From: Yaron K. <ya...@gm...> - 2009-10-12 19:56:39
|
Hi everyone, I've been putting some work into improving the Special:Ask page (otherwise known as "Semantic search"), to make it more usable, along the lines of a discussion we had on the mailing list about it around six months ago, plus a more recent discussion that Markus, Denny and I had at Wikimania. You can see the result of this effort here: http://discoursedb.org/wiki/Special:Ask The big change is that now selecting any format adds in a set of fields (in the "Other options" section) specific to that format. The goal of this change is to make Special:Ask more of an integral part of the query-creation and data-browsing process; and by extension, to make SMW more of a self-explanatory application, so that users don't have to consult the documentation in order to create queries. You can try it out yourself by using the query "[[Category:Items]]", and any combination of the printouts "?Was written by", "?Was published by", "?Was published on" (a date field) and "?Addresses topic". You can also use the query "[[Category:Cities]]" and the printout "?Has coordinates", to try out the map formats. The way it's implemented is that each format's "query printer" class gets a new function, "getParameters()", that returns the set of fields for that format, each one with additional information like its type and its set of allowed values, if any. Here, for instance, is the getParameters() function defined for the SMWResultPrinter class, the base class for all query printers: public function getParameters() { return array( array('name' => 'limit', 'type' => 'int', 'description' => 'The maximum number of results to return'), array('name' => 'headers', 'type' => 'enumeration', 'description' => 'Whether or not to display the headers/property names', 'values' => array('show', 'hide')), array('name' => 'mainlabel', 'type' => 'string', 'description' => 'The label to give to the main page name'), array('name' => 'link', 'type' => 'enumeration', 'description' => 'Whether or not to show values as links', 'values' => array('all', 'subject', 'none')), ); } Although all these values are currently hardcoded, the plan is for each "description" value to be a translatable message; though the field names and values will remain in English. Two other, related changes are that the URL query string structure for Special:Ask changed somewhat; and adding and removing "sort" fields in the form is now done strictly via Javascript, which should make it faster and more seamless. Any comments or suggestions are welcome, about the appearance or anything else. There's already been a suggestion to make the "other options" section hidden by default, to make the form look less intimidating; there's certainly a case that could be made either way on that issue. Thanks, Yaron |
From: Robert M. <xol...@ho...> - 2009-10-12 21:02:43
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Hi Yaron, my first impression is that it makes all the result formats more usable for SMW users. Is eliminates somewhat the need to understand each format and its parameters in detail before being able to use it. That way I like it much! Even better would be a combination of the SMW Halo Query Interface and your Special:Ask improvements... some other thoughts: * a short description of each format would be nice to better understand what to expect (the short names are not that self-explanatory...) (maybe with a small example as picture?) * I could imagine a 3 column table layout of the box for better overview: 1. Name 2. value input/selection 3. description. |
From: Yaron K. <ya...@gm...> - 2009-10-12 23:07:04
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Hi, Great! Just to clarify, there is in fact a description of each field, below the field in italics. Should it be longer, or more prominent? -Yaron On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Robert Michel <xol...@ho...> wrote: > Hi Yaron, > > my first impression is that it makes all the result formats more usable for > SMW users. Is eliminates somewhat the need to understand each format and its > parameters in detail before being able to use it. > > That way I like it much! > > Even better would be a combination of the SMW Halo Query Interface and your > Special:Ask improvements... > > some other thoughts: > * a short description of each format would be nice to better understand > what to expect (the short names are not that self-explanatory...) (maybe > with a small example as picture?) > * I could imagine a 3 column table layout of the box for better overview: > 1. Name 2. value input/selection 3. description. > > ** > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA > is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your > developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay > ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference > _______________________________________________ > Semediawiki-user mailing list > Sem...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-user > > |
From: Patrick N. <ma...@pa...> - 2009-10-13 02:04:57
