Help:Go button
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This is a copy of the master help page at Meta. Do not edit this copy. Edits will be lost in the next update from the master page. See below for more information. |
The Go button appears on all MediaWiki pages, next to the Search button. The function of the Go button is to directly navigate to a page which name is entered in the search field.
How it works
The Go button is more complex than it looks. It works as follows (each time, only continuing if there is no match):
- Check existence of the page exactly as it is entered (note that most projects have case-insensitivity of the first character of the whole page name, and in the case of a namespace prefix, of the first character after that). For example, if you entered "the test Page", MediaWiki could navigate to The test Page.
- Try all lower case: the test page.
- Try all words capitalized: The Test Page.
- Try the all upper case version: THE TEST PAGE.
If no such variations are found, a full text search is performed as if you clicked the "Search" button.
Go button generates little server load, and therefore usually remains functional even if the fulltext search is deactivated for performance reasons.
Usage
If you use the Go button wisely, it will allow you to quickly jump to your most frequently used pages.
It is also a good idea to use it for unambiguous searches -- if a direct match fails, it will always fall back to the normal search anyway, and if it succeeds, you are immediately taken where you want to go.
A special feature is that applying Go on an IP number gives the User contributions of that IP.
It's often benefitial to utilize existing redirects and namespaces aliases. For example, in most Wikimedia projects one can use short alias "user:" instead of longer localized version.
Depending on the contents of MediaWiki:Nogomatch there may be a link to the edit page of the non-existent page, see e.g. w:MediaWiki:Nogomatch. A useful side-effect is that this allows going conveniently to a page on another wiki, by adding the interwiki prefix, albeit that the text "create an article with this title" would not be accurate for the link, in the case of an existing page. Also the CSS-class of the link is "new", not "extiw".
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Wikipedia-specific help
This page is a copy of the master help page at Meta (for general help information all Wikimedia projects can use), with two Wikipedia-specific templates inserted. To update the main text, edit the master help page for all projects at m:Help:Go button. For Wikipedia-specific issues, use Template:Ph:Go button (the extra text at the bottom of this page) or Template:Phh:Go button for a Wikipedia-specific lead (text appears at the top of this page). You are welcome to replace the full wikitext of this page with that of the master page at Meta at any time. To view this page in other languages see the master page at Meta.
