Help:Testing

Before committing to a change, one should test it first.

There is a "Show preview" button near the submit button. One should check to make sure that the links are correct and the spelling is correct.

Spelling

Linuxquestions.org appears to have a spelling checker in their modified version of MediaWiki. Also, one can use Konqueror or Firefox with a spelling check extension to check to spell within the browser window. Note that this does not work when using syntax highlighting.

This applies anyway for tests that depend on settings which are different per project, such as:

• interlanguage links (software feature)
• case-sensitivity of the first character
• character encoding
• enabling of
  embedding images in other projects and images outside Wikimedia
• MediaWiki:Monobook.css, etc.
• tests depending on other content, such as templates, images
• tests depending on project-specific variables such as namespace prefixes

It can be done:

• in special pages such as Draft:Sandbox
• on user pages and subpages
• using Preview. This cannot be used to test how a change in a page affects another page, such as when changing a
  automatic conversion of wikitext, the new wikitext can be seen pressing "Show changes". Automatic conversion of special characters
  to their decimal numeric codes is seen in the edit box.

An advantage of the test Wikipedia is that is does not interfere with or clutter the regular projects. The project may be reset or history may otherwise be lost, so one has to save elsewhere what one wants to keep.

• m:MediaWiki test script