Difference between revisions of "Tips for editors"

Revision as of 12:32, 8 February 2010

This page is a repository of suggestions, tips and tricks for editors (i.e., all users!) of AIRWiki.

Resources

These resources can be handy when you are trying to figure out how to do something:

• MediaWiki help: general help for users of wikis.
• SMW help: help on the semantic tools provided by the Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) extension used by AIRWiki.
• SMW_Project_Workflow: description of the complete lifecycle of a project in AIRWiki, from proposal to closure. Useful if you are setting up or coordinating a project.
• Dynamic Page Generation: guidelines for the creation of semantic queries within AIRWiki. A collection of useful examples.
• AIRWiki_Ontology: this is the structure of the ontology behind the semantic elements of AIRWiki. Useful to keep in mind when writing queries.
• SMW extension: official page of the SMW extension for MediaWiki. It provides a list of the features of SMW.
• Semantic Forms extension for SMW: official page of the extension providing SMW with semantic forms functionality, listing its features.

Tips for inexperienced Semantic MediaWiki users

For newbies

This webpage is a short introduction to what SMW is and why it is useful.

About the names of semantic properties

When writing queries, beware! The name of a property can be DIFFERENT from the name used in the semantic part of the wiki pages describing the objects of your query. For instance, any project page includes something like

{{Project
| [...]
| restopic=SomeTopic
| [...]
}}

But if you are writing a query to select the projects with topic SomeTopic you should NOT use

[[restopic::SomeTopic]]

Instead, you have to use the name of the property corresponding to the "restopic" field in the project page. This name is "prjResTopic": therefore your query should use

[[prjResTopic::SomeTopic]]

How can you find out the right name for the properties associated to (the content of) a page? When a page includes semantic information, clicking the "Browse properties" link in the toolbox on the left gives you a list of all the properties defined for that page.

Note 1: the correspondencies between properties and field names in the semantic code of a page are set by the relevant semantic form. For instance, for a project they can be seen (and altered, if you know what you're doing...) by editing the Form:Project page.

Note 2: in some cases the name of a property is preceded by "Foaf:": this means that such property complies with the framework set by the [Friend-Of-A-Friend project] (but such property is used exactly in the same way of the others).

AIRWiki pages dedicated to the management of the semantic tools

[...here will be put a list, as soon as it's ready...]

Basic ideas behind AIRWiki

The following guidelines represent decisions about the structure of AIRWiki that have been taken. You should always comply with them when editing the AIRWiki.

• All reasonably static information about the AIRLab should be published in the AIRLab website. All information which need to be modified more frequently (say: at least twice a year) should instead be put into the AIRWiki. The AIRWiki also offers the possibility of building pages which are automatically updated.
• The AIRLab website should mention all the research areas active in AIRLab; but some of these could be absent from the AIRWiki.
• AIRWiki DOES NOT include a "Projects" page (where the projects of AIRLab are listed). Projects are listed in the pages of the relevant research area.