Smwcon spring2011 tutorial applied semantic mediawiki

Applied Semantic MediaWiki
SMWCon Spring 2011 Tutorial #4
2011.04.28

Who Are We
Jesse Jiaxin Wang
Sr. Software Architect, Vulcan Inc.
http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Jesse
Ning Hu
Sr. Software Developer, TeamMersion LLC
Wil Smith
Software Engineer, Vulcan Inc.

About Vulcan
3
Vulcan Inc. was established in 1986 by investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, to manage his business and philanthropic efforts. Allen is chairman of Vulcan and his sister, Jody Allen, is president and CEO.

Agenda

Jumpstart

Using a Bundle
Semantic Bundle
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_Bundle
Features: (Pros and Cons)
A set of author-selected extensions
A fixed set of extensions, few customization options
Simplified download and configuration process
Still need manual configuration
Usually up-to-date and work well together
Community tested and supported

Installation Package
SMW+ Package
http://smwforum.ontoprise.com/smwforum/index.php/Help:SMW%2B
Features:
A set of (fixed) company selected extensions
Simplifies installation and configuration
Windows installer and VM images are great
And they just became free!
You may still be curious about what it does…
Professionally documented and tested
Usually weeks after major release of latest SMW

Real-world Deployment
When you want a set of custom extensions, you want
Your
OWN
deployment
mechanism!

Deployment Practices
Your own codebase, with checkpoints
SVN or Git to get the base, and then
Customize the wiki
Script or Manual or Mixed
A third-party deployment framework and repository
Ontoprise: http://smwforum.ontoprise.com/smwforum/index.php/Help:Deployment_Framework
RPI: http://code.google.com/p/smwbp/wiki/setup_wiki
Referata: http://smw.referata.com/wiki/Category:Packages

Build System
You own it!
Your own selection of extensions
And versions of them
Own patches, scripts and templates
Vulcan: Internal GIT repositories of completed build
Versioning and branches between projects
Other examples:
RPI Best Practice (Google code)
Hudson build (PNNL)

Wish List
A public wiki installation repository
with lots of packages
Including necessary data
Semantically marked up
Well documented (or even reviewed)
Easy to find and use
Federated wiki package store (Wiki AppStore)

Customize

What to Customize
Skins
Extensions
Schema and Data
Templates and forms
Anything else you can code… 

Skins
How to customize a skin
Create your skin file in /skins folder within your wiki directory, like Ontoskin.php
Finish this skin files following Ontoskin.php skin files
There are two classes in this skin files:
Inherit from SkinTemplate, set the CSS and template filter.
Inherit from QuickTemplate, set the UI style
Create skin folder with your skin name in /skins
Copy image and CSS files to your skin folder
Use your own skin
In LocalSettings.php set
$wgDefaultSkin = 'wiking_skin'

Seahawk Video Skin

Skin Customization Example
Vulcan Development Wiki and Seahawk wiki.
We have customized these two skins for our projects and the key is the method of QuickTemplate. In this method, you can decide what to show and how it shows on your wiki
You can customize wiki site like menu links, page titles, CSS and JavaScript files in the data properties of QuickTemplate
For example, show wiki side bar in your skin
<?phpforeach ($this->data['sidebar'] as $bar => $cont) { ?>
<li>
<a href="#"><h5><?php $out = wfMsg( $bar );></h5></a>
<ul>
<?phpforeach($cont as $key => $val) { ?>
<li id="<?php echo $val['id'] ?>" >
<a href="<?php echo $val['href'] ?>"><?php echo $val['text'] ?></a>
</li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
</li>
<?php } ?>

Personalized Skin
Skin supports customization via __USERNAME__
User can have personalized styles within a skin
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skin_configuration#User_CSS
Tip: A way to turn off Wikipedia banner ad:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jesseone/vector.css

Schema and Data
“Just do it!”
Easy to start
Flat, large ontology, at beginning
Many properties only valid in certain cases
But it’ll get better!
“Designer” Ontology
Professionally generated (Protégé)
More data (restriction) than necessary
Data importer isn’t powerful to fully support all OWL features
“The middle road”
practical schema design: think, adapt, evolve

