Adding fields - Revision history

GiulioFontana: /* Selection of the templates which are influenced by the change */

2010-02-16T15:37:06Z

‎Selection of the templates which are influenced by the change

GiulioFontana: /* Modification of the templates for Project */

2010-02-16T14:02:12Z

‎Modification of the templates for Project

GiulioFontana: /* Modification of the templates for Project */

2010-02-15T14:01:10Z

‎Modification of the templates for Project

GiulioFontana: /* Modification of the templates for Project */

2010-02-15T12:17:09Z

‎Modification of the templates for Project

GiulioFontana: /* Modification of the templates for Project */

2010-02-15T12:16:23Z

‎Modification of the templates for Project

GiulioFontana at 12:15, 15 February 2010

2010-02-15T12:15:17Z

GiulioFontana: /* Modification of the templates for Project */

2010-02-15T12:13:13Z

‎Modification of the templates for Project

GiulioFontana: /* Modification of the form for Project */

2010-02-15T11:51:51Z

‎Modification of the form for Project

GiulioFontana: /* Modification of the templates for Project */

2010-02-15T11:50:34Z

‎Modification of the templates for Project

GiulioFontana: /* Choice of the forms which are influenced by the change */

2010-02-15T11:34:09Z

‎Choice of the forms which are influenced by the change

@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 === Selection of the templates  which are influenced by the change ===
-The templates are used to format in a standardized way the data of a page. Available templates are listed in the [[Special:Templates]] page. At the time of writing this, the forms which are used to process data associated to a Project are the following:
+The templates are used to format for output, in a standardized way, the data of a page. Available templates are listed in the [[Special:Templates]] page. At the time of writing this, the templates which are used to process data associated to a Project are the following:
-* [[Template:Project]] (it must be changed because it defines the category Project)
+* [[Template:Project]] (used to draw the frame on the right of the page associated to a Project);
-* [[Template:ProjectViz]], [[Template:ProjectVizSlim]] (to be changed because they are used to display data about the items in a list of Projects) .
+* [[Template:ProjectViz]], [[Template:ProjectVizSlim]] (used to display data about the items of a list of Projects).
 === Modification of the templates for Project ===

@@ Line 83: / Line 83: @@
 </nowiki></pre>
-Number {N} between curly brackets is a reference to the Nth value output by the query, with reference to the order of the fields in the query. (Note that not all the data output by the query is used by the template.) The point is: as the only connection between data output by a query and data input into a template is the position of such data within the query, if you change the template (e.g., adding a field), you could also have to '''change the query'''. So before changing a visualization template, you also have to find all AIRWiki pages using that template; and possibly modify them too. (Please note that you CAN'T use the "search" tool on the left of the wiki pages, searching for the name of the template, as the tool doesn't look into semantic code: as soon as we will have determined an easy method to do this we will describe it here.)
+Number {N} between curly brackets is a reference to the Nth value output by the query, with reference to the order of the fields in the query. (Note that not all the data output by the query is used by the template.) The point is: as the only connection between data output by a query and data input into a template is the position of such data within the query, if you change the template (e.g., adding a field), you could also have to '''change the query'''. So before changing a visualization template, you also have to find all AIRWiki pages which use that template; and possibly modify them too. To search the wiki for such pages, go to the page of the template and click "What links here" in the toolbox on the left of the page. You will get a list of pages linking to the template: then you have to check each of them to see if the template is used within one or more queries contained in the page. If this is the case, the queries should be checked and -if necessary- modified.
 Let's return to the modification to [[Category:Project]] that we performed (addition of field "Coordinator"). The first issue to define is this: are the [[Template:ProjectViz | ProjectViz]] and/or [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]] templates in need of a modification? This need emerges if we want them to display the new data (the Coordinator field) added to the Project category. Unfortunately, this is the case for both templates: in fact we want them to show the Coordinator, so we will have to modify both of them by adding a new element.

