User talk:Optimale

Introduction
The SemanticQueryFormTool (SQFT) extension, which is an extension of the SMW extension rather than a MW itself, implements the parser function ('s' stands for 'Select' and 'Save' because generating 'select' form elements and saving query results are the two main usages of the function) which uses a similar syntax as the original SMW ask parser function.

This extension was developed as a tool to support the generation of user friendly query forms for semantic data in our wiki. For many properties user will not be able to either know what data are already present or what the syntax of the values is. Therefore it would be impossible to enter exact search terms into a text field of a query form. By providing select elements which contain the existing values of a property the user can simply select the desired value(s).

Pre-requisit

 * Make sure the SMW extension is installed and uses the old storage engine

Mandatory steps

 * 1) Download zip file from from here
 * 2) Create $IP/extensions/SemanticQueryFormTool/ folder
 * Note: $IP is your MediaWiki install dir.
 * 1) Unzip or copy unziped files into the newly created folder
 * 2) Enable the extension by adding this line to your LocalSettings.php include_once('extensions/SemanticQueryFormTool/includes/SQFT_Settings.php');
 * Note: Make sure this appears later in LocalSettings than the include_once call which enables Semantic MediaWiki itself!

Optional steps

 * Optionally add lines to set values for variables (see SQFT_Settings.php file)
 * $sqftgDefaultParameter
 * $sqftgUseCache (requires creation of sqf_cache_time and sqft_cache_time database tables - see below !)
 * $sqftgUseCacheDefaults (requires creation of sqft_cache_time and sqft_cache_time database tables - see below !)
 * $sqftgAllowedNamespaces
 * $sqftgDefaultNamespaces


 * Optionally create the following extra tables in your mediawiki db
 * Note $wgDBprefix stands for the database table prefix defined in your LocalSettings.php
 * Cache tables which may speed up execution
 * $wgDBprefix_sqft_cache_time "create table $wgDBprefix_sqft_cache_time (timestamp mediumtext, id varchar(480) primary key);"
 * $wgDBprefix_sqft_cache_value "create table $wgDBprefix_cache_values (id varchar(480), value mediumtext, index(id));"
 * If result-lists are saved in the in the type=article mode the following extra table needs to exist
 * $wgDBprefix_sqft_save_results "create table $wgDBprefix_sqft_save_results (user_id int(11), result_name varchar(255) not null, result_namespace int(11) not null,result_title varchar(255) not null, index(user_id), index(result_namespace));"
 * If several namespaces are used in the wiki and the default search namespace should be changed interactively the following extra table needs to exist
 * $wgDBprefix_sqft_namespaces "create table $wgDBprefix_sqft_namespaces (user_id int(11), namespaces mediumtext, index(user_id));"

Syntax

 * or

Usage
A help page with a list of parameters and example usages can be found here

Property type usage mode
The main purpose of the parser function is to generate a unique list of values existing for a specific property or a value-part of a multi-valued (nary) property. In its default form the function returns a complete 'select' element of a HTML form which can directly be incorporated in a form (in our case build with the SimpleForms extension). The function can, however, also return the results in other formats than select elements. This is the default type=property usage mode.

Article type usage mode
A second more specific functionality of the parser function is to store, combine and manage search results in form of article title lists (type=article usage mode). This was implemented to be able to use basic generic query forms but still allow to answer more complex questions by combining the results of the basic queries. This mode requires an extra table to be created in the database.

MW
As our wiki uses the Ajax feature of the SimpleForms extension (which doesn't work on MW versions later than 1.11) to create query forms this extension has so far only been tested with MW 1.11 (although later versions are expected to work as well).

SMW
The extension works with SMW 1.2.2 but only with the old data storage engine (see here for details.