N-ary Relations
Type:Record
From 1.5 + supports Semantic Search
Still no “Allowed values”, no unit, and no other visual customizations
Semantic Internal Object extension
Adding an object in the middle
Using parameterized (patterned) properties
Using a triple store (external)

Extensions
Where to find extensions
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix
By supported version (1.16, 1.17, …)
By status (beta, stable, …)
By type (API, AJAX, hook, user rights…)
By new-ness (sort by most recently created time)
By talk page new-ness…
By most updated versions…

Get the Extensions!
Some essential ones!
http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:MediaWiki_extensions
Semantic MediaWiki extensions are quite a few:
http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:SMW_extensions
Find what you want
Not exactly? Then patch it!
Nothing close? Then build it!
Or find people to build it 

Our Experiences
We built several wikis (2008-2011)
The most useful extension (SF) often needed patches
Auto-completion
Fixed set of allowed values
All values in a category
All values having a specific property
All values from a query
More parameters support (default values, UID, etc.)
New functionality in other extensions or SMW Core
Aggregation (average, max, sum, etc.)
e.g. > and < comparison

Security Extensions
Know thyself! – What you want, really.
Often customers don’t know what they really want
Many choices = nothing is perfect
From basic to advanced:
MediaWiki built-in security
Simple Security (Page Security)
HaloACL
Features
Restrictions

A Short Story
Proposal Management System (Wiki)
Users (including privileged users) submit proposals
Reviewers (privileged users) rate and review them
Reviewers discuss and make decision and assign
What security extension should it employ?
HaloACL?
SimpleSecurity?
MediaWiki built-in groups?

How to Select | Test
Inclusion / transclusion
Special:Export
Aton/RSS feed, Watch page
Listing and Searching
Special:Search
RecentChanges, AllPages
Diff and Revision URL
Action links (raw, render)
API (???)
Action=query?
3rd party APIs
Author backdoor?
Caching?
Files and Images?
Redirects?
Other extensions?

Visualization: Our Path
2008: SRF used to only have few options
2009: Exhibit seemed cool
Ported webit
Fixed some bugs and enhanced features
Runway, TimePlot, multiple rows in Map view etc.
2010: Open Flash Chart
More bars, pies, lines, scatter plot…
Interaction
Richer information display

Comparing SRF Options
Google Charts (pie and bar)
Google does it! (G gets your data, no offline choice…)
Static bar and pie, no color options…
Exhibit
More choices (timeline, map, facet, runway…)
Browser compatibility issues
OFC (Open Flash Chart)
Many bars, charts, plots, even scattered plots
Flash required

Sidebar Customization
Basic: MediaWiki:Sidebar
Enhanced: semantic queries, and tree views
Advanced: use variables together with queries
Custom: Using an extension: DynamicSidebar
Customize your own sidebar at User:<username>/Sidebar
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DynamicSidebar
Example: http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev/

Current Sprint in Sidebar
*Current sprint
{{#ask: [[Category:Project sprints]]
[[Sprint start date::<{{CURRENTYEAR}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTDAY}}]]
[[Sprint end date::>{{CURRENTYEAR}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTDAY}}]]
|format=template
|template=Sidebar query template
|link=none
|}}

My Active Sprint Tasks in Sidebar
*My tasks
{{#ask: [[Category:Project tasks]]
[[Project task owner::<q>[[User alias::{{CURRENTUSER}}]]</q>]]
[[Project story::<q>
[[Project sprint::<q>[[Category:Project sprints]]
[[Sprint start date::<{{CURRENTYEAR}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTDAY}}]]
[[Sprint end date::>{{CURRENTYEAR}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTDAY}}]]</q>]]
</q>]]
[[Project task status::In progress||Not started]]
|format=template
|template=Sidebar query template
|link=none
|}}

More Extension Examples
Twitter Feed
http://www.mediawikiwidgets.org/Twitter_Search (example)
Flickr Feed
http://www.mediawikiwidgets.org/Flickr
Amazon Carousel
https://widgets.amazon.com/Amazon-Carousel-Widget/
Google Analytics
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Google_Analytics
Optify Analytics
http://www.optify.net/

Templates and Forms
MediaWiki template is essential for its structured data handling
Editing, especially Template editing, is not trivial
Semantic Forms extension greatly lowers the bar
Customizing templates and forms can provide very visually appealing pages

