Extension:Semantic Result Formats

Semantic Result Formats (SRF) is a MediaWiki extension, used in conjunction with the Semantic MediaWiki extension, that bundles a number of further result formats for SMW's inline queries. The individual formats can be added to the installation independently.

You can see an explanation of Semantic Result Formats (and some related extensions, like Semantic Maps), including screenshots and example code, at the slides for the.

Formats
Semantic Result Formats defines the following formats, listed here by type:

Graphing

 * graph - uses the GraphViz extension to graph connections between pages
 * process - uses the GraphViz extension to display process graphs

Plotting

 * googlebar - displays a bar chart of number values, using the Google Charts API
 * googlepie - displays a pie chart of number values, using the Google Charts API
 * jqplotbar - displays a bar chart of number values, using the jqPlot Javascript library
 * jqplotpie - displays a pie chart of number values, using the jqPlot Javascript library
 * ploticus - uses the open-source ploticus graphing library (currently disabled due to a security leak)

Time-based

 * timeline - displays pages in a scrollable timeline, using the SIMILE Timeline Javascript library
 * eventline - similar to 'timeline', but shows each page as an individual point, instead of sometimes showing date ranges as 'timeline' does
 * calendar - displays pages in a monthly calendar

Math
Each of the mathematical formats simply display a number, and take no additional parameters. It is important to ensure that the number of pages queried is not less than the complete set, for accurate results; you can set the "limit=" parameter to a high number to try to guarantee this.
 * average - displays the average of a queried set of numbers
 * sum - displays the sum of a queried set of numbers
 * min - displays the lowest of a queried set of numbers
 * max - displays the highest of a queried set of numbers

Export

 * bibtex - exports bibliographic data in the BibTeX format
 * icalendar - exports calendar data in the iCalendar format
 * vcard - exports business-card data in the vCard format

Other

 * exhibit - displays a dynamic browsing interface for queried pages using the SIMILE Exhibit application
 * outline - lists pages in a hierarchical outline, based on property values
 * gallery - displays a gallery (including captions) of all images in the query results

There is also an overview page of all result formats available for SMW.

Version
Semantic Result Formats is at version 1.5.2, released on January 11, 2011. You can see the version history here.

Download
Semantic Result Formats can be obtained in several ways:


 * Download as part of the Semantic Bundle extension set
 * SVN checkout the latest tag
 * SVN checkout from trunk (not recommended for production usage)

Installation
In order to include the default available result formats, simply add the following line to your LocalSettings.php:

require_once("$IP/extensions/SemanticResultFormats/SemanticResultFormats.php");

If nothing else is added, the following formats will be enabled: 'timeline', 'eventline', 'calendar', 'outline', 'jqplotbar', 'jqplotpie, 'average', 'sum', 'min' 'max', 'bibtex', 'icalendar' and 'vcard'. To add more formats to this list, you can add lines like:

$srfgFormats[] = 'googlebar';

...or you can override the set of formats entirely, with a call like:

$srfgFormats = array('calendar', 'timeline', 'exhibit');

... using one or more of the following values: average, bibtex, calendar, eventline, exhibit, googlebar, googlepie, graph, icalendar, jqplotbar, jqplotpie, max, min, outline, sum, timeline, vcard.

There are some formats that you may not want to include because they may not follow certain policies within your wiki; the formats 'googlebar' and 'googlepie', for instance, send data to external web services for rendering, which may be considered a data leak.

In the event you want to use features that are taking advantage of Google Maps (such as the map view created by the Exhibit result printer), please assign a valid Google Maps key to the $wgGoogleMapsKey variable in LocalSettings.php. Otherwise, these features will not be available. If you don't yet have a Google Maps key for your wiki, you can get one at http://code.google.com/intl/en-en/apis/maps/signup.html.

Mailing list
You should use the Semantic MediaWiki mailing list, semediawiki-user, for any questions, suggestions or bug reports about Semantic Result Formats. If possible, please add "[SRF]" at the beginning of the subject line, to clarify the subject matter.

Bugs and feature requests
You can submit bug reports and requests for new features at MediaWiki's Bugzilla, here.

The current list of known bugs and requested features for Semantic Result Formats can be found here.

Contributing patches
If you found some bug and fixed it, or if you wrote code for a new feature, please create a patch by going to the main "SemanticResultFormats" directory, and typing:

svn diff >descriptivename.patch

Then go to the relevant bug report in Bugzilla, or create one if one doesn't exist (note, again, that Bugzilla is used for both bugs and feature requests), and attach this patch file to it.

If, for any reason, you don't wish to use Bugzilla, feel free to simply send this patch, with a description, to the semediawiki-devel mailing list.

Translating
Translation of Semantic Result Formats is done through translatewiki.net. The translation for this extension can be found here. To add language values or change existing ones, you should create an account on translatewiki.net, then request permission from the administrators to translate a certain language or languages on this page (this is a very simple process). Once you have permission for a given language, you can log in and add or edit whatever messages you want to in that language.