caching: This turns off page caching, which is when you see a previously-stored version of a page stored in a cache, rather than the current version. Selecting this is useful if you're experiencing problems with seeing outdated versions of pages, but may cause longer loading times.

From Tabula Rasa Wiki, a Wikia wiki.