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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)