Chapter 17 Page Forms

1. Use the page Special:CreateClass to create everything at once – categories, templates and forms.
2. Use the individual pages Special:CreateCategory, Special:CreateTemplate and Special:CreateForm to create the entire data structure. This is a more hands-on approach, which is less ideal for starting out, but it's quite useful if you already have templates and categories in place (and possibly properties as well), and only want to create what is still missing.
3. Similar to the previous option, you can go to any specific not-yet-created category, template or form page, and click on the “create with form” tab, which displays a form that matches the form found in the relevant one of those four special pages.
4. Copy from an existing installation or package. If you see a data structure setup that you like elsewhere, you can copy and paste all the necessary files to your wiki. (Though it's usually a good idea to get their permission first, even if legally it probably isn't necessary.) And there may be a package of such pages, created with a generic purpose like project management in mind, that you want to copy onto your wiki; a few companies offer such packages.
5. Use the Page Schemas extension. See here for an introduction to this extension; it lets you create a set of “schemas” for your data structure, from which forms, templates etc. can be automatically generated.

Figure 17.1: Special:CreateClass page

Figure 17.2: Special:CreateForm page

<noinclude>

This is the 'Project' form.

To add a site with this form, enter its name below;

if a page with that name already exists, you will be sent to a form to edit that page.

 

{{#forminput:form=Project|autocomplete on category=Projects}}

</noinclude><includeonly>

<div id="wikiPreview" style="display: none; padding-bottom: 25px; margin-bottom: 25px; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAAAAA;"></div>

 

{{{for template|Project}}}

{| class="formtable"

! Client

| {{{field|Client|input type=combobox|values from category=Clients}}}

|-

! Start date

| {{{field|Start date}}}

|-

! End date

| {{{field|Start date}}}

|-

! Status

| {{{field|Status}}}

|}

{{{end template}}}

{{{for template|Task|multiple|label=Tasks}}}

{| class="formtable"

! Task name

| {{{field|Task name}}}

|-

! Deadline

| {{{field|Deadline}}}

|-

! Status

| {{{field|Status}}}

|}

{{{end template}}}

</includeonly>

• The form-definition page serves a dual purpose: within the <includeonly> tag it holds the form definition, while within the <noinclude> tag it holds a brief explanation of that form, and an input to get to the actual form. (These two tags, <includeonly> and <noinclude>, serve the same purpose that they do in templates – see here.)
• Form definitions hold a mix of regular wikitext and special syntax, the latter of which is defined within three curly brackets.
• A form can specify more than one template within a page – in this case, there are two.
• Form fields, for the most part, can be simple, although they can also take in parameters. (Form field tags tend to be simple because Page Forms can already get a lot of information about the nature of each field from its template.)

Figure 17.3: A form definition page's display

Figure 17.4: A Page Forms-based form

'info' tag

• create title=title – Sets the title for the 'FormEdit' page, if the form is being used to create a new page.
• edit title=title – Sets the title for the 'FormEdit' page, if the form is being used to edit an existing page.
• query title=title – Sets the title for the 'RunQuery' page.
• page name=formula – Sets a formula for automatic setting of the name of the page being added; see "The one-step process".
• query form at top – Places the form at the top, instead of the bottom, for the 'RunQuery' page.

'for template' tag

• label= – Specifies a label to be placed in a square around the entire set of this template's fields in the form. This is especially useful if the template can have multiple instances.
• multiple – Specifies that the user can change the number of instances of this template in the form, allowing multiple (or zero) occurrences; see "Multiple-instance templates", on here.
• display= - Sets a pre-set display for all the inputs for this template; the wikitext around the input tags (if any) will simply be ignored. This parameter can take three values: "table" (which can be used for any template), "spreadsheet" (which can be used only for multiple-instance templates) and "calendar" (which can be used only for multiple-instance templates that contain at least one date field). In all three cases, the field name serves as the "label" of each input, unless a "label=" value is specified for that input.
• height= - Sets the height for the "spreadsheet" display; default is 200px.
• minimum instances=number – For multiple-instance templates, sets the minimum number of allowed instances.
• maximum instances=number – For multiple-instance templates, sets the maximum number of allowed instances.
• add button text= – For multiple-instance templates, sets the text in the "Add another" button.
• strict – Specifies that only fields in the form that correspond to fields used by the template should get turned into form elements.
• embed in field= – Used for embedded templates; see here.

