This is a PRIVATE website owned by John Skakel. Contact us HERE
Cemeteries Office Staff have asked that users NOT contact them with questions directly.
Instructions to work with Find a Stone pages
1. Go to Index page. Scroll down and click on Find a Stone and click through (click on photograph) until you see the green side bar on the RIGHT with yellow text. Find the cemetery you want to look on under the township it is in. For instance, Van Horne is under Harwich.
2. Click on that cemetery and you will go to the Van Horne page.
3. You should now see the page where you enter the alphabetical names.
4. Click on “Edit” on top right of the page. You can also see it at the bottom of the page.
5. The site will ask you for a password. Enter the password and click to enter.
6. You will now see the page with some wiki “Code” at the top of it. This is simply set up to get the title on the top of the page and the photograph on it, etc. Further down you will see where I began a list of names or a demonstration name.
7. File names are entered under the following format. ..... [[File Name that the computer recognizes | File name that you see. i.e the name on the alphabetical list]] ..... Or to simplify that, the entry for John and Ida Smith would look like the following. Since they are married they can go on to the same web Find a stone page. [[Smith_JohnIda | Smith – Ida]] And then on the line following. [[Smith_JohnIda | Smith – John]]
In the example above two entries will show on to the alphabetical list. Those are simply Smith-Ida, and on the line under it Smith – John. Of course as you proceed along you might enter names that would ball between them. This may seem hard but just look at the one or two names already entered and use them as a pattern and it will instantly seem simple. Notice that the first part of the file name uses an underscore and the second part a hyphen. This is not essential but if we all do it that way the site will be more uniform.
8. Enter the first name in alphabetical order on the alphabetical index page that you went to on step 6 above using the format in step 7 above. Click “Save” on either the top or the bottom of the page. Again, remember to just use the name(s) already entered as a pattern.
9. After clicking “Save” you should now see the name you entered on the web page showing the names in alphabetical order.
10. Enter more names in he format above. You might only have one name on a page. But all names on a stone SHOULD be entered on the same page, and if you can tell that another monument has names from the same family you can enter them as well. Remember that the default here is to place names on different pages unless you are comfortable that they are closely related. Tricks we use are similar looking monuments. Possibly the same pattern on red granite for instance. A name on two stones with the same birth and death date on both. Etc.
11. Click the back button on your web browser until you see the RIGHT yellow on green side bar again. You will see the “Template” that you need to use in the middle (left to right middle) of the page and part way down. Click on it. You will see the beginnings of the page. Then click “Edit”. You will now see the page with the wiki code to set up the page that you want to format. Hilite that information and “Copy” it on your computer. Make sure that you get every letter of text on top and bottom! Then back out of that page. DO NOT click Save! Back out until you see the page with the yellow on green right side bar again. Always remember that if you begin to wonder if you are on the right template, just look at the back link. It will have the name of the cemetery that you are working on. NEVER make up your own template. If you happen to miss putting in some blank lines or other such things it might look right now, but not work well in the future 2 years or more from now. Programming must be exact! So do not try to change the template or shorten it, etc.
12. Click on the cemetery you wish to enter. Once you are familiar with this you can also save a step by only going back to the template page and clicking on the “Back” link at the bottom of the page.
13. You are now on the alphabetical index page again. Click on the name(s) you entered above. Each will have a question mark after them to indicate that they are not a link to a web page. Just pick one and click on it. You will go to a page that says that the page does not exist yet. You MIGHT need to enter the password to get there. Paste your data you copied on to the page. You will now see the template there. The first time or two just click to save it and re-enter again. However, once you are on to this you can skip that step.
14. Enter the names you wish to enter on that page. For instance on my demonstration above, you would enter “John Smith” and “Ida Smith”. The names should be as people would say them. BUT they do not need to be in alphabetical order at all or any particular order. ***Remember that if the monument says that Ida Smith was “Ida Sloan” before she was married, on the alphabetical list you also enter the name of “Ida Sloan” and similarly on the page you are at now you enter “Ida Sloan”. We do NOT make decisions on married and maiden names. It is too easy to make mistakes on that. We just enter the names. Then those reading the page can figure that out if they wish to.
15. Now go to our Gallery and the photograph(s) of the monument. Click one time on the photograph to make it “mid size”. Then right click with the pointer on the photograph and hit “Copy image location” or what ever you need to hit depending on the browser you use. With Firefox it is “Copy image location”.
16. Go back to the page you were working on. Right after it says %center% paste in the link you just copied. If there is more than one photograph to enter, paste each photograph's link in via “Copy Image Location” on a different line with %center% in front of it.