@@ Line 83: / Line 83: @@
 </nowiki></pre>
-Number {N} between curly brackets is a reference to the Nth value output by the query, with reference to the order of the fields in the query. (Note that not all the data output by the query is used by the template.) The point is: as the only connection between data output by a query and data input into a template is the position of such data within the query, if you change the template (e.g., adding a field), you could also have to '''change the query'''. So before changing a visualization template, you also have to find all AIRWiki pages using that template (use the "search" tool on the left of the wiki pages, searching for the name of the template): and possibly modify them too.
+Number {N} between curly brackets is a reference to the Nth value output by the query, with reference to the order of the fields in the query. (Note that not all the data output by the query is used by the template.) The point is: as the only connection between data output by a query and data input into a template is the position of such data within the query, if you change the template (e.g., adding a field), you could also have to '''change the query'''. So before changing a visualization template, you also have to find all AIRWiki pages using that template; and possibly modify them too. (Please note that you CAN'T use the "search" tool on the left of the wiki pages, searching for the name of the template, as the tool doesn't look into semantic code: as soon as we will have determined an easy method to do this we will describe it here.)
 Let's return to the modification to [[Category:Project]] that we performed (addition of field "Coordinator"). The first issue to define is this: are the [[Template:ProjectViz | ProjectViz]] and/or [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]] templates in need of a modification? This need emerges if we want them to display the new data (the Coordinator field) added to the Project category. Unfortunately, this is the case for both templates: in fact we want them to show the Coordinator, so we will have to modify both of them by adding a new element.

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:17, 15 February 2010
Line 166:		Line 166:
	</nowiki></pre>		</nowiki></pre>

−	We don't show the modifications to the [[Template:~~ProjectViz~~ \| ~~ProjectViz~~]] template and to the queries which use it, as they are similar.	+	We don't show the modifications to the [[Template:ProjectVizSlim \| ProjectVizSlim]] template and to the queries which use it, as they are similar.

@@ Line 132: / Line 132: @@
 But ''beware''! As you see, the insertion of the new field necessitated that all the numbers associated to the data used by the following lines are modified by adding 1 to them! This means that all the queries in the AIRWiki using this template have to be modified too, otherwise the data they pass to the template to be displayed will be no more correct!
-Fortunately, there is only one page using the [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]] template. Actually, the template is used by the following query within the page:
+Fortunately, there is only one page using the [[Template:ProjectViz | ProjectViz]] template. Actually, the template is used by the following query within the page:
 <pre><nowiki>
@@ Line 166: / Line 166: @@
 </nowiki></pre>
-We don't show the modifications to the [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]] template and to the queries which use it, as they are similar.
+We don't show the modifications to the [[Template:ProjectViz | ProjectViz]] template and to the queries which use it, as they are similar.

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:15, 15 February 2010
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	Sometimes, you have to modify the semantic description of a category. The typical case happens when you find out that you have left out a crucial feature and you have to add it. To do that, you have to add a field to the semantic description of the category... and go through the additional modification to the wiki required to make the new field fully integrated with AIRWiki, and in particular to make it usable for semantic queries.	+	Sometimes, you have to modify the semantic description of a category. The typical case happens when you find out that you have left out a crucial feature and you have to add it. To do that, you have to add a field to the semantic description of the category... and go through the additional modification to the wiki required to make the new field fully integrated with AIRWiki, and in particular to make it usable for semantic queries. However, ''think very well'' before embarking in such an endeavour... as you will quickly understand, it's not a straightforward process.

	As an example, we will describe the operations performed to add a new field to the description of [[Category:Project \| Projects]], in order to integrate the new field with the SMW framework of AIRWiki. Of course, the procedure can be easily generalized.		As an example, we will describe the operations performed to add a new field to the description of [[Category:Project \| Projects]], in order to integrate the new field with the SMW framework of AIRWiki. Of course, the procedure can be easily generalized.

