Extension talk:Page Forms

Forms different from when you create and when you edit?
Ok, so far I've made a CreateCharacter and a Character form. CreateCharacter attaches this article template (basically with all the sections needed and the layout but not filled in) but removes the option to edit the text, whereas Character form removes the template and lets you edit with free text. Do I not need to do this?--Technobliterator 10:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It depends - why are you doing it? Yaron Koren 11:41, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Minor edit flag doesn't seem to be passing
I've upgraded to 2.0 and the minor edit flag is not being passed through to MW and the edit is not marked as minor. Tested on several forms. Thorncrag 21:39, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've verified this on Scratchpad. Minor edits are not being flagged.  Thorncrag 18:32, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've verified this on an additional wiki with SF installed. Thorncrag 00:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the bug reports - this is fixed now in version 2.0.1. Yaron Koren 15:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Add parameter 'uploadable' from GUI
When constructing a form, the docs says I should add the parameter 'uploadable' to the field which is to hold a file to be uploaded. And that works - I add the form, edit the source and add the parameter to the field. But how can I do this without having to edit the form source? That's not exactly friendly from a regular user's perspective ;) So what I'm looking for is a checkbox (or an input type?) besides every field. --Tadej Kanižar


 * Regular users shouldn't be modifying the form in the first place, don't you think? Yaron Koren 07:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course .. but not all of the admins are as skillful. And even if they are, it's still not very friendly.
 * So, is there a way to do this? --Tadej Kanižar


 * No, sorry - I fear that admins will actually have to type in the word "uploadable". Yaron Koren 04:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit with form button in .css
what is the edit with form button in ;.css if I want to add an image to it?--Technobliterator 20:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Fancybox not working.
I got the form correct but everytime i click the upload link, it goes into a new page instead of having it float a fancybox.


 * What's your MediaWiki version, and browser? Yaron Koren 07:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Its version 1.16 and firefox browser. Do you think the short url might be the problem?


 * Having the same issue as well. Fancybox works on previous forms, but any new pages created with a form and FancyBox simply redirects and does not float. --BrettFerguson 01:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Are you by any chance using the uploadable field in a multi instance template in a form ? I had the same problem in that situation and had to fix a few things in Semantic Forms. --Tadej Kanižar


 * Yes, I just checked. This issue is only causing problems in multi-instance templates using the uploadable field. --BrettFerguson 01:18, 12 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Replace your SemanticForms/includes/SF_FormInputs.php with my version - http://www.ncode.si/mediawiki/SF_FormInputs.php.txt --Tadejkan 03:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you. That fixed it! --BrettFerguson 04:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe this is fixed now for SF in SVN, using an approach similar to Tadej's. Yaron Koren 13:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Multiple-instance templates are broken in IE8
Hi Yaron, there seems to be a Problem with the IE 8 (maybe the older ones too), the "Add another" / "Remove" Buttons doesn't work. Try your own Example in the IE. The "Show On Select" Divs are although effected by the same Bug. SBachenberg 13:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting me know about that - once again, I foolishly forgot to test in IE... the problem was a single excess comma in the FancyBox declaration. The fix is now checked in to SVN. Yaron Koren 05:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Is "show on select" supposed to be working when used in multiple instance templates? --Dgennaro 19:33, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It should be, yes - if it's not working with the latest version of the code, please let me know. Yaron Koren 19:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It is not working. I have reproduced the error on Discourse DB here. Hope this helps. --Dgennaro 15:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I upgraded to SF v2.0.1 and I am still unable to get the multiple instance templates working. I have made a sample on Referata Scratchpad. I have been trying on both IE7 and Firefox 3.6.6. Sorry to keep bugging you with the same problem, but I hope this helps. --Dgennaro 16:20, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, yes - there's definitely a bug with "show on select" in multiple-instance templates. Unfortunately, it might be difficult to fix, so I can't say if/when it'll work fully. Yaron Koren 16:28, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the update. I will wait patiently. --Dgennaro 17:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

old state of /branches/REL1_16/extensions/SemanticForms in SVN
I realized that the 1.16 branch in SVN is outdated (includes SemanticForms 1.8.8) is that intentionally? I thaught 1.9.x and 2.0.x fits Mediawiki 1.16 also ... btw also SemanticMediawiki is 6 months old in that branch (RELEASE_NOTES mention version 1.5.? (!!!) ) --RScheiber 16:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It's generally a bad idea to use the MediaWiki release branch versions of these extensions - if you want to use a tagged version, the directly tagged versions are the way to go; most of the SMW-based extensions are tagged. Yaron Koren 04:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no 2.0 tag in svn ... the Extension page mentions 2.0 as current ... is it finished? When will you set the tag? btw, huge thank you for the great work and the minimal response time on the talk page! RScheiber 21:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll probably skip right to a tag for 2.0.1, since 2.0 has had a bunch of bugs; and that will probably come out in the next week. Yaron Koren 22:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Now there is the zipped 2.0.1 Release file, there is 2.0.1 in SVN, but the SVN tag is still missing. --RScheiber 15:56, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi - I just added it. Yaron Koren 02:30, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

