Editing

• Practice in the sandbox (try something then click "Preview").
• Use our todo list to find a page to improve.
• Click "Edit this page".
• Work on the text in the edit box, or copy and edit in Vim.
• Explain your edit in the "Summary" box (e.g. "typo" or "added example").
• Click "Preview" to check for mistakes.
• Click "Save" (if you have an account, check you are logged on first).

Talk pages and signatures

• Do not use the talk page (aka discussion page) for a tip.
• Any discussion about a tip should be in the "Comments" section at the bottom of the tip.
• All old comments are eventually deleted, after any useful information is used.
• You can add a comment for a user: On the user's page, click "Talk page" to open the talk page, then click "Leave message" to add a new section, or click "[edit]" at the right of an existing heading.
• On other non-tip pages, you click "Discussion" to open the talk page, then click "New section" to add a new section.
• Add a signature to your comment: On the last line of your comment, type a space then four tilde characters (" ~~~~"). When you click "Preview" you will see that the four tildes are replaced by your name and the current date/time on the server.

Formatting

• ''italics'' displays as italics.
• '''bold''' displays as bold.
• "Type <tt>:bd</tt> to ..." displays as "Type :bd to ...".
• ==Main heading== (not "Main Heading").
• ===This is a subheading===
• Put : at start of a line to indent that line.
• Put * at start of a line for a bullet point (like this list).
• Put # at start of a line for a numbered point.

Use <pre>...</pre> around code blocks, with two-space indents for Vim script.

Use <CR> (not <cr> and not <CR>).

Style guide

Vim's name has changed over the years. The current documentation uses "Vim" (however, we say "gvim" because the alternatives are too ugly).

A paragraph should be one long line, with a single blank line between paragraphs. Sentences are separated by a single space.

Headings user lower case except for the first word and proper names. Omit redundant spaces (==See also== not == See Also ==). No blank line following a heading.

We say "Put the following in your [[vimrc]]" to link to the vimrc page.

Links

External links to other web sites should only be used where the site is likely to be maintained with a significant amount of useful Vim information. No links to personal blogs (except on a user page).

List of example links:

*[[Searching]]
*[[Searching|How to search]]
*{{help|*}}
*{{script|id=1234}} maintains a history of yanks and deletes
*{{script|id=1234|text=YankRing}}
*http://www.vim.org/scripts/
*[http://www.vim.org/scripts/ Vim scripts site]

This is how the list appears:

• Searching
• How to search
• :help *
• script#1234 maintains a history of yanks and deletes
• YankRing
• http://www.vim.org/scripts/
• Vim scripts site

Using the {{help}} template can be tricky. It's probably best just to use plain text (for example, :help >>) in problem cases and let someone else worry about the details later.