Form with a Style
http://www.thethirdturn.com/w/index.php?title=Form:Driver&action=edit

Forms with autocompletion
Advanced Auto-Completion on Customized Query Results
Basic Auto-Completion on Category Values

Story Template
To have a field (form link) for users to quickly create tasks that belong to the story (parameter preset)
{{#forminput:Project Task
|45
|
|Create a new task
|Project Task[story]={{PAGENAME}}&Project Task[owner]=__USERNAME__&Project Task[status]=Not started
}}
http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev/index.php/Prepare_for_SMWCon_Spring_2011

Example: Daily Report
We want to achieve “burn-down” chart in our sprint overview
We need:
Daily new tasks (created, but not started yet)
Daily in-progress tasks (started by not done yet)
Daily finished tasks (completed)
Task ownership and completion timeline
And similar things for bugs (other analysis)

Quiz #1:
How do you specify Today, Tomorrow in query?

Date Magic and Templates
Magic words: CURRENTYEAR/MONTH/DAY
Some MediaWiki date-related templates to use
DATEDIFF, DATECOMP, …
NEXTDAY, NEXTDAYDATE, …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Date-computing_templates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:ISO_date_templates

Quiz #2:
How do you do strictly “less than” or “greater than”?
(Before 2010.03)

Strict Comparison
Date query : how to do “In progress” with a finish date “>” today?
Extra markup would reduce usability
Semantic MediaWiki did NOT support it until 2010.11
We patched Semantic MediaWiki Core
Now (as of SMW 1.5.3 + ) we have < and > implemented
Use ≤ and ≥ (on ASCII keyboard 242 and 243)
And a configuration to turn it on

Quiz #3:
What if “Today” changes to “Tomorrow” or later dates in your query template?
{{CURRENTYEAR}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTDAY}}

Freeze the Time
Subclusion is your friend!
Subclusion = Substitute + inclusion
Today's newly started # tasks: [[Report start task count::{{subst:#ask: [[Category:Project tasks]]
[[Project task start date::{{{date|}}}]]
| format=count
|}}]]

More Customization
Out there in the
Wild Wiki World

Integration

Steps
Know what to build
Customers, customers, customers!
Get your collection of extensions…
Customize your wiki (template, forms)
Handle the data (schema, query, API, …)

Case 1. Proper Wiki
Focus on Skin, Form and Template
Steps:
Pick a (default) skin
Design some forms
And templates (queries) behind the forms
Build starter pages and Go!

Biology Ontology Wiki
People need discuss about the details related to construct a biology ontology
Classes (categories)
Properties
Relations
Textbook analysis
Discussion
Forms necessary to keep content tidy

Ex: Property Form

Forms on Namespace
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Forms#Based_on_namespace
“Easy-peazy, lemons squeezy” ?

Case 2: Simple Workflow App
Idea: go from one form to another form
Need form links in the template
May need user rights management

Proposal Review Workflow Example
User submits a proposal via a form
Fill in basic information about the proposal
Set a field in the form to be, say, “New”
User doesn’t see further information about “Reviewer” or “Owner”, etc.
Semantic notification (email and RSS feed) facilitates communication
Reviewer finds the form in a canned query
Reviewer changes the status to, say, “Approved”
Reviewer field (say “Reviewed by”) is (automatically) set
Then reviewer assigns the proposal to a owner, say, “Alice”
The owner (“Alice”) now sees it and can start work on it
Changes the status to “Active”
Adds a start date or maybe an estimated end date too

Ways to Handle Workflow
Add a link to open another form
Force edit “review” using another form (e.g. reviewer form)
When saving the new form, the category is changed
Now we have a different category  a different default form
Change a value to include or exclude to another template
May need #if (or #switch) statement in template to change (or include/exclude) template values
Use “Page has default form” property (Semantic Forms extension)

Case 3: WikingDev Wiki
Our project management wiki
We use it for *all* things it can do:
Proposals, ideas, email messages, features, bugs
Agile development: milestones, sprints, stories, tasks
Code/Feature association: SVN mapped to tasks/bugs
Progress analysis: burn-down charts, work calendar
Collaboration, Documentation, Demonstration

