Extension talk:Page Forms

Can't seem to get "info|page name=" working?
I'm currently unable to get the "info" tag working partnered with a "page name" variable... My form code is copied below, any hints would be most welcome:



Free text:

and the call for the form:

Clicking the button just directs you to the "main" frontpage of the wiki site. Ashimema (talk) 12:06, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

-OK, I've just narrowed this down to being a problem with "link type=button".. if I leave that out it seems to work as expected? Ashimema (talk) 12:28, 5 July 2012 (UTC)


 * What version of SF are you using? Yaron Koren (talk) 18:15, 5 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry Yaron, should have included that detail in the original post.. Silly me. MW 1.19.0, SMW 1.7.1 and SF 2.4.2 (Also have Results Formats 1.7.1 and Form Inputs 0.5 Installed to.. but don't think they're affecting this issue?) Ashimema (talk) 08:09, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Correction to above, I noticed that Semantic Forms Inputs had a new release i hadn't spotted.. just updated to 0.6. Problem with button type is still apparent. Ashimema (talk) 08:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It's definitely not related to SFI. Actually, my guess is that it's due to your URL structure, in one way or another. What's the URL it take you to when you press on the button - is it literally ".../Main_Page"? Yaron Koren (talk) 18:17, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Had a feeling it wasn't anything to do with those related plugins but thought it worth adding them in to give a complete picture. Removing any extra parameters (i.e. pre-fill options) the URL the button takes me to is "http://wiki.sedar.org.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page". With any of the pre-fill bit's added, they just get appended to the url as expected (and work perfectly if no "link type=button" is present). It's a private wiki, but i don't think there' any sensitive data on there yet so I'de happily add you an account if it helps for tracking down the problem? Ashimema (talk) 07:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, I didn't know this was a public wiki. Yes, an account would be very helpful - please create an account, and send me the details at yaron57 -at- gmail.com. Yaron Koren (talk) 12:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Cheers Yaron.. I've just sent requested login details to your email... Ashimema (talk) 12:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Periodic Disappearance of Data

 * MediaWiki 1.18.3
 * http://foreclosurepedia.org/reo (the front page has a map which used to display markers on a map based upon #ask)
 * http://foreclosurepedia.org/reo/index.php?title=Special:Version (for all the versions of the SMW stuff I use)

About every other month Semantic Forms (or whatever else is on the back end of SMW) completely wipes my data from forms I have entered. Specifically, when I save a form a category is assigned. I then use the category to display an #ask to display pins on a map. They always vanish every other month (I can almost set a clock to this) I have filed multiple requests for help on this and Jeron is familiar with the issue and stated something about a new map update needed. In the past it simply would not be able to list markers on a map which I then had to go in and manually resave to update. Now, though, it has removed the Category association with tons of files; however, they still appear in the All Pages section.

I am pushing a ticket with my host at the same time, but if SMW is going to be consistently unreliable simply let me know so that I may pursue a different platform. I work for the US Government and we felt that this software package would be a good open source alternative to be able to demonstrate it's capabilities. So far, it is not proving such.

I am willing to submit any logs, passwords, etc. you may require as I am hopeful that the SMW community is interested in providing a quality product. --Coffeehound (talk) 06:10, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

A Note: You will notice one pin on the map on the main page. It is there because I selected a file and clicked the Edit and then Saved it. So, I had to manually update --- for NO reason whatsoever other than a glitch --- to keep the data I originally entered! It also added it back to the Category of REO Property Inventory. --Coffeehound (talk) 06:30, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I had my site rolled back to restore the data. So, you will see the main page with map markers populating the data and the files have been restored to their proper category.  The issue still remains, though, and I anticipate it will continue. --Coffeehound (talk) 16:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi - are you sure that this is a Semantic Forms issue? Is the data being lost in the text of the pages themselves, or only in the underlying data being stored by SMW? It's only an SF issue in the former case. Yaron Koren (talk) 02:45, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I do not know where it is getting lost as I do not code. I speculate that as the pages are still in existence, it is related to however SMW moves it's data around and stores it. It only happens with pages which are created by Semantic MediaWiki Forms though. If you want access to the logs or whatever you need let me know. If you need to move the thread so be it. I messaged you as I have some information which is proprietary.

