GIST Support WikiThe Recent Changes page on this wiki lets you see the most recent edits made to pages in the wiki. It allows users to monitor and review the work of other users. There is a link to the Recent Changes page at the top of each page. You can also create a link to the page as [[Special:Recentchanges]].
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[edit] Understanding Recent Changes
[edit] Selecting what is shown
There are many options offered at the top of the recent changes page to allow you to only show certain edits.
- By default, the most recent 50 edits (or the number entered into your personal preferences) are shown. You can click on the numbers, ( 50 | 100 | 250 | 500 ), to display a different number per page.
- You can limit changes to a specific timeframe including ( 1 | 3 | 7 | 14 | 30 ) days by clicking the appropriate number.
- You can also click on the links to filter what edits are included in the list:
- Hide minor edits (see minor edits)
- Show bots (see here for a description of bots).
- Hide anonymous users (hides all users not logged in)
- Hide logged-in users (can be used to help catch vandals)
- Hide my edits (hides your own edits - made when you were logged in)
- Show new changes starting from date (see below for details)
[edit] Understanding each line
Each line in the Recent changes page represents a new edit. Below is a description of the different parts of each line:
From left to right:
- "(diff)" is a link to the diff-page for this edit. It's purpose is to show the difference between page versions. It is not available for new pages, or when pages are renamed.
- "(hist)" is a link that takes you to the Page history of the edited page. This allows you to see all edits to the page.
- "(Deletion Log)" and "(Move Log)" will show up in place of the (diff) and (hist) links when a page is deleted or renamed (i.e., "moved"). These will link to a log that shows all deleted and moved pages.
- A bold m indicates that the user marked the edit as a minor edit. Only logged in users can mark edits minor, to avoid abuse.
- A bold N indicates that the page is new.
- The page title is a link to the current version of the page that was edited. It will be bold if you are watching the page. For page moves, a link is given to both the old and new page title.
- The numbers (e.g., 10:06) refer to the time in UTC. You can change the time to your time zone using your preferences (see Help:Preferences#Date_and_time_Tab).
- For logged in users, the next link is a link to their user homepage. As is typical, a red link indicates that the user homepage does not contain any information yet. For users who are not logged in, the IP address is shown and it links to their User contribution page.
- "(contribs)" is a link to a page showing all of the editor's prior contributions. Administrators see "(contribs | block)" instead. The block link blocks the user from posting (see Help:Administration#Block_and_unblock for details).
- The italicized comment at the far right shows the edit summary comment that was entered into the "Summary" box by the editor to describe the edit. If nothing was added, then this section is left blank. Some edit summaries begin with an arrow link and grey text. This means the user has only edited a section of the page (named in the grey text). This text is automatically added when you edit a section.
[edit] Preferences
The default look of the recent changes page can be changed in the Recent changes Tab of your preferences. This is only available to logged in users.
The options that affect recent changes are:
- Titles in recent changes. You may select the number of changes which will be shown by default on the Recent Changes and Watchlist page. When visiting those pages links are provided for other options.
- Hide minor edits in recent changes. Registered users may choose to mark edits as minor edits when they are not worth notifying other users about (e.g., fixing a spelling error). This applies to Recent Changes, but not to the Watchlist, where all changes are shown.
- Enhanced recent changes (JavaScript). Checking this box changes the look of the Recent changes page. Specifically, it shows an arrow to the left of article title. When clicked on, a list of all edits made to that page on the specified day are shown. Enhanced recent changes does not work in all browsers and requires that JavaScript be enabled in your browser.
[edit] Advanced topics
[edit] Viewing new changes starting from a particular time
If you have loaded the recent changes at, for example, 09:45 Feb 25, 2003, it gives a link "Show new changes starting from 09:45 Feb 25, 2003", giving you the changes you have not seen yet. In order to use this link later, after you have used the browser window for other things, or if you switch off the computer in between, you can instruct your browser to bookmark it (with Internet Explorer: right-click on the link and choose "add to favorites"). Alternatively, you can save the page to your computer with recent changes.
The URL will include the date information and can be manually modified to change the date. Here is what it looks like:
http://gistsupport.medshelf.org/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&from=20061201182948
The numbers are in the format: yyyymmddhhmmss in UTC time.
The "Number of titles in recent changes" set as preference is still applicable.
This feature can not be used in conjunction with "hide logged in users" (see below) unless the URL is modified manually.
[edit] Editing records that are changed or lost
After a page has been renamed (moved), earlier edits, including the original creation of the page, are shown in Recent Changes under the new name.
After a page has been deleted, earlier edits, including the original creation of the page, are not shown in Recent Changes.
[edit] Bots
It is possible for administrators to mark some edits as bot edits (see here for details). This stops them from showing up in the recent changes by default. If you need to see these edits you can click on the "Show Bots" link at the top of Recent Changes.
[edit] Other Wiki features showing lines about edits
Other pages show edits in a similar way as they are shown in Recent changes. These include:
- Page histories associated with every page and accessible by clicking on the "History" tab at the top of each page.
- The Special:Watchlist page available only to logged in users. It shows recent changes of all pages you are watching.
- User contribution pages that list changes made by individual users.