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Hi Yaron, On 2009-10-12 19:56 UTC Yaron Koren wrote: > I've been putting some work into improving the Special:Ask page > (otherwise known as "Semantic search"), to make it more usable, > along the lines of a discussion we had on the mailing list about it > around six months ago, plus a more recent discussion that Markus, > Denny and I had at Wikimania. You can see the result of this effort > here: > > http://discoursedb.org/wiki/Special:Ask [...] Wow, this looks great - and I'm sure it was quite a bit of work. It will be a huge timesaver for beginners. Kind of a WYSIWYG editor for inline queries, and, through the "Show embed code" link you can get to the actual Wiki code. This should definitely go into SMW. Patrick. -- Key ID: 0x86E346D4 http://patrick-nagel.net/key.asc Fingerprint: 7745 E1BE FA8B FBAD 76AB 2BFC C981 E686 86E3 46D4 |
From: Philipp Z. <zal...@on...> - 2009-10-13 07:53:23
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Nice work. Though, to be honest it looks a little bit like re-inventing the wheel, since these are enhancements which were covered earlier by the Halo QueryInterface: http://smwdemo.ontoprise.com/index.php/Special:QueryInterface Regards, Philipp Yaron Koren schrieb: > Hi everyone, > > I've been putting some work into improving the Special:Ask page > (otherwise known as "Semantic search"), to make it more usable, along > the lines of a discussion we had on the mailing list about it around > six months ago, plus a more recent discussion that Markus, Denny and I > had at Wikimania. You can see the result of this effort here: > > http://discoursedb.org/wiki/Special:Ask > > The big change is that now selecting any format adds in a set of > fields (in the "Other options" section) specific to that format. The > goal of this change is to make Special:Ask more of an integral part of > the query-creation and data-browsing process; and by extension, to > make SMW more of a self-explanatory application, so that users don't > have to consult the documentation in order to create queries. > > You can try it out yourself by using the query "[[Category:Items]]", > and any combination of the printouts "?Was written by", "?Was > published by", "?Was published on" (a date field) and "?Addresses > topic". You can also use the query "[[Category:Cities]]" and the > printout "?Has coordinates", to try out the map formats. > > The way it's implemented is that each format's "query printer" class > gets a new function, "getParameters()", that returns the set of fields > for that format, each one with additional information like its type > and its set of allowed values, if any. Here, for instance, is the > getParameters() function defined for the SMWResultPrinter class, the > base class for all query printers: > > public function getParameters() { > return array( > array('name' => 'limit', 'type' => 'int', 'description' => 'The maximum number of results to return'), > array('name' => 'headers', 'type' => 'enumeration', 'description' => 'Whether or not to display the headers/property names', 'values' => array('show', 'hide')), > array('name' => 'mainlabel', 'type' => 'string', 'description' => 'The label to give to the main page name'), > array('name' => 'link', 'type' => 'enumeration', 'description' => 'Whether or not to show values as links', 'values' => array('all', 'subject', 'none')), > ); > } > > > Although all these values are currently hardcoded, the plan is for > each "description" value to be a translatable message; though the > field names and values will remain in English. > > Two other, related changes are that the URL query string structure for > Special:Ask changed somewhat; and adding and removing "sort" fields in > the form is now done strictly via Javascript, which should make it > faster and more seamless. > > Any comments or suggestions are welcome, about the appearance or > anything else. There's already been a suggestion to make the "other > options" section hidden by default, to make the form look less > intimidating; there's certainly a case that could be made either way > on that issue. > > Thanks, > Yaron > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA > is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your > developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay > ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Semediawiki-user mailing list > Sem...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-user > -- Philipp Zaltenbach Professional Services ontoprise GmbH - know how to use Know-how --- ontoprise presents the new SemanticMiner for SharePoint: http://www.ontoprise.de/en/home/news/news-en/cebit-2009-ontoprise-presents-the-new-semanticminer-for-sharepoint/ --- An der RaumFabrik 29; 76227 Karlsruhe; Germany phone: +49 721 509809-0; fax: +49 721 509809-11 mailto:zal...@on..., www: http://www.ontoprise.de Registered office: Karlsruhe, Germany; Register court: Mannheim, HRB 109540 Managing directors: Prof. Dr. Juergen Angele, Dipl.Wi.-Ing. Hans-Peter Schnurr |