'end template' tag

'field' tag

• input type=input type – Specifies the type of input this field will have in the form. If a field corresponds to a semantic property, the form will usually have the correct input type by default; otherwise the default is text. If the corresponding semantic property cannot be automatically determined (e.g. if it's in a template being called indirectly), you can use the parameter “property” to manually specify it (see below). The allowed set of input types is different for every semantic property type; see here for the full list of options.
• hidden – Specifies that this field will be hidden in the form; used to preserve values in edited pages.
• mandatory – Specifies that this field must be filled in by the user.
• restricted – Specifies that this field will be editable only by admins/sysops and disabled for all other users. This parameter can also be called as "restricted=group name", which restricts editing of the field to the specified user group.
• default=default value – Specifies a default value for this field. For date-related fields, default=now will set the value to the current date and possibly time. For text fields, default=current user will set the value to the username of the user adding this page. For the checkbox input type, default=yes will check the checkbox by default. (The “checkboxes” input type, on the other hand, like the "listbox" type, requires specifying the actual values, like default=Value A, Value C.) You can also include templates, parser functions, and magic words within the "default=" value.
• class=class name – Specifies a CSS class that the input for this field should have.
• property=property name – Specifies that the field corresponds to a certain Semantic MediaWiki property, and should thus get the appropriate input type, autocompletion, etc.
• cargo table=table name and cargo field=field name – Collectively used to specify that this form field corresponds to a certain Cargo field, and should thus get the corresponding input type, autocompletion, etc.
• list - Specifies that this field contains a list of values.
• delimiter=delimiter – Specifies the delimiter character or string this field should use, if it represents a list of values; the default is ",".
• holds template – Used for embedded templates; see here.
• unique - Specifies that the value entered for this field must be unique, i.e. must not be the same as any value for the SMW property (if SMW is being used) or Cargo field (if Cargo is being used) corresponding to this template field.
• unique for category=category name – Specifies that the value entered for this field must not be the same as the name of any page in the given category.
• unique for namespace=namespace name – Specifies that the value entered for this field must not be the same as the name of any page in the given namespace.
• unique for concept=concept name – Specifies that the value entered for this field must not be the same as the name of any page in the given SMW "concept".

'section' tag

• level= - takes in a number from 1 to 6, specifying the level of the section heading.
• hide if empty - Specifies that the section header should not get added to the page at all if the section is empty.

'standard input' tag

• label=label name – Specifies the text associated with this input on the form.
• class=label name – Specifies the CSS class for this input.
• style=label name – Specifies the CSS style for this input.

Input types

The input types

text

• size=size – Specifies the width of the input, in characters.
• maxlength=maximum length – Specifies the maximum allowed length of the input.
• placeholder=placeholder text – Specifies help text that is displayed in the input until the user clicks on it.

textarea

• rows=num rows – Specifies the number of rows.
• cols=num cols – Specifies the number of columns.
• maxlength=maximum length – Specifies the maximum allowed length of the input.
• autogrow – Sets the textarea to "auto-grow" its height to match that of its contents, so that a scrollbar won't be needed.
• editor=editor type – Adds a JavaScript-based editor to the textarea to make editing its contents more user-friendly. The following values are supported:
  • wikieditor - Uses the WikiEditor extension (here).
  • tinymce - Uses the TinyMCE extension (here).
  • visualeditor - Uses the VisualEditor extension (here); in order to use this setting, another extension, VEForAll, must also be installed.
• max height=maximum height - If VisualEditor is being used, specifies a maximum height (in pixels) for the textarea, since VE uses autogrow. By default, this value is 400 px.
• placeholder=placeholder text – Specifies help text that is displayed in the input until the user clicks on it.

