Help:Tools

Here is a list of tools that are useful for readers or editors of Wikia. Please add to this if you know some good wiki-related tools.

Search

 * Wikia's internal search
 * Search various wikis with Qwika
 * Google search for all of Wikia, with options to search Uncyclopedia and Memory-Alpha

Shortcuts
If you are using Firefox, shortcuts or keywords allow you to go straight to a particular wiki page by typing a shortcut in the address bar of your browser. For example, you could get to the recent changes of the muppet wiki by typing "rc muppet", or to the home page of creatures by typing "wiki creatures".

The easiest type of shortcut to add is one for the search feature of a wiki. Right-click the search box and you will see an option to "add a keyword for this search" (only in newer versions of Firefox).

If you often visit different Wikia, you will find this shortcut to recent changes for any Wikia useful:
 * Bookmark http://%s.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Recentchanges (even though this is not a valid URL)
 * Right click on your new bookmark and select properties
 * Add "rc" to the keyword field
 * Now type "rc muppet" (or whichever wiki you like) to visit recent changes on that wiki.

If you prefer to see the home page instead of recent changes, use the link http://%s.wikia.com/

If you want a shortcut to any article on a particular wiki, you should bookmark a link such as http://www.wikia.com/wiki/$s - adding the keyword "c" (for Central Wikia") would let you visit the freenode page by typing "c freenode" in your address bar. Just bookmark the page, and then change the properties to add "c" as the keyword.

You could do the same for any other wiki. For example, if you bookmarked http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/$s and assigned the keyword "sw", you could get to The Force article there just by typing "sw the Force".

%s is replaced by whatever you type after the "keyword" in your address bar. You can also use these without any $s parameter. Just bookmark http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Forum:Village_Dump and assign the keyword "dump" and you can get to Uncyclopedia's Village Dump by typing one word in your address bar.

See Wikipedia for more detail.

If you are using Internet Explorer, see the URL shortcut help page on Wikipedia

Bookmarklets
Wikipedia defines a bookmarklet as a small JavaScript program that can be stored as a URL within a bookmark in a browser or within a link on a web page.

They can provide an easy way of accessing and using Wikia by having a shortcut to options not within the main wiki interface.

This purge bookmarklet lets you purge any MediaWiki page with one click: javascript:location=location + '?action=purge'; .

If you're wondering what the other language versions of your wiki are up to, bookmark this link which will translate any page when clicked: javascript:location='http://translate.google.com/translate?u=' + encodeURIComponent(location);

This tool uses Google's translator. See language tools for a list of which languages this works with.