Semantic Result Formats

Introduction[edit | edit source]

Semantic Result Formats (SRF) is a MediaWiki extension, used in conjunction with the Semantic MediaWiki extension, that bundles a number of further result formats for SMW's inline queries. The individual formats can be added to the installation independently. (Mediawiki.org extension page, June 12 2013).

For installation tips, read the Semantic MediaWiki article, i.e. we suggest to use the composer dependency manager.

In order to understand result formats, you must understand how to formulate queries. The Semantic MediaWiki page includes a short introduction. Better, read the official documentation, in particular: Selecting pages. In a nutshell, you should know that queries return lists of pages or lists of pages with lists of property values.

Examples in this page use "real" data, i.e. all the properties/values defined in the pages of the MediaWiki extension category. By the way, in this wiki, most property values are defined through templates using Semantic Forms.

Ordinary SMW result formats[edit | edit source]

By default, SMW already includes a series of result formats as documented here.

Of particular interest for creating wiki pages are:

• The table format. The default format for queries that include at least one property to display. See an example below.
• The list format. The default format for queries that do not include properties to display. See an example below.
• The ul and ol extend the list format to numbered and bulleted lists with additional output shown in parenthesis
• The template format. Allows to use templates for custom formatting

In addition, there is a whole range of formats meant for download. For example

• The CSV format could be useful for exporting a query result for further analysis

All or (most?) formats share the same base parameters:

The most important parameter could be mainlabel. Use

mainlabel=-

to suppress printing the first result column which is the wiki page that includes a matching query

 mainlabel=Some sort of title

to add a title to the first column.

Supressing the first column is something that also applies to charts produced by Semantic Result Formats extensions ! Do not forget !

The table format[edit | edit source]

Below is a simple example of a table with three columns: Names of matched pages (i.e. all pages in the category) and values of the Is developed by and Is related to properties found in these pages.

This code:

{{#ask: [[Category:MediaWiki extension]]
| ?Is developed by
| ?Is related to
| limit=3
}}

... will produce this table:

The table format can take additional parameters.

Now, semantic Result Formats adds other visualization types. Most of these are based on various JavaScript libraries, such as D3. Read on ....

List format[edit | edit source]

The list format takes the following extra parameters:

The following query gets all pages in the MediaWiki extension and displays both the hit (i.e. the page) and the value of Is developed by property:

list of names: {{#ask: [[Category:MediaWiki extension]]
| ?Is developed by
| format=list
}}

... will produce this list of names: Maps (MediaWiki extension) (Is developed by: Jeroen De Dauw, others), Mediawiki collection extension installation (Is developed by: PediaPress.com, Siebrand Mazeland, Marcin Cieślak), Page Forms (Is developed by: Yaron Koren, Stephan Gambke, others), Semantic Drilldown (Is developed by: Yaron Koren, David Loomer), Semantic Forms Inputs (Is developed by: Stephan Gambke, Yaron Koren, Jeroen De Dauw, Sanyam Goyal, Yury Katkov, others), Semantic Maps (Is developed by: Jeroen De Dauw, others), Semantic MediaWiki (Is developed by: Markus Krötzsch, Denny Vrandecic, Jeroen De Dauw, others), Semantic Result Formats (Is developed by: Jeroen De Dauw, Frank Dengler, Steren Giannini, James Hong Kong, Fabian Howahl, Yaron Koren, Markus Krötzsch, David Loomer, Joel Natividad, Denny Vrandecic, Nathan Yergler, others), VisualEditor You can see that we have to require list format, else we would have gotten a table

The following query gets all pages in the MediaWiki extension that include a Is developed by property. It will only display the (useless) Is developed by values.

list of names: {{#ask: [[Is developed by::+]][[Category:MediaWiki extension]]
|?Is developed by
|mainlabel=-
}}

... will produce this list of names: Is developed by: Jeroen De Dauw, others, Is developed by: PediaPress.com, Siebrand Mazeland, Marcin Cieślak, Is developed by: Yaron Koren, Stephan Gambke, others, Is developed by: Yaron Koren, David Loomer, Is developed by: Stephan Gambke, Yaron Koren, Jeroen De Dauw, Sanyam Goyal, Yury Katkov, others, Is developed by: Jeroen De Dauw, others, Is developed by: Markus Krötzsch, Denny Vrandecic, Jeroen De Dauw, others, Is developed by: Jeroen De Dauw, Frank Dengler, Steren Giannini, James Hong Kong, Fabian Howahl, Yaron Koren, Markus Krötzsch, David Loomer, Joel Natividad, Denny Vrandecic, Nathan Yergler, others

List format on steroids

For custom formatting, use templates. Read the official Template format documentation.

