Style Guide

✍️ Style Guide

This wiki follows ASD-STE100 (Simplified Technical English), in spirit rather than as a literal certified word-list audit. If you're contributing a new page or editing an existing one, follow these rules.

Writing rules

1. Short sentences. One idea per sentence. If a sentence has more than one "and", split it.
2. Active voice. "Click Install", not "Install should be clicked". "Wine translates the call", not "The call is translated by Wine".
3. Imperative mood for instructions. Steps are commands: "Open Settings", "Check the box", "Click OK".
4. One term per concept. Don't call the same thing by two different names on the same page (pick "Wine prefix", not "prefix" in one sentence and "WINEPREFIX" in the next, unless you're specifically naming the environment variable). Define every term once in the Glossary. Link to it the first time a page uses it.
5. Numbered steps for procedures. Use a numbered list for anything the reader does in order. Use bullets only for non-sequential information.
6. No jargon stacking. Don't chain three technical terms in a row without a plain-language anchor. "The CLR's TypeLoadException" is fine once you've defined both terms. "The CLR's WinRT TypeLoadException during JIT resolution" in one unbroken phrase is not.
7. Say what you don't know. If a root cause, a fix, or a distro's compatibility status is genuinely unconfirmed, say so directly ("not root-caused yet", "untested"). Don't guess and present it as fact.

Page structure

Every install-method guide page ends with, in this order:

1. ## Troubleshooting: problems and fixes specific to following the steps on that page.
2. ## Known Issues: bugs in the underlying software (Affinity, Wine, the launcher) that this page's steps can't fix, with a workaround if one exists.
3. ## FAQ: only if real, distinct questions exist beyond what Troubleshooting/Known Issues already cover. Skip this section entirely rather than padding it.

Cross-cutting issues that affect more than one install method go on General Known Issues instead of appearing on every page.

Emoji

Used sparingly, for scanning, not decoration:

Emoji	Meaning
✅ / ✔️	Done, working, confirmed
🟨	Partial, in progress, or "supported but unconfirmed"
❌	Not working, blocked, or explicitly unsupported
⚠️	Warning, caution, unstable
❓	Untested, unknown
🗺️	Roadmap
📜	Credits, legal
💬	Community, Discord
🐧	Linux, general

Links

• Link to another wiki page by its filename without .md: [Install Guide: Wine](Install-Guide-Wine).
• Link to a file in the code repository with a full URL: https://github.com/seapear/AffinityOnLinux/blob/main/Guides/....
• Link to a screenshot with a raw URL pinned to main: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/seapear/AffinityOnLinux/main/Guides/<Folder>/Screenshots/<file>.png.
• Never invent a URL. If you don't have a real source for a link, don't add one.

Credit

If a fix, a tip, or a bug report came from a specific person (a Discord user, a GitHub issue reporter, an upstream project maintainer), name them, the same way Credits does. Don't let attribution get lost when content moves or gets rewritten.