Examples of Data I/O
Wiking Development Wiki
An Imported email
http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev/index.php/Demo_scenarios
An email imported as a Project Bug
http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev/index.php/Issue_11886_Insert_a_single_property
A task uploaded via Outlook with multiple commits
http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev/index.php/WikiTags_Release_Structure

Microsoft Office Connector
Leverage Microsoft Office applications and technology
Bring SMW info to Office applications on-demand
API for data I/O: add and modify wiki data within Microsoft Office
Utilize semantics to improve relevance
Smart actions for semantic properties
API
API
Connections
Smart
Jesse Wang | SemTech 2010

Our Agile Project Management (Scrum)
57
Wiking
Jesse Wang | SMWCon Amsterdam 2010

Wiki Data I/O
Wiking development wiki has two external applications
Subversion integration
Microsoft Office integration
Extensions to support it
Semantic Wikitags
Semantic Connector

Data I/O Extensions
MediaWiki API – very basic read/write
Page Object Model
First Data I/O extension to allow access some wiki structure data (links, title, basic template field)
SMWWriter
Based on POM, support annotations (semantic properties)
Data API extension in SMW+
Semantic WikiTags and Semantic Connector
Wiki Object Model
A powerful and comprehensive object model (Data API)
Read/write at finer object level (sentences, template parameters)

Wiki Object Model
Previous wiki data API efforts are not good enough to build applications
There are strong needs for access the structured data and unstructured data in the wiki as a data store
From internal and external applications’ point of view
A DOM-like approach is reasonable choice
Xpath is a great tool and standard
Granularity offers flexibility and power
People like to operate on known objects rather than parsing and handling wiki texts
APIs provide access to both internal and external apps

Wiki Object Model Objects
Category
Link
Property
Text
Magic word
HTML tag
Sentence
Word*
Image
61
Page
Section
Parameter
Parameter value
Template
Template field
Parser function
List item
Table
Table cell
* Not yet implemented as of April 2011

Demo of WOM
Demo at http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev_sandbox/
Demo 1: APIs
The API is part of MediaWiki API, with our additions to allow get and set (read/write) the content of a wiki page
http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev/index.php/Extension:Wiki_Object_Model/Apis
Demo 2: Inline Editor
A simple inline editor (AJAX styled) to let user modify a specific portion of the wiki page
Based on http://wiking.vulcan.com/dev/index.php/Extension:Wiki_Object_Model/Functions
62

4. Final Case Study
Stanford University CS 227 Car Wiki
Developed for Masters level CS class for assignment in “Knowledge Representation Within a Social Context”
Over 40 students created pages populating an ontology, created a personal page documenting their automobile, and compiled site statistics into group pages
Extra credit was offered to the entire class as a group upon initial wiki population assignment

“Dream Car” Wiki Ontology
The ontology was left intentionally incomplete and students were encouraged to update the ontology
Car manufacturer pages
Car make & model pages
Personal “Licensed Car” Page
Custom properties added to ontology and personal pages

Extensions for Car Wiki
Standard SMW extension suite downloaded from SMW+ code repository
Custom Semantic Results Formatter used with Open Flash Charts
Widgets extension included for creating custom JavaScript APIs to other social frameworks

Forms and Templates
Semantic Forms for creating company, car, and personal vehicle
Templates for presenting your car and linking the make & model to Widget templates for social links

Demo of Car Wiki
Ontology
Sample Car Manufacturer : Audi
Sample Car Make & Model : Audi A6/A7
Sample Licensed Cars : William_A6, William_A7
Final Chart of Completed Assignment

A Wiki in a Week
Ontology, Code Installation and Sample Page Population Completed within a Day
SMW+ with core extensions
Minimal Updating and Bug Fixing of Components Taken from Other Wiki Projects
Custom widgets and result formatters
Final Population of Wiki Articles Completed Over the Course of a Week Long Assignment

Summary
Jumpstart
Deployment of your bundle/suite/package
Code, pseudo-code/meta-data, and data
Customize
Skins, Styles
Extension choices
Integrate
Know the requirements and data
Put everything together and evolve

Thank you
Questions and/or comments?

Smwcon spring2011 tutorial applied semantic mediawiki

by Jesse Wang

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