Re: [Phpwiki-talk] Template var syntax

[Dan F. <dfr...@cs...>]

Reini,

We are also evolving a 'structured data' (a.k.a., 'data with fields') 
approach in WikiLens. It's not final yet, but it's getting there.

Our approach is not necessarily contradictory with yours. I just wanted 
to let you know so what we're doing so we can live in harmony. As 
always, we'd be happy if Phpwiki would take these changes. As usual, you 
can see the latest public source at 
http://www.wikilens.org/wikilens-src.tgz. By "public" I mean the code 
that's running the web site. We work on internal development versions 
that have more changes.

In detail:

- a category can have fields (a.k.a., 'structured data'), given by a 
field spec page
- fields are stored in meta-data (i.e., not in the page text). We 
experimented with in-page text for awhile, and found it looked very 
confusing, especially when multi-line data was important (e.g., for List-s).
- when you edit a page, each field has its own widget. (We have a couple 
of WidgetFactory classes for this.)
- when a page is displayed, the 'default' field displayer knows how to 
display each field; also, each field is passed through the wiki markup 
transformer, so one can include links, italics, etc.
- optionally, you can create a 'detail page template' that is parsed by 
Smarty, so the structured data can be displayed more beautifully. A 
functional example (not yet implemented) is to take the "address" of a 
restaurant, and create on each restaurant page a link to Mapquest, with 
the address bits filled in.
- these structured data fields can also be searched, both on the 
category page and by plugin

Examples:

1) Restaurants

- http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/Annie%27s%20Parlour shows several 
structured data fields. If you click "edit", it also shows the radio 
button and drop-down widgets. The link to "Restaurant" is what puts all 
that structured data there, although we are planning to take the 
category link out of the page text as well (users erase it, then are 
confused when all the fields dissappear).

- http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/Restaurant shows at the bottom 
"Fields: Restaurant/Fields" which gives to the fields spec page.

2) Lists

- http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/Dan%27s%20quick%20lunch%20places 
shows a particular list with a detail page template.

- http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/List has "Detail page template: 
List/Detail Page Template" which gives the detail page template

- http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/List/Detail%20Page%20Template has the 
fields which are substituted by Smarty when you visit a list.

For more detail, see

- http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/WikiLens/StructuredData
- http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/WikiLens/StructuredDataTutorial
- 
http://www.wikilens.org/wiki.php/WikiLens/StructuredDataTutorial/Developers

For those who might fear we are evolving a CMS that is too far from 
Wiki, I say not true(!): we are still Wiki (people can edit pages, pages 
are versioned, recent changes, etc. etc.). However, we felt the need for 
pages to have some tool-aided structure, that's all.

Dan

Reini Urban wrote:

> Which syntax should we use for template vars?
>
> CreatePage lets you create new pages, with the optional template 
> argument, which prefills a page with content.
>
> The new CreatePage version will also allow arbitrary variables to be 
> passed to CreatePage, which should also be possible via the more 
> beatiful WikiFormRich plugin (editbox, pulldowns, checkboxes, ...).
>
> Something like:
>
> "CreateRestaurant" action page:
> <?plugin CreatePage template=Templates/Restaurant
>   vars="location=New York&type=exclusive&rating=5" ?>
>
> And at any other page:
> Create new restaurant:
> <?plugin WikiFormRich action=CreateRestaurant
>   editbox[]  name=name
>   editbox[]  name=location
>   pulldown[] name=type value="exclusive,cheap"
>   pulldown[] name=rating value="1,2,3,4,5"
>   textarea[] name=comment
> ?>
>
> The vars for the new page given in name will then be filled with the 
> given args.
>
> Template syntax
> ---------------
> My current version has "%variable%"
> Mediawiki uses "{{{variable}}}"
> We also had "%%variable%%" and "%%%variable%%%"
> in the 1.2.x branch.
>
> So it will probably be "%%variable%%".
> %%% would clash with the line break syntax.
>
> Any opinions?
>
>
>
> Sample
> -------
> pagename=Vorlage%2FNeuerFilm;
>
> [Land/%land%] [Jahr/%jahr%], %director% 
> [http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rurban/film/img/star20.gif] %%%
> [MRQE:%pagename% (%jahr%)] [IMDB:%pagename% (%jahr%)]
>
> Kategorie: [Preview%jahr%]
>