How do you properly create a subpage link in a template?
I have a Property "Has division" of type Page. In a template, I've modified the link to point to a subpage, something like this:



This works as intended, eventually creating a link to a subpage of the parent. However, if such a definition is followed by an enumerated string, a parsing error occurs on the including Form. For example, I have a Property "Has style" of type string with four possible values. If I add it to the above mentioned template like so,



there will be an error when I add this template to Special:CreateForm, not allowing me to choose the radiobutton input type for Has style. If I then edit the form manually, and force it to be of type radiobutton, only one button option appears, "None". (No, I don't have property "Has style" defined incorrectly. If I take  out of the template definition for Division, all expected radio buttons appear; but then I'm left with no subpage link.)

I've tried modifying the template definition of Division in several different ways, but nothing seems to work. For example,



Any ideas on how to accomplish this successfully? I'm open to suggestions. Thanks.

"Show on select" seems to work only once in a form
Hi! I have build a form with two fields with a "Show on select" option. But only the first field seems to work correctly - in the second one, all divs are shown before the user has selected the value of the field. If I select a value for the second field, however, the form hides the divs that are related to the other values, but only if the second field is of type "dropdown" (with "radiobutton" or "checkbox" it doesn't work at all). The same issue occurs if I set a default value for the second field. I have reproduced the error in Referata Scratchpad here with a very simple example form. Is this a bug or is the "show on select" function designed to be used only once in a form? Or have I made a mistake and don't get it? Regards --Daniel5000 17:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Are you using the newest Version of Semantic Forms? Try an update with the newest version from SVN. The Funny Thing in you wiki is, that "option 1" always works with all input types. The ShowOnSelect JS sometimes generates null pointer exeptions, because of some missing Value checks maybe thats the Problem. -- SBachenberg


 * Hi Daniel5000, thanks for reproducing the bug. The problem came about because you had an extra semicolon at the end of one of your "show on select"s - not that that should cause the Javascript to break. I just fixed the bug in SVN. Yaron Koren 04:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! In Referata now it seems to work, now I will try it in my own wiki. --Daniel5000 06:46, 12 September 2010 (UTC) It works without problems now (revision 72839).--Daniel5000 17:02, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

No Edit With Form Tab
Hi, I also have trouble with the Edit with Form. I am not getting a tab. I have tried some of the above suggestions, but everything looks ok, commenting out and refreshing didn't help. In my local settings I have these extensions, in this order: cite, recaptcha, SMW, SF, SemanticCompoundQueries, validator, maps, semantic maps. Could the order affect this? I'm using SF 2.0 with 1.16. Here's a test page on my site- http://emswiki.com/index.php/Kjh Thanks,--Aj2479 21:04, 12 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi - I think there might be some problem in the wiki-text for one of your templates that's confusing the parser. In any case, the recommended way to get an "edit with form" tab on the page is via categories. Yaron Koren 07:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's a simpler page. http://emswiki.com/index.php/Asdfasdf.  I just can't think what I am doing wrong, but will keep playing around with it.  Thanks, --Aj2479 08:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, that's very odd - there's something going wrong with Semantic Forms there. Feel free to email me privately about it - it may require having to go into your system, if that's possible. Yaron Koren 08:49, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This was resolved by email - the issue was an old version of SMW (1.5h) that was causing problems. Yaron Koren 22:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

No Edit With Form Tab + enforce use of forms?
I might have a similar Problem here. Using MediaWiki 1.16 with SMW 1.5.2 and SF 2.0.1 i cannot get the "Edit with Forms" Tab to show up at all. I tried to follow instructioncs for both, attaching my form "Form:User" to the category "Users" as well as the "MediaWiki:User" namespace. In both cases i added the line: Has default form::User. This creates a link "User" on the page, which leads to my Form:User with the "Create or Edit" button.

Using the "Vector" Skin as default here, but that doesn't seem to have any influence.
 * Do i have to create the property manually? Didn't see anything about it in the manual, nor about activating the tab feature somewhere.
 * Can i somehow check if the property is actually existent? I don't see it in the list of properties (wiki/index.php/Special:Properties), but i guess that's because its either hidden or unused as of yet.
 * Can i somehow enforce the use of forms, i.e. when it comes to adding/editing user data when clicking the username on the wiki?

