Page Forms

Draft

Introduction

Semantic Forms is an Mediawiki extension for the Semantic MediaWiki extension.

Semantic Forms is an extension to MediaWiki that allows users to add, edit and query data using forms. It is heavily tied in with the Semantic MediaWiki extension, and is meant to be used for structured data that has semantic markup. Having Semantic MediaWiki installed is a precondition for the Semantic Forms extension; the code will not work without it (and you must have version 1.4 or higher of SMW).

Very simply, Semantic Forms allows you to have forms for adding, editing and querying data on your wiki, without any programming. Forms can be created and edited not just by administrators, but by users themselves.

The main components of Semantic Forms functionality are form definition pages, which exist in a new namespace, 'Form:'. These are pages consisting of markup code which gets parsed when a user goes to add or edit data. Since forms are defined strictly through these definition pages, users can themselves create and edit forms, without the need for any actual programming.

(Extension:Semantic Forms, retrieved 13:30, 25 August 2011 (CEST))

The semantic forms extension is very complex and requires a bit of technical background in both knowledge representation and markup languages. However, a few special pages can help with creation of various items needed to define a form and the underlying semantic data structures.

Principles

Workflow for creating a form

A form is usually made for creating object of a given type.

1. Define properties that will represent the data structure of objects.
2. Create templates, one for each object
3. Create forms for creating objects with values
4. Create categories, typically one for each form/object
5. Enable links to forms
6. Add data using forms

SMW principles

(should be moved to its own page once I get going ...)

Data in Semantic MediaWiki are defined by properties. Each property must be created as a page in the properties namespace. E.g. to create a name property, use:

[[property:: name]]

The easiest way to create such a property page is to use the Special:CreateProperty "special" page.

Properties do have data types, for example

• Page (i.e. the value of the property is a wiki page)
• String (a short text)
• Text (a longer text)
• Code (same but pre-formatted)
• URL
• Number
• Date
• Enumeration
• Boolean

The Form markup language

The markup language used by this extension uses the MediaWiki templates syntax. “Forms are defined using a set of tags that specify templates and fields within those templates. Wiki-text, and some HTML, can be freely embedded anywhere outside of the tags.” (Extension:Semantic Forms, retrieved 25 August 2011)

Forms must be created within the Form: namespace

• Example: Form:OpinionItem

A somewhat minimual form definition looks like this:

Links

Homepage and download

• Extension:Semantic Forms at mediawiki.org. This page also includes a good manual.

Introductions, manuals

• Extension:Semantic Forms at mediawiki.org. This page also includes a good manual.

• Extension:Semantic Forms/Example (learning by example)

• SMW QuickReference. Includes also help for semantic drilldown and external data.

Examples sites using this extension

• Gardenology.org - Plant & Garden Wiki Encyclopedia,
• Discourse DB
• Example of a form at placeography.org

• OER Resources

• Discourse DB
  • Create an opinion item
  • Magazine template
  • Magazines Category. It shows how to define a default form for a category.
  • Newsweek Magazine entry