17. Return to the Gallery and copy the text under the photograph and return to your page and paste it in. ***Caution though. You should remove any special text other than periods and commas. %, *, ~, and other such special characters mean different things in wiki. So do things like ----- for instance. Just keep it simple.
18. After EACH line except for the last line enter ... “\\” ... If you do not enter that all lines willruntogether. Also, never use a space at the beginning of a line or the lines will run way off the right hand side of your monitor.
19. Click “Save”.
20. If there is information that you want to personally enter on the page then do it as follows. This will make a line at the bottom and will signify that it is entered by you and is not entered on the monument. Always tell identify yourself as the supplier of the information, or the name of the person who was so researchers know in future. NEVER enter information that MIGHT be correct. If it is not proven then it should not be entered here. To enter the information look for five dashes in a row near the bottom of the page. Enter a space under that and enter the information that you want to enter and click "SAVE" If all looks ok, then that is great. If it doesn't it probably means it needs some wiki code you don't understand. Just contact me to fix it.
*****Remember. IN every case, if there are examples already finished you can look at them and use them to see what you need to do.
*****Always remember that if you find something that does not seem to work correctly, just give me a phone call and I can help you through your problem.
Posting using Wiki
Why do we use Wiki instead of HTML?
On designing our site we wanted to make a site that most anyone could learn to post to quickly. Site, after Site, after Site, after Marvelous Site on the internet has "Gone Down" because they did initial programming in a format that was far too complicated to keep up. The original site looked beautiful. But then the site owners would not be able to afford to keep it up with other up to date posts later on. We realized right from the beginning that people MUST be able to learn the code language to post here very quickly. And Wiki seemed the best choice.
In overly simple terms, Wiki is simply another internet language like HTML, etc. A way to allow the owner or those with passwords to post material on a web site with a minimum of knowledge and fuss.
Learning Wiki
There are a few rules to learn instantly using Wiki. Once you know the very basics you can do most anything by copying or experimenting. Please remember that if you get into trouble and quite immediately, we can bring the page back to where you were before you had the trouble and get round the problem. Always be sure to constantly make sure things are looking correct as you post. If ever something doesn't and you don't know how to get out of it just leave things be and ask us. We can bring things back to original with almost no work at all.
The Five Areas of our web site.
Our web site is actually 5 independent web sites all on the same server. The different sites are
- The main home page and index, and Preservation/Restoration areas of our site plus the historical areas, etc.
- The Maple Leaf Cemetery Site
- The St Anthony's Site
- The Restoration/Preservation Area.
- The Gallery
Each area is pretty much an independent site of it's own and should be thought of that way. You will notice for instance that all links in the area number one begin with ... Main. The others area MLwiki., STAwiki, and Miscwiki. Plus of course the main photo area - the Gallery. All of this means little to you except that every link in the Main area must begin with the word "Main" followed by a dot i.e. Main. . Or if you are making changes in the Main area and want to link to a page in the St Anthony's area you need to begin that link with "StAwiki" followed by a dot. Otherwise the fact that the wiki area is really four different web sites is of little meaning to you. Just for your information only there is one other benefit to it. If the need were to arise it would be relatively easy to make it into four separate web sites plus the photos for each. Thus, it is one more safety mechanism to try to have the site alive and well long after I am no longer able to be part of it.
To enter an area of our site that uses wiki. (i.e. any area except the photo gallery.)
The easiest way to enter and do editing in any area is to go to the first page of that area. Or a page near the first page. For instance, if you want to edit in the Maple Leaf area, the first page is the Find a Stone area. By going to the FIRST page you will then be able to edit every page after that. On the URL bar on your computer. Up where you enter the url of a site you wish to go to. (Entering to Google search will NOT work here!) At the end of the long string you see in the URL bar, simply add ... ?action=edit ... Do not leave a space between that and the info there. You will be asked for a password if you are doing it right. Please contact John for a password. I cannot post them here as that would give the keys to the site to every spammer in existence. Simply enter the password and you will see the wiki code for the page. Once you enter the password and press enter you will see an "Edit" button on top right. Just click that on any page you see it and you go directly to the page.
One caution using Copy and Past and Delete on your computer
Working on web sites there is one huge "Caution" to watch out for. You will use "Copy and Paste" on your computer a great deal. NEVER begin a "Copy" at the very top or very bottom of a screen page. i.e. the page you see on your computer monitor. The reason for this? When you hilite text beginning on the top line for instance, you can hilite everything above that by mistake very easily. So, you might for instance hilite 20 pages on a document when you only want to hilite one line. So, when you Paste it back into another place, you paste that whole 20 pages back in. You probably don't notice it right away, and suddenly two hours later you find your mistake and have to correct it. Simply force yourself to follow one rule. NEVER Hilite text for commands like Copy or Delete on the top or bottom line. Believe me. I've had this happen more than once and the experience is not nice! And it is so simple to get around.
