Help:Sandbox

File:Sandbox in account bar.jpg

Screenshot of homepage with Sandbox area in the account bar expanded

A Sandbox page is a page created for learning and experimentation with wiki features. They can also be used to draft articles that you do not want other to edit yet.

If you have registered an account you can find or create your own user sandbox. For future easy access, you can put {{My sandbox}} on your userpage.

Examples:

• User:Tom/sandbox

Uses for a sandbox

• Experimentation with making edits to the wiki
• Drafting a new article so others will not make edits to it until you are ready
• Draft major revisions of articles over time, without others making edits, and being able to share the draft with others
• Taking notes
• lower viability

Sandbox etiquette and visibility

Editors are encouraged to refrain from making changes to other editors sandboxes without permission.

Anything added on Saintapedia is visible to anyone, however sandboxes have a lower visibility than typical Saintapedia articles and are more difficult to find.

Creating your own sandbox

File:Account bar with Sandbox.png

Account bar with Sandbox (when signed into Saintapedia)

All of these methods assume you have already logged into the wiki.

Using the link in the Account bar

1. Click on "Sandbox" red link in the upper right hand corner of the screen
2. Add contents to the page
3. Save the page

Using a Saintapedia badge

The easiest way to create your own sandbox off your User page is to

1. add the {{My sandbox}} Saintapedia badge to your user page's {{Badge box}}
2. Follow the "Create your sandbox" link
3. Add contents to the page
4. Save the page

Manually

1. Create a link to the page you want. You can do this by editing your userpage and adding [[/sandbox]]; this will link to a subpage called "sandbox".
2. Click the link (which should be red, because the page does not exist yet).
3. Write something in the edit window, add an edit summary, and press save. You can press the edit button to make further changes.

Drafting pages in a sandbox

Sandboxes are a way for editors to draft new articles without others making changes to them or to draft changes to a page without applying those changes right away. This is often done to allow:

• Make changes based on that feedback
• Work on the article over a longer period of time

You can create as many sandboxes as you need. Additional sandboxes are often created by adding a number (Sandbox2, Sandbox3, etc.) following the same way you creating any other page.

Draft new page

• Determine where to create it
  • If you do not have a sandbox, follow the steps above to create your own sandbox.
    • If you use Enhanced editor when creating the page
  • If you already have a sandbox and do not need its contents, delete everything on it and save the page. Using Enhanced editor makes it easy to ensure you get everything.
• Start writing the article. Visual editor is recommended for most editing.

Creating a copy of a page

1. Open the page to be copied with Enhanced editor
2. Copy all the contents in the Text input box
3. Open the your sandbox using Enhanced editor (maybe in a new tab)
4. Paste the the contents in the Text input box
5. Save your sandbox (ideally with an Edit summary)

Publishing your draft

When you have finished developing your draft and are ready to publish, there are two paths depending on if you are:

1. Updating existing page
2. Creating a new page

Updating existing page

To use the changes you have developed in your sandbox to update an existing page, you will reverse the steps used to creating a copy of a page

1. Open your sandbox with Enhanced editor
2. Copy all the contents in the Text input box
3. Open the page you want to update using Enhanced editor (maybe in a new tab)
4. Paste the the contents in the Text input box
5. Save the page being updated (ideally with an Edit summary)

Creating a new page

There are two ways to move a page you developed in your sandbox into an article.

Copy

1. Edit your sandbox
2. Copy the entire contents
3. Paste the contents to
   • a new page or
   • an existing page (if doing an overhaul of the page/article)

Rename and break redirect

1. Rename the page with an appropriate title (see Naming conventions)
2. Break the redirect that points your sandbox to the new article, thus allowing you to use your sandbox for other projects

External links

• Help:My sandbox