EMWCon Spring 2018/Achieving a unified data model with Cargo and Page Forms

For users of any combination of Cargo, Semantic MediaWiki and Page Forms, maintaining a complete data structure has long been a source of pain. Just changing the name of a single template parameter can require modifying a template, a form, query pages, query forms, (if you're using SMW) a property page, and possibly (if you're also using Semantic Drilldown) the category page as well. Various solutions have been created to let users define a single data model that is then used to generate, and re-generate, all these pages. The most notable is the Page Schemas extension, but there are various others, mostly proprietary. However, it may be possible to achieve a solution that, instead of adding more complexity (by adding another system), reduces complexity, by automating as much as possible the forms and queries around a data structure. In this way, it may be possible to create an entire data structure using only a template. Cargo is the obvious choice to enable this sort of thing, since, unlike SMW, it lets you define entire classes/tables of data; though in theory SMW could be extended to also allow this sort of definition.

This talk will cover what is already possible as far as a streamlined data structure, what is currently in the works, and how this could be fully implemented in the future.