Extension:Page Forms/en

Page Forms (known before 2016 as Semantic Forms) is an extension to MediaWiki that allows users to add, edit and query data using forms. It was originally created as an offshoot of the extension, to be able to edit templates that store their parameters via SMW, which is why it was originally called "Semantic Forms". However, it can now also work with the alternative extension, or with neither extension installed.

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

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

The Page Forms extension is mostly used to add and edit calls to infobox-style templates within pages. A form allows a user to populate a pre-defined set of templates, as well as page sections, for any page; if Cargo or Semantic MediaWiki are used, the data within the templates can then be stored and queried.

Forms can also be used to edit the data in an existing page, and you can enable an "edit with form" tab to show up on any page.

Page Forms also supports autocompletion of fields, so users can easily see what the previously-entered values were for a given field. This greatly helps to avoid issues of naming ambiguity, spelling, etc.

Data in a page that doesn't fit into the form, like a free-form text description of the page's subject, isn't ignored when the page is edited with a form; rather, it is placed into a separate input box called "free text".

Page Forms also includes a wide variety of other functionality related to forms.

Below are links to the entire documentation.




 * How to download Page Forms via either Git, a standard download, or a software package; and how to install it.




 * How to get started with Page Forms right away.




 * Wiki hosting sites that support Page Forms, plus public wikis that can be used for trying out the software.




 * All the "special pages" that Page Forms defines: the ones that provide helper forms (Special:CreateProperty, Special:CreateTemplate, Special:CreateForm, Special:CreateCategory, Special:CreateClass), the ones that display lists (Special:Templates, Special:Forms), the ones used to display actual forms (Special:FormEdit, Special:FormStart, Special:RunQuery, Special:UploadWindow) and one that provides a spreadsheet-like interface to edit multiple pages containing a template (Special:MultiPageEdit).




 * The template-based philosophy of Page Forms - plus information on the four parser functions that PF defines for templates: #template_params, #template_display, #arraymap and #arraymaptemplate.




 * This is the first of the three major sections. How to define a form via a page within the "Form:" namespace. Covers the entire form-definition syntax, including the,  ,  ,  ,  and  tags. Also covers how to add tabs and tooltips.




 * The second major section. A listing of all allowed input types, as well as parameters for each, and the set of SMW and Cargo data types that each can be used with.




 * The third major section. Information on setting possible/allowed values for the relevant input types, including "mapping" values to friendlier display names, options related to autocompletion, and the "show on select" parameter.




 * How to get the "edit with form" tab to appear on pages, using the #default_form parser function. Plus, how to rename the tab to simply "edit", and how to remove the standard "edit" tab (if you want to).




 * How to bring users to forms, via the #forminput, #formlink, #formredlink and #queryformlink functions. Also, how to use #formredlink to have red-linked pages created automatically. Also, how to create links that directly modify a page, via the #autoedit function.




 * Creating forms to query data, instead of to modify data, via the Special:RunQuery page.




 * Common issues people have run into, and their solutions, relating to forms, data structure design, and the use of Page Forms with other extensions.




 * Known bugs in the software, and potential workarounds for them; plus features that are planned in the current "development roadmap".




 * Where to ask questions, submit bug reports, submit feature requests, submit fixes, and add new translations.




 * Information for developers who want to modify Page Forms, or create an extension that works in tandem with it.




 * The main authors, others who have contributed to the code, and credits to other organizations and software projects.




 * A version history of Page Forms, from May 2007 to the present.




 * A small sampling of the wikis that use Page Forms, plus links to more comprehensive lists.




 * Extensions that require the presence of Page Forms, extensions that can be used together with Page Forms, and extensions that have a similar purpose to Page Forms.