The CSV format[edit | edit source]

In addition to the base parameters, the CSV format takes the following:

The following produces a downloadable CSV file using the default comma (,) separator:

Download: {{#ask: [[Category:MediaWiki extension]]
| ?Depends on
| ?Is developed by
| ?Has status
| ?Is related to
| format=CSV
}}

Download: CSV

Using templates[edit | edit source]

Template format can be used to taylor output, for example:

• Changing the order in which output is displayed, or omitting or duplicating output;
• Displaying images depending on query results;
• Creating links for property values;
• Using CSS styles to vary font-size, alignment, background-color, etc. by column in tables.

Examples of Semantic Result Formats[edit | edit source]

I.e. (some of) the ones we use here ...

Extensions to SMW can add other result formats. All (or most) of these display formats can be obtained with this extension. However, you will have to pay attention to the configuration parameters, i.e. by default, not all Semantic Result Formats are available if you just install and load this extension. Some JavaScript libraries have to be enabled.

Also, for many types of graphics, you will have to use to the distribution=yes parameter.

Notice that the #smwdoc parser function allows for automatic parameter documentation generation for all result formats. E.g. if you are tired of looking up documentation at smenatic-mediawiki.org, you could insert something like {{#smwdoc:table}} in a wiki, page like we did here (look at the source of this page)

Simple lists[edit | edit source]

There are three variants: outline, ol and ul

Outline format

ol format

This code

{{#ask: [[Category:Software information]]
| ?Is developed by
| format=outline
}}

produces this:

• Mediawiki (Is developed by MediaWiki foundation and MediaWiki volunteers)
• Some software (Is developed by Many)

This code

{{#ask: [[Category:Software information]]
| ?Is developed by
| format=ol
}}

produces this:

1. Mediawiki (Is developed by: MediaWiki foundation and MediaWiki volunteers)
2. Some software (Is developed by: Many)

Tagcloud[edit | edit source]

The following:

{{#ask: [[Category:MediaWiki extension]]
| ?Is developed by
| format=tagcloud
}}

produces:

The following:

{{#ask: [[Category:MediaWiki extension]]
| ?Is developed by
| format=tagcloud
| widget=wordcloud
}}

produces:

D3 Bubble chart[edit | edit source]

Official documentation:

• Help: D3 chart format
• Demo: D3 bubble chart

List of parameters:

{{#ask: [[Category:MediaWiki extension]]
| ?Is developed by
|format=d3chart
|distribution=yes
|mainlabel=-
|charttype=bubble
|headers=show
|link=all
|charttitle= SMW developers
|datalabels=chart
}}

Notice the use of the following parameters:

• distribution=yes will count occurences
• mainlabel=- will exclude the count of the pages themselves

We roughly get the same information as in the word cloud.

The result of not using mainlabel=- is below:

{{#ask: [[Category:MediaWiki extension]][[Is developed by::+]]
| ?Is developed by
|format=d3chart
|distribution=yes
|charttype=bubble
|headers=show
|link=all
|charttitle= SMW developers
|datalabels=chart
}}

Useless resulting chart:

JqPlotChart[edit | edit source]

The Jpplotchart result format allows to create five different types of charts: bar, line, donut, bubble and scatter. Each of these requires a certain data model. Data sets can grouped depending of its source.

Read Help:Jqplotseries format

This extension has many parameters. Some only make sense with certain types of charts.

The following example doesn't use numerical data values, but counts occurences using the parameter distribution=yes-

Donuts[edit | edit source]

{{#ask:[[Category:MediaWiki extension]][[Is related to::+]]
|?Is related to
|mainlabel=-
|format=jqplotchart
|charttype=donut
|chartlegend=e
|charttitle= Related extensions (%)
|distribution=yes
|width=33%
|datalabels=percent
}}

Bar chart[edit | edit source]

{{#ask:[[Category:MediaWiki extension]][[Is related to::+]]
|?Is related to
|mainlabel=-
|format=jqplotchart
|charttype=bar
|charttitle= Related extensions
|distribution=yes
|width=33%
|datalabels=percent
}}

To display more than one property in a chart, it's probably best to group (else you get all the data in the same ring or bar). However, you need numerical data for that (I believe ...)

