Style Guidelines

If you want to contribute to this wiki, we are happy to have you aboard!

To make things easy, we have compiled a list of useful tools and guidelines which you should follow. Having some style guidelines are necessary so that everything looks like it should be (especially when exporting the manual for inclusion with the OpenMPT package), and the reader is not confused reading the same thing with different spelling and so on. First of all, MediaWiki (the wiki software used to run this place) uses its own markup language that does not resemble many other markup languages if you have not worked on any wikis before. For a intro on how to write please refer to the User’s guide for a comprehensive guide.


 * If you are having problems learning the MediaWiki syntax, just use the toolbar above the edit window.
 * Other ways to write a MediaWiki text is using software like eclipse, Gnu Emacs, Vim and other software that has syntax highlighting support.
 * WikED is a GreaseMonkey script for Firefox and other browsers that supports MediaWiki syntax.

Spelling / Punctuation

 * Use “proper” quotes and apostrophes — to be found in the Symbols table in the Special characters tab above the text editor.
 * Apostrophes: “VST's”, and even more so “VST´s” is not a correct english plural. Plurals go without an apostrophe (or even accent as in the latter example), so please remove those when you spot them.
 * Prefer “VST instrument” over “VSTi”.
 * Prefer “plugin” over “VST” where information affects any kind of plugins, not just VST plugins. The plugins that ship with OpenMPT are not VSTs, for instance.
 * Prefer writing out words over informal style, e.g. “you will” instead of “you’ll”, or “cannot” over “can’t”. It simply looks better in such a document.
 * Replace passages written in CAPS by bold print or italic print where it makes sense.
 * Always use “MIDI”, not “Midi” or even “midi”.
 * Similarly, “ModPlug” should be preferred over “Modplug”.
 * “OpenMPT” should be preferred over “MPT”, “ModPlug”, etc.

Templates

 * If a text is unfinished, add a TODO template to the text.
 * If you add information that is only valid for upcoming versions of OpenMPT, add a NewVersion template to the text (if possible).

Screenshots

 * Screenshots of OpenMPT should be made using the Windows Classic theme, not Aero, Luna, Windows 8 or Windows 10 themes.
 * Screenshots should be cropped properly. Use Alt + PrintScreen to capture a whole window.
 * Screenshots should be saved in the PNG format and compressed with PNGGauntlet or similar tools.