Aside from that, thanks for your ongoing support on this great extension. :)


 * Hi - that sounds bad. When you go to the "Browse properties" link in the sidebar from either the category or namespace page, do you see the "Has default form" there? If not, that's the issue. For the second question, see the 3rd item here. Yaron Koren 16:41, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey there. I did some more testing but didn't get any better results:


 * Created a Testcategory and attached form "User" to it. After assigning (new) pages to that category, no change to the tabs occured.
 * When klicking "Browse Properties" in the Toolbox, the property appears on each page having the Has default form::User text inside. Even manually adding it to my (User:Admin) userpage does not change the tab behavior.
 * Could a missing or incorrect form-template be the problem? I recently changed the form to collect more semantic data, but left the templates as is. It's just a separate thing for displaying (a selection of) data, isn't it?
 * I might just try creating a new Wiki and test it again as there is only little to no content on my current testversion. Building up a rather extensive knowledgebase for my company so SMW is a must-have. Using "XAMPP package 1.7.2 here (using PHP 5.3.0 due to the Wiki incompatiblity with 5.3.1).
 * Could  $wgContentNamespaces  be the problem? I once had an own namespace in the 110+119 Region but disabled the corresponding array and  $wgExtraNamespaces[110] lines for SMW.
 * I feel like i'm missing something important here. Just adding the Has default form::... after creating my form thing seems to be too...easy.

Mike, 62.2.160.131 07:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi - it sounds like something is wrong; it really should be that easy. :) Maybe it's the namespaces issue, I don't know. Creating a new wiki might be the easiest solution. Yaron Koren 13:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Pivot and combine multiple instance template tables on final saved page
I want to modify the way the final page looks for multiple-instance templates. Specifically, I would like multiple-instance templates to be pivoted and flattened, so that the property labels become column names and each template instance is a row in the table.

For example, I have a template "Template:Event_Date" that consists of a date and a venue:

In the including form, I selected the "Allow for multiple (or zero) instances of this template in the created page" check box. On the final, saved page, each instance of this data is stored in its own table:

I want the final page output in a single table, like this:

I don't think this is possible just by modifying Template:Event_Date, but maybe I'm wrong? If I need to modify PHP to get this to work, I will. Just point me in the right direction. Thanks.


 * Hi - you can definitely do this; you just need to use a "header" and "footer" template above and below that multiple-instance template, to handle the top and bottom of the table. You can easily include templates without any fields into the form, just by using "for template" and "end template" with nothing in between. By the way, I would also recommend storing the data, using #set_internal from the Semantic Internal Objects extension, so that you can query and display a similar table of that data from any other page. Yaron Koren 21:49, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yaron, Is it possible to show on the form the multiple instances of a template in tabular format? The template is a semantic internal object repeated 0 or more times.  The goal is for the form to display the multiple instances in one "formtable" with the property names appearing at the top as column labels.  Otherwise, the form becomes cluttered with the property names/labels repeated every time the user "Add Another".  Maybe something similar to the following.  Paul Ramer 9:45pm, 30 September 2010 (MST)


 * {| class="wikitable"

! DATE ! VENUE
 * January 1, 2010
 * Madison Square Garden
 * January 2, 2010
 * Empire State Building
 * }
 * Empire State Building
 * }


 * I don't understand - isn't this the same question as above? Yaron Koren 12:34, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I was afraid of that. How does one make the header and footer templates in the form?  This is what I have so far, but I don't think it is quite what you intended in your explanation.  -Paul Ramer 7:40 AM, 1 October 2010 MST

{| class="formtable" !Completed !! Due Date !! Subject |}

You're close - just put those two lines of wiki text into their own template, called, say, "Template:Status Report Header", and then change that part of the form definition to:

...and then you should have something similar for the footer, of course. Yaron Koren 15:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think I might be asking a different question. Most of the discussion seems focused on the display of multiple templates on a page after it is saved (the stuff people see when they first navigate to a wiki page).  The combination of a SIO to store each instance of a multiple instance template and the use of queries to control the final display of the data seems quite effective for that purpose.  I am trying to control the appearance of the form (edit with form tab) where the multiple instance template is generated.  If I understand the forms, they are typically set up as a 'formtable' with labels and fields where users enter data.  Upon saving the page, the form in effect inserts the template along with the data into the wiki page (what is seen on the 'edit' tab).  I would like to have one set of column labels in the form itself instead of new labels and new fields every time I 'Add Another'.  If I am still missing the point, I apologize and will just need to think about this further.  Paul Ramer --71.229.204.210 20:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify - you're only asking about making the form itself look nicer, not the pages created by the form? Yaron Koren 04:37, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. Paul Ramer --71.229.204.210 21:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay - such a thing is unfortunately not possible, but there's a long-term plan in place to enable it. Yaron Koren 22:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

default=current user does not work as expected
Hi Yaroen,

thanks for your great work!