How to try out wiki.
There are two ways to try out wiki. To fool around without worry of causing any damage. For to see the first one look on the left side bar of this page. Right at the bottom you will see "Wiki Sandbox". Click there and click on edit. You can go in and try out anything you want. Just do what you would like and click "Save". I believe that in two hours or something like that, all will automatically be erased on the page. That is on the wiki site. For the second option, shortly on bottom right of this page you will see pages TEST 1, and TEST 2. If you click on those, you can go to a test page on our site. If you are experimenting there, the material in there will stay until deleted. However, feel free to leave overnight, etc. But please delete when you are finished so others know that they can use the page for experimentation.
Some of the most basic things about wiki.
- It is extremely important that you remember that for checking things posted that you do not have to know much of this except to possibly just recognize it's approximate use. This will allow you to change things if you wish. However, please remember that you do not have to memorize all of this! What you will be doing is mostly copy and paste.
- There are instruction areas available for pm wiki. The simpler one containing just a bit more information than I show you here is available at the bottom of the LEFT side bar near the bottom of the page under the heading PM Wiki. Look for Basic Editing. For more detailed information look under the title in the same area "Documentation". I caution that much of the info available in the latter is for more professional internet programmers, and would NEVER be of use to us! However, you will find some things in there of interest once you begin to get just a bit used to wiki. Please remember that the pmwiki area in the side bar is NOT available in most areas of the web site. It is purposely removed so as not to confuse people. However, it is available on the preservation/restoration wiki pages.
- NEVER indent a line at the beginning of a paragraph. This causes a line to go indefinitely to the right. So, if you have a paragraph that is really 4 lines long, it will come out all in one line, causing you to keep scrolling over.
- You can only leave a one line space between items. But there is a way to get tound that.
\\between two lines leaves one extra blank line.\\\leaves two blank lines.\\\\\\\\\\\leaves 10 blank lines. etc. - No matter how many spaces you leave at the end of one sentence before the start of the next you will only see one space. One space is the wiki default.
'''This is text'''gives the heavier black text. So that would be actually seen as This is text- On the top of most pages on this site you will see
(:noheader:) (:nofooter:) (:notitle:). That simply removes an extra header at the top of the page that is generally there but does not really fit with our site. Nofooter does the same with a footer area. And notitle removes an extra title that is there but again does not affect our site. There is also a noleft and a noright command that would take out either or both side bars on that particular page. So, in short those more or less set up the basic look of the page. !,!!, or!!!etc. These commands tell wiki you are making a title. One exclamation mark at the beginning of a line makes the title quite large. Two makes the title smaller. Three smaller still. You can use more than three as well to make it even smaller. We use this to make a title. But there is a different command to make ordinary text not in a title larger.%center%This command will center text on the page from left to right. You do not always need to use a % sign at the end of each command. You might place three commands in that string of words.%color=brown%. This will make the color of the following text brown. You can also use a colour chart to find different colours. However, that is mostly set now with this site so you will mostly only use brown and yellow with a few spots using black and white. As mentioned above you do not always need to use % signs for each sign. You might see!%center color=black%Text here. for instance. This would show a title in the center of the page in black with the words Text here. Placing three single quote marks before and after the words would make it in bold text. I almost always do that as the titles look much better. It is probably done 99.9% of the time here.- Now then, in a title, if you change the colour it will change back to normal automatically with the next line you type. All commands end at the end of a paragraph. i.e. a blank line with no text. However, you might want to make one word only in colour. So, you can turn the colour back off using
%%. So you might see for instance a line like "The colour of this word is blue like the colour of the sky. The actual code to do that is ...So you might see for instance a line like "The colour of this word is %colour=blue%'''blue'''%% like the colour of the sky.The main thing to remember is when you see two % signs it is to turn off colour. I sometimes include those at the end of a title just out of habit. They are not needed. So, I realize it can throw you. It has me. But when typing the code I am just thinking that I need to turn that colour back off. - Unused spaces. NEVER leave a space at the end of a line or a link that is not needed. That can cause a lot of unwanted things to happen and you can search for hours trying to find what you did wrong. Especially if you type a link, and then put an empty space, and click the enter a couple of times and go on typing. That can make you hunt for the problem for hours. Believe me I talk from experience.
