Semantic MediaWiki

We started using Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) for some "smart" functions of this wiki around June 2019. Feel free to join the effort!

How we use it so far:

• giving equipment pages properties like "Tutor::" and "Location::" so they can easily be listed accordingly
• integrating properties for images into InfoBoxes as a potential way to auto-generate navigation gallerys
  • first experiment: Metal Workshop/Gallery (grabbing HasImage and HasCaption from MachineInfoBoxes and ToolInfoBoxes)
• making projects listable by their InfoBox dates with Property:ProjectDate
• experimental: adding interesting property tables for tool types such as cutting depths for saws
• what else can you think of?

Cheat Sheet

This is not supposed to replace the SMW documentation, but some things are nice to remember/share once you've finally found them:

• Special:Ask - "sandbox" page for SMW queries (help)
  • lets you practice selecting pages with auto-complete of parameters
• assigning properties
  • in-text annotation: [[Property::value]] (only "value", or its |alt text, is displayed)
  • hidden annotation: use the set function
    • alternatively, you could enter | (the space is important!) to the end of a property (e.g. [[Has demo::test| ]]) which might be necessary in certain template elements
• list of possible result formats (e.g. table or gallery)
• how to filter for values on property pages
• unions of results - how to use "OR" instead of the (assumed) "AND" between two queries
  • useful to make our MachineInfoBox find Tutors for Introductions to the "type" OR the "machine name", for example
  • can also be used to embed machines of different types into the same page (if we want to do that)