Using a text input for a string with default=current user I would expect e.g. John Doe. Instead, I get User:John Doe. This annoys me especcially, as I want to use this parameter for the definition of the page name, which thus is in another namespace...

Do you see a solution for this?

Sincerely

Nico --80.153.59.17 12:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi - I can't reproduce this problem; for me it's always the username without "User:". Could you try replicating it on a public wiki, like scratchpad.referata.com? Yaron Koren 20:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Yaron, I could not reproduce it on scratchpad. These are the versions I use, do you have any suggestions where to look at for the problem?
 * MediaWiki 	1.15.5
 * PHP 	5.2.10-2ubuntu6.4 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL 	5.1.41-3ubuntu12.6
 * Semantic MediaWiki (Version 1.5.2)
 * Semantic Forms (Version 1.9.1_1)
 * Data Import Extension (Version 1.4.0_2)
 * External Data (Version 1.0.1)
 * ParserFunctions (Version 1.1.1)
 * ScriptManager Extension (Version 1.0.0_0)
 * Semantic Internal Objects (Version 0.6)
 * SMWHalo Extension (Version 1.5.1_1-for-SMW-1.5.1 [B59])
 * StringFunctions (Version 2.0.3)
 * [ URL Arguments] (Version 1.0)
 * Variables (Version 1.3)
 * HaloACL (Version 1.2.0_0)
 * IAI (Version 0.1)
 * LinkedData (Version Template:$VERSION)
 * Semantic Gardening extension v1.3.2_1
 * Semantic Result Formats (Version 1.5.0_1)
 * Quite a lot, I know. I used the deployment framwework of ontoprise. In case you dont have a clue, I would try to redeploy it with fewer extensions. Obviously, there are non obvious dependencies concerning the order of deployment... ;o)


 * Thanks for your assistance! Nico --80.153.59.17 16:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, that explains it - you're using the modified version of Semantic Forms that comes with SMW+. I would talk to ontoprise about it - it looks like there's some sort of bug in their version. Yaron Koren 16:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Required Versions of MW and SMW not mentioned on Extension Page
The required versions of MW and SMW for SF 2.0 are not mentioned on the page. Putting a small table in the Version section or a new requirements section would be great, which includes the required minimal version of both and perhaps a recommended version. EX: --RScheiber 21:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The requirements are both there on the page, although you have to look carefully - MW 1.12, SMW 1.4. And the "Version history" page gives some more information on when support for previous versions has dropped... I hope that's enough. Yaron Koren 22:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Order of multiple-instance items and collapsing?
I want to change the order of the instances, so that they are ordered from newest to oldest on the resulting page. In the archieve I read the question about drag and drop ordering while editing a form, but maybe reversing the order is simpler than drag and drop while editing the form. Is there a way to achieve this? If I have to edit code could you please give me a hint where to look for it? I also would like the ability to collapse the instances in the form, that sounds more complicated though. -- Meera 11:50, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Neither one is possible, unfortunately. Adding the first to SF is difficult enough that I wouldn't encourage anyone to try it unless they 100% knew what they were doing. Instead, I would recommend to not actually display those templates on the page, but rather to store their values using #set_internal from Semantic Internal Objects, and then query the data on that same page - that way you have complete control over sorting. Yaron Koren 12:19, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your fast reply! I will look into Semantic Internal Objects. -- Meera 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Downgraded from MediaWiki 1.17 trunk to 1.16 branch and lost Edit with Form Tab
I had the Edit with Form tab via the recommended Category configuration. I downgraded everything to 1.16 branch to get a theme to work, now I've lost the Edit with Form tab. I've run a full reinstall of Semantic MediaWiki without luck. Any ideas? --Brimstone 02:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What versions of SMW and SF are you using? Yaron Koren 06:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm using SMW Version 1.5h-SVN, SF: Version 1.8.8 from r73018 at http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/branches/REL1_16. Thanks for taking the time to look into this. --Brimstone 15:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, that's it! There's been a spate recently of people using the "REL1_16" branch recently and, inevitably, having problems. As I said in a response above, those branches should almost never be used for extensions - they're old and basically random snapshots of the code. If you upgrade to the latest SMW and SF, it should work. Yaron Koren 17:45, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That was it, thanks! --74.95.48.252 18:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Position of partial forms
I would like to add partial forms to existing mediawiki pages. My problem is that the results of partial forms after entering data are alway shown at the top of the page - but I would like to include them after a section title. Please have a look at http://www.stomatocysts.unibe.ch/wiki/Pla:S001 there the results after entering the data should occur after section title 'ECOLOGY'. Any help would be highly appreciated! Christian


