Help:Preferences
Preferences are settings made by a logged-in user that control that user's account and various aspects of the user's viewing and editing environment.
To access the preferences screen (having logged on), click My preferences (near the upper right corner of every page by default) or go to the special pages link on the left side of the page, and select Preferences from under the Users and rights heading.
User profile tab
Here are some of the more important settings:
- Username: Your user name. Only bureaucrats can change your username.
- User ID: A number assigned to your account when you created it (for example, if your number is 42 you are the 42nd user to sign up at this particular wiki).
- Number of edits: How many edits you have made.
- Registration time - The date and time when you signed up for a Saintapedia account
- Real name: If provided, this will be used for attribution (rather than using your username). Providing your real name is optional.
- Password: See Change password
- Language
- How do you prefer to be described? Setting this preference is optional. The software uses its value to address you and to mention you to others using the appropriate grammatical gender. This information will be public.
- Gender neutral
- She edits
- He edits
- Signature: When you sign your name (using
~~~~), what you enter here will be used at the start instead of a simple link to your user page. By default, whatever you enter here be shown as the text for a link to your user page- New signature - If you want a more customized signature
- Treat signature as wikitext (without an automatic link) - Allows you to add wikitext
- E-mail options
- Email - Your registered email address (required) can also changed to another address
- Email confirmation
- Email settings - All of these checked by default. Any can be unchecked, if desired.
- Allow other users to email me
- Allow emails from brand-new users
- Send me copies of emails I send to other users
- Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed
- Email me also for minor edits of pages and files
Change password
To change your password:
- Go to Special:Preferences
- Select "Change password"
- enter your old password in the first box and your new password in the last two.
If you want this site to remember your login, check Remember my login on this computer. Note that this function requires you to have cookies enabled in your browser, and if your cookie is cleared or expires you will no longer be remembered.
After you supply an email address, you will need to click the verify address button in order to use these functions. You will receive an email; simply open it and follow the link to enable the following functions.
If you did not get an email, you can review the email address entered, and change it if needed, on Special:Preferences. You must be logged into Saintapedia. Your email address can be found on the User Profile tab under E-mail confirmation. There is a "Change email address" link to right of your address.
You can also change any of the following functions in the same location:
- Allow others users to email mail
- Allow emails from brand-new users
- Send me copies of emails I send to other users
- Email me when when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed
- Email me also for minor edits of pages and files
Appearance tab
The first option of the Appearance preferences is "skin", which allows you to change the overall appearance of Saintapedia. Users are strongly encouraged to keep this at the default option, "Vector 
". Some Saintapedia features will not work correctly using other skins.
Date format
Examples
- No preference
- 15:09, September 29, 2020
- 15:09, 29 September 2020
- 15:09, 2020 September 29
- 2020-09-29T15:09:32
Time offset
- Server time
- Local time
- Time zone
- Default is "America/New York"
- "Use Wiki default (EST5EDT)"
- "Other (specify offset)" with an offset of -5:00
- Selecting "Fill in from your browser" will work for most users.
Image size
Depending on your screen size, you might wish to adjust the settings below
- "Image size limit"
- For file description pages
- Default is "800x600px"
- "Thumbnail size". This affects the default size at which many images in articles will be displayed.
Diffs and Advanced options
When looking the Difference view, you can change two settings:
- Do not show page content below diffs
- Don't show diff after performing a rollback
Under the Advanced options you can
- Show hidden categories
- Auto-number headings
- Don't show the Article feedback tool on pages
- Do not sort category links in the pages (display in default MediaWiki order)
Editing tab
Several settings are available to determine the appearance and behavior while editing pages. Options you can set include:
General
Enable section editing by right clicking on section titles
If this option is checked, a right-click on the section title will bring up the edit box for that section only, just as if you had clicked the small [edit] link beside the heading.
Edit pages on double click
If this option is checked, a double click anywhere on the page will bring up the edit box for the entire contents of the page, just like what happens when you click on the "edit" tab at the top of the page.
Editor
Mark all edits minor by default
This option automatically selects the "This is a minor edit" checkbox when you edit pages. You will still be able to indicate whether or not each edit is minor, no matter how the default is set. Minor edits include formatting, fixing typos, and other edits where it is reasonable to assume no other editors are likely to have any objections to the edit.
Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary
If selected, the editor will display a warning message when no edit summary is provided. This can help you remember to provide edit summaries, as they of great use to other editors. Providing brief edit summaries is strongly recommended for all edits, so it is recommended that this option be kept turned on.
Warn me when I leave an edit page with unsaved changes
A good reminder if you navigate away from the page by accident.
Show edit toolbar
Hides the Edit toolbar.
Enable enhanced editing toolbar
In compatible browsers, the enhanced toolbar developed as part of the Usability Initiative will be displayed.
Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta
This allows you to disable VisualEditor.
Preview
Show preview on first edit
When pressing the edit button or otherwise following a link to an edit page, a preview will appear, just like after pressing "Show preview".
Show preview before edit box
If you select this option, the edit preview will be displayed above the Enhanced editor edit box when you click the "Show preview" button while editing a page.
Show previews without reloading the page
When using the Enhanced editor, it allows you see a preview of the changes you have made without saving them.
Reported editing tab issues
Depending on the number of upgrades to Saintapedia, these issues may have been resolved.
- Settings for the number of columns and rows in the editing window do not appear to have any effect.
- The side-by-side preview will sometimes leave text hidden at the top of the edit window under the advanced menu bar. If this occurs, click Advanced twice to hide and redisplay the menu bar.
- The Publish button does nothing, and the Cancel button works like the Publish button would be expected to.
- Selecting the Navigable table of contents causes the signature icon to place the signature near the top of the edit window, inserts extraneous blank lines when the edits are saved, and interferes with the edit area font style selected in the preferences.
Recent changes tab
On the Recent changes tab, you can choose what appears on your Recent changes page (linked in the sidebar, and available at Special:RecentChanges).
Display options
Days to show in recent changes
The number of days' worth of changes to show in the Recent Changes list.
The default is 30 days and the maximum is 90 days.
Number of edits to show by default
You may select the number of changes which will be shown by default on the Recent Changes page, all page "history" tabs, and on some log pages at Special:Log. Links are provided for other options on those pages.
The default is 50 and maximum is 1000.
Advanced options
You can:
- Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist
- Hide minor edits from recent changes - Sets so that edits marked as minor are not shown in the recent changes list.
- Hide patrolled edits from recent changes
- Hide patrolled pages from new page list
Watchlist tab
The options on the Watchlist tab control what appears on your watchlist (accessible by visiting the page Special:Watchlist, or clicking "Watchlist" in the top-right of the page).
Note: to enable the "enhanced watchlist", select "Expand watchlist..." on this tab, and then "Use enhanced recent changes" on the Recent Changes tab.
Edit watchlist options
Account holders can edit entries on their watchlist by:
Display options
Days to show in watchlist
This is the number of days' worth of changes to show in your watchlist.
The default is 3 days and the maximum is 90 days.
Maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist
This controls how many recent changes to show for each watched article when "Expand watchlist" is switched on under "Advanced options".
The default is 500 changes and the maximum is 1000 changes.
Advanced options
Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent
This option will expand the watchlist to include all changes made to an article within the time-frame of your watchlist, up to a maximum number (as set in "Display options"). Normally, only the most recent modification is shown.
Other options
- Hide minor edits from the watchlist
- Hide bot edits from the watchlist
- Hide my edits from the watchlist - Hides the editor's changes
- Hide edits by anonymous users from the watchlist - No anonymous changes can be made to Saintapedia
- Hide edits by logged in users from the watchlist
- Use these options to filter out unwanted revisions from the watchlist.
- Checking this would hide all changes.
- Reload the watchlist automatically whenever a filter is changed (JavaScript required)
- Add direct unwatch/watch markers (×/+) to watched pages with changes (JavaScript required for toggle functionality)
- Hide patrolled edits from the watchlist
- Use this option to filter out patrolled edits (edits made by administrators and so forth).
- his is particularly useful when monitoring vandalism, as patrolled edits can only be made by trusted users.
- Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist - Turned on by default for all editors
- Add pages and files I move to my watchlist - Turned on by default for all editors
- Add pages and files I delete to my watchlist - Only Admins can delete
- Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist
- Turned on by default for all editors
- Automatically select the check box to "Watch this page" when performing any of these actions.
- You can de-select the check box on a page if you do not wish to watch that particular page.
- Add pages where I have performed a rollback to my watchlist
- Add new files I upload to my watchlist - Turned on by default for all editors
Watchlist token
If you want an RSS feed to be generated from your watchlist, you can input a secret token here. Anyone who knows this token can use it to access your watchlist. You don't actually need to store this value when you subscribe to the RSS feed, the browser will store it for you. A randomly-generated token is provided below the text box if you need inspiration.
Misc tab
This tab contains other options that don't belong anywhere else.
Diffs
See Help:Diff for general information on diffs (what a diff is, etc).
- Do not show page content below diffs
- Normally, when viewing a diff, the page content as of the second revision is presented. You can turn off this display using this option, to allow for faster loading of diff pages.
- Omit diff after performing a rollback
- When rolling back edits, a confirmation page containing a diff will be shown. This option will prevent the display of that page.
Additional information
For detailed information about available preference settings in these tabs, read Meta-Wikipedia's Preferences page.