Using templates[edit | edit source]

Achievement badges

The following code was used to dislay achievement badges for the Bases psychopédagogiques des technologies éducatives in the french sister site.

Query example that could be inserted in a user page:

{{#ask: [[REPORTING:+]] [[catégorie_principale::catégorie:Bases psychopédagogiques des technologies éducatives]] [[a intention de produire::vrai]] [[A taux_d'achèvement::100]] [[Agent::user:{{PAGENAME}}]]
|? agent
|? page wiki
|? A taux_d'achèvement
|? Promotion
| distribution=yes
| mainlabel=-
| format=template
| template=badge screencast completed
| userparam=show_page
| default=Vous n'avez pas encore gagné de badge(s) d'achèvement.
}}

Code for the badge screencast completed template

<includeonly>
<div class="badge">
[[image:badge_screencast_completed.png|128px]]
<div class="appear">
'''Badge d'achèvement'''<br/>
Carte conceptuelle et infographie
«{{{2|}}}» complétées
par {{{1|}}} - {{{3|}}} %

Délivré par [[user:Daniel K. Schneider|DKS]], EduTechWiki(fr), [http://tecfa.unige.ch TECFA], [http://www.unige.ch UNIGE], cours [[Bases psychopédagogiques des technologies éducatives|Bases]], promotion {{{4|}}}</div>
{{#ifeq:{{{userparam}}}|show_user|<span style="font-size:smaller">{{{1}}}</span>|}}{{#ifeq:{{{userparam}}}|show_page|<span style="font-size:smaller">{{{2}}}</span>|}}</div>
</includeonly>

Tables with pictures

• template: table with image used by Template:Data_mining_and_learning_analytics_tools_query, used to produce the List of data mining and learning analytics tools

{{#ask: [[Category:data mining and learning analytics tools]] [[Analysis orientation::General analysis]]
| ?Has logo #-
| ?Has name = Name
| ?Has last revision number=
| ?Was last released on#iso
| ?License type = License
| ?Data tool type = Tool type
| ?Data manipulation type = 
| ?Has website=
| ?Last edition=
| mainlabel=General purpose analysis
| format=template
| template= Table with image
| introtemplate= Table with image/intro
| outrotemplate= CS Table with img/outro
| limit=3
|}}

produces:

DM and LA tools	license	Tool type	Data manipulation	Access	Page edition
AntConc	Free&Closed source		Data analysis	http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software.html#antconc	14 November 2014
Apache Mahout	Free&Open source	Framework/Library/API	Data analysis	http://mahout.apache.org/	2 October 2014
Apache OpenNLP 1.5.3 (2013-04-13)	Free&Open source	Framework/Library/API	Data extraction, Data transformation, Data analysis	http://opennlp.apache.org/index.html	21 March 2014

... further results

Tips[edit | edit source]

Getting it to work with MW 1.24[edit | edit source]

1. Install like for 1.22+ as explained in the official doc. Make sure to install recent GraphViz and Image Map extensions.
2. Fix a JQuery problem: As explained in the release notes for MW 1.24, jQuery was upgraded from 1.8.3 to 1.11.1. This will break the jqplot library. To fix the problem, do the two following:

• Add $wgIncludejQueryMigrate = true; to LocalSettings.php

Doesn't seem to take all data[edit | edit source]

By default an inline query made with #ask only returns 50 results. This number can be misleading. If you do a query that aggregates pages (using distribution, sum, count, etc.), "limit" concerns the number of the pages you will retrieve before passing their data to a result format. Limit does not specify the number of pages (or other elements) that are on display !

This behavior can be changed by setting smwgQDefaultLimit to higher value in LocalSettings.php

Alternatively, use limit= in the query. In the example below, we will see one chart element for each page, but there is a huge multiple of pages found. If limit is too low, results will simply be wrong !

{{#ask: [[REPORTING:+]] [[agent::+]] [[catégorie_principale::catégorie:Bases psychopédagogiques des technologies éducatives]] 
|?agent
|mainlabel=-
|distribution=yes
|format=d3chart
|charttype=treemap
|height=800
|width=100%
|headers=show
|link=all
|min=1
|limit=500
|charttitle= N pages annotées
|datalabels=chart

Links[edit | edit source]

Official

• List of Result formats

Tutorials

• SMW’s Semantic Result Formats – Jqplotchart/Jqplotseries format – A guide by Tiago Ferreira. It includes live example that you can see in a demo wiki