 * Hi - it's for that reason that I don't usually recommend using partial forms; actually, I've been thinking of getting rid of them for a long time. An alternate solution is to create a new form that looks like a partial form, by holding all the same templates as the regular form but having only the specific inputs that you need. That one should work a lot better. Yaron Koren 08:59, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Mandatory date field for multiple instance item
Setting a date field for a multiple instance item to mandatory causes the form to report all mandatory field inputs missing (regardless if they are empty or not). It is also not possible to save the form even if no instance of the item is added. I reproduced this on the scratchpad: MandatoryDateTest. --Meera 10:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Autocomplete for internal object properties?
Is it possible to configure autocomplete for a field based on the values of an attribute of a semantic internal object? --Meera 13:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, definitely - you just need to explicitly connect the form field to the property by adding "|property=property name" to the field tag in the form definition. Yaron Koren 10:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

fancybox errors...
 jQuery(document).ready(function {   jQuery("#fancybox_input_2").fancybox({ ''' Uncaught TypeError: Object # has no method 'fancybox' '''       'width'     : '75%', 'height'   : '75%', 'autoScale' : false, 'transitionIn' : 'none', 'transitionOut' : 'none', 'type'     : 'iframe', 'overlayColor' : '#222', 'overlayOpacity' : '0.8', });  });

Uncaught TypeError: Object # has no method 'fancybox'

(anonymous function)page:88

(anonymous function)jquery.min.js:308

eachjquery.min.js:73

readyjquery.min.js:308

(anonymous function)

--Kraziboi428 07:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, yes - I believe this problem is just caused by the comma at the end of the 'overlayCapacity' line, which shouldn't be there. I already fixed that problem in SVN, and I plan to release a new version with the fix soon. Yaron Koren 08:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, i just updated the file adding the comma, im still getting the same error.--Kraziboi428 17:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * What versions of MW and SMW are you using, and are you using either Halo or the GuMax skin? Yaron Koren 17:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

MW 1.16 and 1.5.2. GuMax Skin... i just updated the Jquery to the latest on the Gumax Skin.


 * Ah, I bet that's it - SF doesn't work with the GuMax skin any more, due to a Javascript conflict. Try switching to a different skin and see if that solves the problem. If so, I believe taking out the line in the GuMax skin that includes jQuery itself might fix the problem. Yaron Koren 19:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Good tip. It works now thanks Yaron!--Kraziboi428 20:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Alright, cool - I just added a note about it to the "Common problems" section. Yaron Koren 21:26, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Template misses its parameter when containing a link with "=" character in the URL
What is the solution for this bug with for template form markup language?

My workaround was to insert 1=http://www.myurl_with_equal_sign.org/ in the user interface form field, but its gone when re-editing the form. Anyway, this solution is non-intuitive for a regular user. Trying to save one more time the form, the link parameter won't even appear in the form field (it's blank).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.--EuroDomenii 22:19, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi - I don't actually know what you mean; I haven't experienced problems with an equals sign in a template/form field. Could you reproduce the problem on a public wiki, like scratchpad.referata.com? Yaron Koren 23:55, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank your for this opportunity. Examples articles: http://scratchpad.referata.com/wiki/Link_equal_sample, http://scratchpad.referata.com/wiki/Link_equal_sample_no_form based on http://scratchpad.referata.com/wiki/Template:Linkequal


 * Oh - now I get it, thanks. I don't think there's any good solution - the only thing I can really suggest is to give those parameters names, or, as you note, to have things like "1=". Yaron Koren 20:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

ask query in ask-query-template not working for pages created by Semantic Forms
First: thanks for your extensions and your answers to all questions! I got the form and all working well. I have a page which creates statistics about wiki pages using semantic attributes. For this I use an ask-query with a custom table-template. That table-template uses other templates, parser functions and ask queries to get the desired information. The problem I ran into is: queries in the table-template for pages edited by semantic forms work fine, but queries in the table-template for pages which were created by semantic forms return nothing. Thanks in advance. --Meera 09:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The way in which the page was created shouldn't have any effect on its semantic data. I'm almost sure the issue is something else, though I don't know what. Yaron Koren 15:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You were right, the problem was the internal object which was inserted by the form. With the newest version of Semantic Internal Objects (0.6.1 instead of 0.6) creating new pages works for the ask-queries! --Meera 11:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Preview won't work acceptably in Chrome and IE, but does in Firefox
I pulled this earlier since I was using questionable versions of some packages. Now I'm using a clean install of all extensions with my database: Partial continuation of the discussion from July 9, 2010. I also had the problem of hitting Show Preview during a form-based edit and not getting the right results. More specifically,
 * Chrome 6.0.472.63
 * Never saw it come back, let it sit there for an hour
 * Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
 * Renders reasonably fast
 * I'm using, the tabs are showing, but they don't work
 * All of the tab contents are laid out consecutively as if no headertabs were present
 * Firefox 3.6.10
 * Renders reasonably fast
 * Tabs in the preview and the bottom form are intact at the bottom, but there's a huge vertical blank area between the preview and the form (about 20 screens)
 * If I change
 * 
 * to
 * the blank space is eliminated.
 * the blank space is eliminated.