Here is what happens:


 * I enter data through Semantic Forms
 * It stores it just fine and is searchable via Category as well
 * Using an #ask formula my stuff posts to the map (http://foreclosurepedia.org/reo)
 * Every month or so everything vanishes and can only be found via the All Pages feature
 * The pages must be individually edited and then saved to repopulate both the Map and repopulate into the Category
 * There is no known activity on my host's end to explain these actions

Thank you. --Coffeehound (talk) 23:10, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Okay - so the problem is not in the contents of the pages, but rather just in the data stored by SMW. So the issue is with Semantic MediaWiki - or maybe something weird is going on behind the scenes, like some cron job that wipes out all the SMW data in the database. In any case, it doesn't sound like a Semantic Forms issue. The fact that all these pages were created by SF isn't necessarily that relevant, is it? I mean, aren't all of the pages that contain semantic data editable via forms? Yaron Koren (talk) 00:17, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess this is a question to my question. The answer is that I do not know what is related to what as I did not create this Extension.  So, do I repost this under the Semantic MediaWiki Talk where you contribute as well?  As to cron jobs, I have never ran any and really wouldn't know how to do it.  I am left with the impression that there seems to be no concern as to whether or not there is an underlying SMW issue and/or it may be connected to the Forms extension.  Granted, your extensions are free, I would think that attempting to find out what is causing this would be important as your extensions are not only being used by mainstream corporations but contemplated by Wikipedia.


 * So I will ask, once again, are there any logs, access or anything I can provide to attempt to find out what causes this. Should I copy and paste this into the SMW Talk page?  Or, is it simply one of those ghosts in the machine that no one wants to know about.  I am not being crass here; you are a business owner as am I, and these types of hard questions are formulated to get to the bottom of an issue and not fodder to stir an argument about political correctness in how a thread should be drafted. --Coffeehound (talk) 03:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I think everyone who involves him/herself in the SMW project is committed to make it better software but may I remind you that it is a voluntary project (speaking for SMW and related extension that are not supported by a commercial partner) therefore you should recognize that support comes where members can spare time and effort.


 * Aside from this and looking at your post, the post is missing specific symptoms your experience, as to when they occur and in which dependency there are to an user/system activity. For people to be able to help, normally a symptom needs to be describe in certain detail, together with its user interaction. For example a description such as everything vanishes without any interaction? Just to compare we are running are research database with nearly 1.5M property-value pairs and we never have seen that values just vanishes, so their must be a process (event) that initiates the describe behaviour. (Is it always exact one month before the data vanishes, are all properties gone or only a particular sub-set, does the server run periodic jobs that correlate with the described behaviour etc.).


 * Logs will merely be helpful at the beginning since no clear indication exists as to what to look for but maybe one could deactivate all extension that are not related to SMW in order to make sure that symptoms are related to SMW and not caused by another extension. If this is an infeasible solution, one should consider to build a "vanilla" system and import relevant data and try to identify at wich state the describe symptoms occur. Also since it seems a SF unrelated issue the SMW mailing list might be a better place to seek support. (On a personal note: You might refrain from using the "US Government" label as means to find accelerated support, people do this in their spare time because they want to not because they have to.) --MWJames (talk) 05:01, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, this seems to be spiraling a little out of control. To keep it brief: there's no point having any more discussion on this page about it, since it's not an SF issue. Coffeehound - the best place to ask about it is on the SMW mailing list, as MWJames suggested; the SMW talk page is very poorly monitored. Yaron Koren (talk) 12:51, 9 July 2012 (UTC)