{+text here+}Underlining. Using what I myself call the fancy British brackets plus a plus sign under lines text. That line when typed and entered would look like text here.{+'''text here'''+}would look like text here. Remember that the three ' signs mean darker text.[++larger text++]Larger text. Using the square bracket and plus sign makes the text larger. The more plus signs the larger the text. One plus sign slightly larger. four plus signs very large. etc. So, that line when typed would look like ... larger text Put in the three ' signs and you get the deeper colour too. Again those area virtually always used without fail on this site. larger text- Order of code. Remember that the different code signs MUST be in order. You cannot for example type
'''[++larger text'''++]. It will NOT work as the signs are out of order. You must enter things in order. So you need to type...[++'''larger text'''++]. Also, when using the exclamation mark for a title it must ALWAYS come first in the line. %lfloat% and %lframe%These codes indicate how you post a photo. lfloat indicates a photo with NO frame around it, and lframe indicates a photo with a frame for instance. In a few cases here a photo is used as a link. We are not going to get into that here. It is not needed for checking! IT is not needed generally for posting. I am keeping this simple!%width=300px%. This code simply allows you to change the size of a photo. You can post a larger photo than needed, and then shrink it down slightly in size to meet your needs. However, for speed you are best not to keep the photo much bigger than required and indeed best if you do not need to use this code at all. Size is simply experimentation. 300 px or 400 px is just experimentation until you get used to it.bgcolor=brown yellow. Used with a framed photo only. bg colour indicates the colour of the frame and the back ground of that the text is on. In this case the frame is what they call brown. Though probably more of a deep red. yellow. This is the text colour of the text at the bottom of the photo. It can again be surrounded by three ' marks to emphasize if if needed.http://...... | Text here. There are two ways we can post a photo. Most are done this way. the http........ part is the URL of the photo generally in our Gallery. The pipe (|) is simply a separator. It may have a space before and after it. The part before it is the actual link. After it comes the text of the photo. So, you will maybe see text like%lframe bgcolor=brown yellow width=300px%http://...... | '''Eberts Crypt after reconstruction'''This would post the Eberts Crypt photo at that spot in size of 300 px with a brown frame and emphasized yellow text saying Eberts Crypt after reconstruction You can also make that text into two lines by using the double slash. You will see examples of that as you edit and become familiar with it very quickly.Attach:KingMonuments | '''Eberts Crypt after reconstruction'''The second way we can work with a photo is to actually post the photo in the wiki area rather than our Gallery. This is rarely used here but does show up on occasion. That photo has been saved here. I won't describe that here. I can later for you if you wish but I don't want to confuse you now. The two square brackets mean a link. The word Attach: means for the wiki to look for a photo here. The "King Monuments" is simply the file name of the photo. The rest is the same as the last post just above.- cfloat, and cframe. Posting a picture on center in wiki can be confusing. So, I am not going to describe it here. I can though once you are more used to wiki. I just don't want to confuse you with too much information.
[[http://ckcemeteries.ca/Preswiki/index.php?n=Main.WikiInfo | %color=blue%'''This links to this page'''%%]]Making a link is similar to the above. Here the link is to THIS page. The two square brackets signify the link coming. Then comes the actual URL. Then comes the "|" i.e. the "Pipe" separator. And then the link description. You will notice that it is in blue, and has the emphasized text. Here is what it looks like when you actually type it into a page. This links to this page
How to try out wiki.
There are two ways to try out wiki. To fool around without worry of causing any damage. For to see the first one look on the left side bar of this page. Right at the bottom you will see "Wiki Sandbox". Click there and click on edit. You can go in and try out anything you want. Just do what you would like and click "Save". I believe that in two hours or something like that, all will automatically be erased on the page. That is on the wiki site. For the second option, shortly on bottom center of this page you will see pages TEST 1, and TEST 2. If you click on those, you can go to a test page on our site. If you are experimenting there, the material in there will stay until deleted. However, feel free to leave overnight, etc. But please delete when you are finished so others know that they can use the page for experimentation.
A Page to Play with and Experiment
If you click on this link you will go to a page that is a copy of a page you will recognize. This is just a copy. Don't worry if you screw this up. It is not the actual page! But it is a page that you can play with and see how changes affect the text. You can add text. Delete it. etc. ONE THING THOUGH. The original photo was in the middle and that is hard to work with so I have moved that photo down to one side. When you get used to wiki you can play with a centred photo some time, but you need experience before you attempt that one. I don't want you go get confused. You can also move the photo to the middle if you wish without a frame. But if you try to use a frame you will see it is distorted. Have fun. Butcher the page totally if you wish. I can bring it back quickly! A page from our History Section to fool with CAUTION! The links work and go to areas of our web site that are actual areas. Feel free to play with the page I linked you to. But please do not click the links and play with those pageas. ha ha