If I pull the "wikiPreview" line out, and all of them replace my form-based edit session with the standard edit box. I really need to make this work with preview, and preferably on more than just Firefox. Thanks for reading. --Skew 05:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Chrome shows the preview and the tabs fine
 * Firefox shows the preview and the tabs fine
 * IE shows the preview the no working headertabs and a sequential page
 * Has anyone hit this problem and gotten it to work?
 * Could this be a database problem? I'll try a test install tomorrow with a new database just to see if empirically that could be the problem, but if anyone knows the fix and could let me know, I'd appreciate it.
 * Is there a caveat sheet on things that happen with the different browsers?


 * Hi - I would just take the "wikiPreview" line out; it was really only meant as a convenience, and if it causes problems I don't think it's worth worrying about too much. It's strictly a Javascript issue, by the way. Yaron Koren 12:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * For my audience, it's a great convenience, but because of this problem, leaving out wikiPreview is what I'm doing now. Is this a known javascript issue? I looked for javascript / mediawiki incompatibilities... if someone who has this working (under Windows) could let me know what version of java they're running, I could have my users install that one. --72.130.157.217 14:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The Javascript being used is custom Javascript contained within SF, so it's not surprising that it would contain some bugs - see here. Yaron Koren 15:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yaron, would it be difficult to open the preview in a new window and keep the current form intact? Most of that question comes from my ignorance regarding how things work under the hood, I'm still coming up to speed on these things.  But is it doable?  --Skew 20:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I actually have no idea - I didn't write any of that code. My guess is that it's doable, but it wouldn't make much of a difference. By the way, Java and Javascript are two wholly different languages. Yaron Koren 22:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

including 'free text' content in the results of a semantic query
I'm not sure this is the right place to post this, but ...

Is there a way to include the contents of the semantic form's ‘free text’ section (of a page) in the results produced by a semantic query? I couldn't find anything re: this in the SMW documentation.

Thanks --Ted 20:54, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi - it's not possible, unfortunately, but you can get around it by making the "free text" field be not actually free text, but rather a field in the template, and then having a property for that field. It's even possible to get this field to be displayed as free text, by putting it outside of the table within the template. Yaron Koren 21:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

No "Edit with Form" tab
I just upgraded to mediawiki 1.16, use Semantic Forms 2.0.1, and the GuMaxdd 1.3 skin. My Edit with form tabs have completed vanished, and I can't for the life of me work out what needs to be done to get them back. If someone could help me, I would be greatful. 97.86.40.80 19:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC) In case someone might wish to see my full configuration, the website is HERE. Kitsufox 03:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I would upgrade your version of SMW - it looks like you're using an unstable version, which could be the problem. Yaron Koren 04:35, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Stellar. *snicker* I figured I'd be the weak link, not the software. That's almost always the case. Thank you very very much for looking into that. By pulling the stable release (I didn't even realize the release I'd pulled was unstable) and replacing the files it was sorted out so quickly. The only thing I can suggest is a better set of instructions as to what is and isn't stable. I expected the snapshot version to be stable (shows how much I know some days). Kitsufox 14:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Cool. By "snapshot version" do you mean the REL1_16 version? Those tags are made by MediaWiki people, and not by SMW developers, and I really wish they wouldn't make them at all - they're random snapshots and they just confuse people. Yaron Koren 00:30, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I downloaded it from the "Download Snapshot" link on the Mediawiki.org page. To get the right version I ended up going to the SMW site and then that led me to Sourceforge where I was able to get a numbered one and verify that I had a stable version. Kitsufox 12:20, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

dropdown values populated via inline query
Is there a way to populate a set dropdown values from an inline query?

