Page Editing
In XWiki all pages are editable (provided you are logged in and/or have the edit rights). To edit a page, all you have to do is to click the arrow in the "Edit" button. Please note the location of the "Edit" button varies depending on the skin your wiki is using.
If you're using the Flamingo skin you should see the following:
Simple and Advanced editing modes
Since XWiki is an application wiki, not all users will need to use the same features. This is why XWiki comes with a Simple and an Advanced editing mode. Users can easily choose which editing mode they prefer on their profile (available at the top right of the page when you are logged in). This way, standard users do not have to choose between editing modes they may not be familiar with. By default new users are given the Simple editing mode but they can switch to the Advanced mode as described below.
Simple Mode
After clicking the "Edit" button in Simple mode, XWiki will automatically edit the page in the Basic mode (WYSIWYG or Wiki) for standard pages and in Form mode for pages which include Forms. The two editing modes available in Simple mode are:
Advanced Mode
Experienced XWiki users will want to use all the editing choices (particularly those who want to use XWiki programming features). They can choose to switch to advanced mode on their user profile page (see image below). Following this, clicking on the arrow in the "Edit" button on any page will display the full editing menu, letting the user choose which mode he wants to use ("Wiki", "Inline form", "Objects"...).
Once you have switched to advanced mode, the "Edit" menu will look like this on mouse click:
In addition, advanced users have the ability to create Terminal pages (i.e. pages that can't have children).
Common edit actions
All edit modes have some or all of the elements in the following image :
The minor edit checkbox is meant to mark the fact that superficial changes were made to the document. Such changes may include, but are not restricted to: spelling error corrections, text rearrangements, formatting. It is the editor's responsibility to distinguish between major and minor changes.
By default, minor edits do not appear in the "What's New" page and in the document history. The option "Show minor edits" will list all the versions, including minor ones.
The Version summary field allows entering a short description of the changes made to the document in the version that is being saved. It is displayed in the history page and it is meant to increase comprehensibility of the content's evolution.
The Cancel button causes the changes to be discarded and forwards to the document view mode.
The Preview button shows the document as it would look with the current changes saved, but does not actually change the document. From the preview mode, the user will be able to cancel the changes, return to edit mode or save the changes. This button is not available in all edit modes.
The Save & Continue button submits the current changes and returns to the current edit mode.
The Save & View button submits the current changes and returns to the document view mode.
Autosave
The Autosave feature automatically saves the document you're working on as a minor version at a given interval. Just check the Autosave checkbox next to the action buttons, at the bottom of the editing area. You can optionally change the autosave interval by entering the desired number of minutes in the input following the checkbox.
Wiki editing mode
This is a mode you should be familiar with if you're already a wiki user. In this mode you can enter text using a simple Wiki Syntax. Note that the Help Application provides help on the syntax when editing a page.
This is how the wiki edit mode looks like with the Flamingo skin:
Choosing a Syntax
You have the option to choose what syntax you want to use for writing the content of the page (see the XWiki Syntax Guide for more details and the Rendering wiki for a full list of available syntaxes). To choose the syntax to use for the current page, go in wiki edit mode and in the Information Panel select the syntax to use.
For example using the Flamingo Skin:
Converting between Syntaxes
If you already have content for the page in a given Syntax and you try to change the Syntax to another one then XWiki will propose to convert your content to the new Syntax if it knows how to perform that conversion (converting to XWiki Syntax 2.0+ will always prompt for a conversion). The quality of the conversion will usually be good but may depend on the quality of the original Syntax; for example converting from XWiki Syntax 1.0 to XWiki Syntax 2.0+ may not generate perfect result and you'll need to review manually the result.
WYSIWYG editing mode
This mode is ideal for first time users or people who do not want to use the Wiki Syntax. It's a mode similar to the one used by your favorite word processor in which you see how what you type is rendered. There's a toolbar available to add special effects to your text, add images, insert links, add macros, etc.
Read the documentation for using the WYSIWYG editor for more details.