@@ Line 85: / Line 85: @@
 Number {N} between curly brackets is a reference to the Nth value output by the query, with reference to the order of the fields in the query. (Note that not all the data output by the query is used by the template.) The point is: as the only connection between data output by a query and data input into a template is the position of such data within the query, if you change the template (e.g., adding a field), you could also have to '''change the query'''. So before changing a visualization template, you also have to find all AIRWiki pages using that template (use the "search" tool on the left of the wiki pages, searching for the name of the template): and possibly modify them too.
-Let's return to the modification to [[Category:Project]] that we performed (addition of field "Coordinator"). The first issue to define is this: are the [[Template:ProjectViz | ProjectViz]] and/or [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]] templates in need of a modification? This need emerges if we want them to display the new data (the Coordinator field) added to the Project category. Unfortunately, this is the case for both templates: in fact we want them to show the Coordinator, so we will have to modify both of them by adding a new element. In the case of [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]], this is done by substituting the display of the Tutor field with that of the Coordinator field, changing the wiki code from
+Let's return to the modification to [[Category:Project]] that we performed (addition of field "Coordinator"). The first issue to define is this: are the [[Template:ProjectViz | ProjectViz]] and/or [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]] templates in need of a modification? This need emerges if we want them to display the new data (the Coordinator field) added to the Project category. Unfortunately, this is the case for both templates: in fact we want them to show the Coordinator, so we will have to modify both of them by adding a new element.
 <pre><nowiki>
 {| style="color:#333333;background-color:#eeeeff;" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" frame="border" width="100%"
-| '''Wiki Page:''' {{{1}}} {{#ifeq:{{{3|}}}|||[[{{{3}}}|frameless|border|right]]}} <br>
+{{Projectrow|Label=Wiki Page|Value={{{1}}}}}
-'''Title:''' {{{2}}} <br>
+|rowspan=11 width=40% align="center"|{{#ifeq:{{{3|}}}|||[[{{{3}}}|center|300px]]}}
-'''Description:''' {{{4}}} <br>
+|-
-'''Tutor:''' {{#arraymap:{{{4|}}}|, |x|x ({{#ask: x| ?Email= }})}} <br>
+{{Projectrow|Label=Title|Value={{{2}}}}}
 |}
 </nowiki></pre>
@@ Line 99: / Line 119: @@
 <pre><nowiki>
-{| style="color:#333333;background-color:#eeeeff;" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" frame="border" width="100%"
+[...]
-| '''Wiki Page:''' {{{1}}} {{#ifeq:{{{3|}}}|||[[{{{3}}}|frameless|border|right]]}} <br>
+{{Projectrow|Label=Description|Value=[[prjDescription::{{{4}}}]]}}
-'''Title:''' {{{2}}} <br>
+|-
-'''Description:''' {{{4}}} <br>
+{{Projectrow|Label=Coordinator|Value={{#arraymap:{{{5|}}}|, |x|x ({{#ask: x| ?Email= }})}}}}
-'''Coordinator:''' {{#arraymap:{{{5|}}}|, |x|x ({{#ask: x| ?Email= }})}} <br>
+|-
-|}
+{{Projectrow|Label=Tutor|Value={{#arraymap:{{{6|}}}|, |x|x ({{#ask: x| ?Email= }})}}}}
 </nowiki></pre>
-Why the change from {4|} to {5|}? Because we also had to modify the '''query''' to provide the
+But ''beware''! As you see, the insertion of the new field necessitated that all the numbers associated to the data used by the following lines are modified by adding 1 to them! This means that all the queries in the AIRWiki using this template have to be modified too, otherwise the data they pass to the template to be displayed will be no more correct!
-−
-−
- point is: if the modification performed on category Project requires that one of ''the already existing queries'' using [[Template:ProjectViz]] or [[Template:ProjectVizSlim]] requires a modification, then the relevant template will have to be checked (and possibly modified too). So we have to search for existing AIRWiki pages
+We don't show the modifications to the [[Template:ProjectVizSlim | ProjectVizSlim]] template and to the queries which use it, as they are similar.

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 === Modification of the form for Project ===
-By editing the [[Form:Project]] wiki page, we must now insert a field associated to the Coordinator category into the form. ''Beware: this is a dangerous operation, if you are not an expert of SMW syntax.'' The best option is to use copy-and-paste judiciously. By adding
+''Beware: this is a dangerous operation, if you are not an expert of SMW syntax.'' The best option is to use copy-and-paste judiciously.
 <pre><nowiki>

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 By using the [[Special:CreateCategory]] page, this is easy, but we are asked to specify which category (if any) Coordinator should be a subcategory of. The general rule is: ''define a new category B as a subcategory of a category A which includes all the possible elements of B, but the minimum number of elements outside B. If A doesn't exist, do not define B as a subcategory.'' By applying this rule, we define "Coordinator" as a subcategory of "Person": in fact the coordinator is most certainly a person, but can be even external to Politecnico di Milano.
-=== Choice of the forms which are influenced by the change ===
+=== Selection of the forms which are influenced by the change ===
 The forms are used for simplified input of data, and are the preferred method to create new pages (when a form is available for the page, of course). Available forms are listed in the [[Special:Forms]] page: in our case, the only form to be changed is [[Form:Project]].