In this example, the query itself shows up in the dropdown, not the query results. --Hermhut 20:41, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can't do that directly, but you can create an SMW "concept" with that query, and then use "values from concept". Yaron Koren 12:33, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Yaron, but what I'm specifically trying to do is populate a dropdown in a subpage with values from its parent page. Those values vary from parent page to parent page, meaning I would need a corresponding concept page for every parent page on my wiki. So, unless I can somehow pass BASEPAGENAME into the concept from the subpage, I don't think concepts will work. Can you think of a different solution? Maybe it's possible to use "autocomplete from url", where the URL is an api.php query to the parent page?  That seems difficult as well because the $sfgAutocompletionURLs array would also need to have one entry per (parent) page on my wiki. Maybe there's a way I can use Extension:UrlGetParameters and pass BASEPAGENAME into a Concept to achieve the list that I need? Any thoughts? --Hermhut 21:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, I get it. No, unfortunately I don't believe there's any way to do that, either hackish or not. What about just autocompleting on all the property's values, though? Are the values really that distinct from one page to another? Yaron Koren 03:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

CSS styling of forminput
Hi Yaron

A small suggestion for future versions of SF.

It would be nice to give CSS classes to 'forminput' element for better styling - something like the 'class' parameter from fields. As they are now, forminput forms cannot easily be styled to match the site they are embedded in.

- Laurent Alquier

remote autocompletion document
Where can I find document with regards to remote autocompletion?

thanks


 * Search for "remote autocompletion" in the documentation. If there's anything you want to know beyond that, you can just ask me. Yaron Koren 12:37, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, Yaron. I'd like to know what I need to supply in the form field definition and what I should setup in server corresponding to enable the whole remote autocompletion. Since there is anything in the documentation, I have no clue how it works.
 * All you need to do is add "|remote autocompletion" in the field tag, within the form definition - SF should (in theory) take care of the rest. Assuming it works, the interface will look the same - the difference will be that the set of autocompletion values won't appear in the HTML source. Yaron Koren 23:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I get it. remote autocompletion specifies that other "autocompletion from" should be done remotely. I thought remote autocompletion can perform a custom ajax call. Since you already have the remote autocompletion in place. You can easily support this by adding one autocompletion from function=function name. The function name is one function written by other developer. By this way, the end user can have values from many sources.


 * Well, see the "autocomplete from url" parameter - that sort of matches what you're talking about. Yaron Koren 12:51, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

"Add another" - Help or Feature Request ?
Hi, we have some Stupid users that doesn't really understand these fancy "Add another"-Buttons. Is it possible to have One of these "Add another" Fields always open. So that the user can see all the Fields with out pressing the "Add another" Button. SBachenberg 07:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can preload the form so that, when it creates a new page, it'll always have one instance of that template... I wouldn't say that's a good idea, though. Maybe some more help text in the form would help solve the problem. And don't forget the "label=" parameter, if you're not using it. Yaron Koren 12:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Customize Semantic forms's output
A p tag is added after every table rendered by a Semantic Form's form. Is there a way to stop semantic form from adding that paragraph after every rendered table? Thanks in advance, (also because Semantic Forms is awesome).
 * :) Just to clarify, are you talking about the forms themselves, or about pages created by the forms? Yaron Koren 01:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about pages created by the forms. Cbesozzi 11:11, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In that case, this probably isn't a Semantic Forms issue per se. Assuming that the source wiki-text of the relevant pages looks alright, the problem is probably that the templates themselves are adding some stray newlines. Yaron Koren 15:37, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Checkbox - default checked
Is there a way to defualt a checkbox as checked? --Dgennaro 17:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah - add "|default=yes". Yaron Koren 18:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Yaron. You rock! --Dgennaro 13:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

URLs entered into forms
I'm looking for a solution for long URLs that break the style of infoboxes in certain browsers. Is there documentation about how to handle this with SF, such displaying a link name rather than URL? Thanks--Aj2479 22:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure, a link name would work; so would this (used with the Widgets extension). Yaron Koren 01:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Nested forms
Is there a way to nest forms inside forms ?

For example, for a Town template that goes like that:

town_mayors and town_events are fields that would be populated by multiple templates instances. Right now, it doesn't seem there is a way to declare a global form for "Town" and have multiple form instances for town_mayors or town_events in the middle of the form when editing.

The only current ways to handle that:

1. just declare these fields as text, and put the template text

" "

inside it. Works of course, but the point is to try to use forms as much as possible.

2. split the Town template in multiple parts and build your form accordingly. The form would be

.. .. .. //history+politics .. ..

and would generate something like that

Not a great solution, since if you want to just change the orders of the sections on a Town page, it would become a pain to deal with all the split templates, while it is really easy with only one template.

3. Somehow store the multiple instance templates in semantic data objects and have a query in the town template that calls these objects. Issues: On the form page, the multiple templates would have to be either before or after the general Town form, ergonomically that's not a good end user experience, the form should give them a structure similar to what they get on the actual pages. Also, using a request to query objects that are already on the same page seems like a waste of server resources.