Setting the page parent
Starting with XWiki 7.2, the concept of setting the page parent has been deprecated in favor of the Nested Pages feature. The location of a page is no longer controlled by the "parent" field. In order to change a page's location you now need to Rename or Move it to another location.
For example a page "CEO" inside a page "Boarding" inside a page "Management" inside a page "Staff" you would have the following Breadcrumb:
In order to have an organized structure of your page, when you create a new page in a space, its parent will be automatically set to be the WebHome page of the space in which you create the page.
If you want to change the parent of the page, you have to edit the page with wiki or wysiwyg editors.
Click on the small pencil above the page title in order to edit the page parent.
Hiding Pages
It's possible to hide (or unhide) pages. When a page is hidden, it'll still be visible if you navigate to it but it'll disappear from Search, Page Index, Navigation Trees, etc. However the hidden page will still be visible to users who've configured their user profile to show Hidden Pages. By default users don't see hidden pages.
To hide a page, edit it in Wiki or WYSIWYG edit mode and set the flag as shown below:
Form editing mode (aka inline mode)
Inline mode, or Form mode, is a special feature of XWiki, that allows administrators to define patterns of structured information (like a blog entry, or a standard tax form). Pages containing such structured information can be edited and re-edited as simple HTML Forms, which have (almost) the same structure as the displayed page. Thus, when clicking the edit button, it seems that the page content can be edited in-place, or inline and the form view is automatically displayed.
Technically the inline mode is triggered automatically differently whether the page is written in XWiki Syntax 1.0 or 2.0, using the following algorithm:
- XWiki Syntax 1.0: If the page contains a call to #includeForm()
- XWiki Syntax 2.0: If the page is including another page which itself contains an object of the type XWiki.SheetClass
Note that it is beyond the scope of this simple guide to explain the programming technique supporting this feature. Please check the Developer's Guide to find out more about programming with Objects/Classes and Forms.
Objects editing mode
In XWiki it's possible to attach Objects to pages. Objects are simple sets of properties with values that add additional information about a page. For example a security right can be added to a page to control its rights, a blog object is attached to a page representing a blog entry, etc. Again, it's beyond this simple guide to explain this programming technique. Please check the Developer's Guide to know more about programming with Objects/Classes.
Classes editing mode
We've seen that some pages can have Objects attached to them. Some pages can also be Object definitions, a.k.a Classes. The Classes editing mode calls the class editor on the current page, allowing to edit the Classes attached to the document. Again, it's beyond this simple guide to explain this programming technique. Please check the Developer's Guide to find out more about programming with Objects/Classes.
Access Rights editing mode
This mode allows you to control the access rights for the page you're viewing (you need to have the required access rights to modify a page's rights). See the Rights Management topic for more information.
Full Screen Mode
A full-screen mode is available in XWiki. When editing a page either in Wiki or WYSIWYG mode, clicking on the button at the top right of the edit box will send the editor in full-screen mode. You can then edit your page as usual and click on the button to return to the usual interface when you are finished.
The button you need to click to go in full-screen mode 
Editing while in full-screen mode 
Title Behavior
Pages have both names and titles. The page name is used in the URL to the page while the title is used to display a user-friendly short description of the page. The title is used for example as the top level headings when viewing a page.
Page titles can be set while editing documents in Wiki or WYSIWYG modes.
Titles are not mandatory by default but it's possible to configure XWiki to make titles mandatory.
The title's content is parsed using Velocity so you're also allowed to put Velocity content in there in addition to plain text (this is for example useful when wanting to internationalize titles). Note that you're not allowed to use any wiki markup.
When a page has no title set then XWiki will use the page name as its title.
Locking
By default, when you edit a page, a lock is put on the page, till you either Save or Cancel the edition.
If you navigate away from the page without Saving or Cancelling, the lock will remain for a predetermined period of time (the duration can be configured). This is why it's recommended to Cancel if you're not making any change to the page instead of just closing your browser tab for example.
Anyone trying to edit a page that is locked will see the following warning message allowing you to know that the page is locked and also to force the lock.
If you force the lock then the last user who saves will overwrite the content with his version of the page.