4. Well the right way from my point of view would be to have something like  **own inputs **own inputs
 * input declarations**
 * more input declarations
 * inputs

The nested multi instance templates would be included in the general form and adding new instances would add that inside too. On submission, the concatenated code from these templates would be put ine the appropriate field.

5. Is there an another option ? A solution that would solve that ?


 * Hi - no, there's no way to do nested forms. What you list as option 2 is the only real approach. Yaron Koren 12:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Combobox with Values from Values
Hi Yaron, is it possible to create a Combobox with all values from the "Values=" Attribute instead of autocompletion Values ? SBachenberg 09:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, no. I'm planning to make some changes in the next version of SF that will allow for that sort of thing, though. Yaron Koren 12:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Templates in fields cause strange parsing
When I insert into a form field it renders wrong and crashes the input to �{some template}� whereat � is HTML-escaped &amp;iuml;&amp;iquest;&amp;frac12;. I figured out that this is caused by the {}-characters. Is there any work around or setting I missed? The parameter $smwgLinksInValues = true; does not have a positive effect on this. I work with SF 2.0 on a German Wiki. Thanks for any Help. See also http://scratchpad.referata.com/wiki/Encoding_problems_with_partial_forms --Andreas Plank 09:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Some more details: this phenomena appears only when the form is set to a partial form with . All in all it looks like an encoding problem. I hope not that it is caused by copied SF-files. --Andreas Plank 12:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Multiple instance templates - button label
Is there a way to alter the "Add another" text on the button when using multiple instance templates? Thanks in advance. --Dgennaro 16:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can change it across the wiki by changing the text in the page MediaWiki:sf_formedit_addanother ; but you can't set it per template, unfortunately. Yaron Koren 19:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help. --Dgennaro 19:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

More examples in documentation would be great
While I really appreciate the extensive documentation of Semantic Forms, I often run into problems when trying to solve some special cases. E.g. for Extension:Semantic_Forms or Extension:Semantic_Forms, some definition such as  are not clear enough to just make them work.

It would be great to have either
 * A more extensive Extension:Semantic_Forms which is referenced throughout the docs
 * or deep links to external Wikis using certain features

--Hhappel 09:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

yui.yahooapis.com?
Hey there. Currently i'm setting up a wiki using XAMPP on my local machine. Everything in the Wiki works fine thus far, including Semantic Forms. The problem however is:


 * i intend to use the wiki in an offline mode for intranet-only documentation purposes. This brings up a problem:
 * creating pages with forms makes my wiki access to "yui.yahooapis.com" - is this a definitive requirement for the forms-extension to work?

Is there any solution to this, as in copying the needed apis to someplace else? Greetings, Mike


 * Hi - as of version 2.0, Semantic Forms no longer uses YUI; it uses jQuery. Assuming you're using an old version, you should upgrade. Yaron Koren 15:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot, that solved the problem! I really have to get SVN working at my company because missing important updates like this one sucks greatly. ;-)

Using FormInput to Add Instance of Multiple Instanced Template
Hi, I have a form that uses a multiple-instanced template to make a list of items, and I would like to use a forminput button from another page that will let the user add that item to one of the existing lists. It doesn't seem to work, either because it won't preload an existing template input, or because it doesn't recognize that an additional input should be added unless the "Add Another" button is physically clicked from within the form. Is there a workaround for this? Thanks! --Klh5u 19:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think so... maybe it's worth turning each of those instances into a separate page? Yaron Koren 21:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the idea, but that wouldn't work in my case. We want to let users make recommended reading lists out of things in a "book" category. What I did instead was make a semantic result format that displayed each possible list along with a button that had an onclick event that would redirect to a new special page and pass the current page and the chosen list as parameters. I then used the special page to edit and redirect to the chosen list. A bit more complicated than I was hoping, but it gets the job done! Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate the quick response whenever I have asked a question here! --Klh5u 22:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Using multiple multiple instance templates with HeaderTabs
I have a form with a number of tabs. I can get multiple instance templates working in the last tab (by placing the headertabs tag in the article itself, not the template). I'm wondering if it is possible to put multiple instance templates in other tabs, and hence have multiple multiple instance templates, each on a different tab? - Borofkin 03:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Definitely. You shouldn't put any of the Header Tabs stuff directly in the article - instead, you should create small "header" and "footer" templates, with no arguments, that are responsible for just those little snippets of wiki-text, and add those to the form. Yaron Koren 12:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * At the moment the contents of most tabs are in one template. Should I split each tab into a template of its own? Is there a publically available example of a setup like this? - Borofkin 22:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Should I be using partial forms? - Borofkin 22:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)