rating

Figure 17.5: The Page Forms “googlemaps” form input

Allowed input types for data types

• values=possible values - Specifies a set of either possible values or autocompletion values (depending on the input type) that this field can have, overriding whatever set of values may have been set from Semantic MediaWiki or Cargo. This set of values is separated by commas by default, but the delimiter can be modified using the delimiter= parameter.
• values from category=category name - Similar to values=, but gets its values from the names of all pages belonging to a specific category.
• values from namespace=namespace name - Similar to values=, but gets its values from the names of all pages belonging to a specific namespace. (To get values from the main namespace, use "Main" for the namespace name, or just leave it blank.)
• values from wikidata=Wikidata query string - takes in one or more pairs of Wikidata properties and items, and finds all matching values; an example string would be P31=Q5398426&P136=Q1786567 (instance of = TV series, genre = medical drama)

Autocompletion

Autocompleting on outside values

1. Create a page/web service that takes in a substring via the query string, and displays a set of autocompletion values; the values should be in JSON format, and look like the JSON returned by the MediaWiki API (see here). This also makes it easy to autocomplete on the values from another wiki.
2. Decide on a short string to represent this URL.
3. Add a line to LocalSettings.php that looks like this:

$wgPageFormsAutocompletionURLs['URL-identifier-string'] = 'URL';

The URL in this line should look like a call to that web service, but with the substring replaced by the string "<substr>".

1. Add the parameter "values from url=URL-identifier-string" to the relevant field in the form definition.

Uploading files

• uploadable - Specifies that this is an uploadable field.
• image preview - Specifies that a thumbnail of the uploaded image should be placed under the field in the form.
• default filename=filename - Specifies the default filename for files uploaded with this field.

“show on select”

• show on select=value 1=>element ID 1;value 2=>element ID 2;etc.

Multiple values for the same field

Multiple-instance templates

{{{for template|Occupation|multiple|add button text=Add another occupation}}}

Embedded templates

Defining the bottom of the form

Enabling multiple field values

#arraymap

#arraymaptemplate

The “edit with form” tab

The two-step process

Using #forminput

{{#forminput:form= |size= |default value= |button text= |query string= |query string parameters |autocomplete on category= |autocomplete on namespace= |remote autocompletion |placeholder= |popup}}

• form= - the name of the PF form to be used. If a comma-separated list of forms is passed in, a dropdown will appear, letting the user choose among those forms. If this parameter is left empty, a dropdown will appear letting the user choose among all existing forms.
• size= - the size of the text input (default is 25).
• default value= - the starting value of the input (default is blank).
• button text= - the text that will appear on the "submit" button (default is "Create or edit page").
• query string= - you can use this option to pass information to the form; this information generally takes the form of templateName[fieldName]=value. It should look like a typical URL query string; an example would be “query string=namespace=User&User[Is_employee]=yes”. Additionally, any query string values can be passed directly in as parameters – so the values above could instead be passed in as “|namespace=User|User[Is_employee]=yes”.
• autocomplete on category= - adds autocompletion to the input, using the names of all pages in a specific category.
• autocomplete on namespace= - adds autocompletion to the input, using the names of all pages in a specific namespace (only one of these two can be used).
• remote autocompletion - specifies that autocompletion values should be retrieved dynamically from the server, instead of directly from a list of values hidden in the page's HTML (thus allowing many more values).
• placeholder= - "placeholder" text that appears in the form input before the user types anything.
• namespace selector= - specifies that a dropdown should be placed before the input for the page name, letting the user choose from a set of possible namespaces for this page; the value for this parameter holds that set of namespace names, separated by commas. (For the main namespace, just have a blank value, like ",User,Project".)
• popup - opens the form in a popup window.
• reload - if "popup" or “returnto” are specified, causes the page the user returns to to get reloaded once the form has been submitted.
• no autofocus - by default; the form input gets autofocus, i.e., the cursor is placed in the input when the page loads; this parameter specifies not to do this.
• returnto= - the name of a page that the user will be sent to after submitting the form, instead of simply going to the saved page.

Adding pages of a specific namespace

Adding subpages

The one-step process

• <TemplateName[FieldName]> – gets replaced with the value for the specified field FieldName in the specified template TemplateName.
• <unique number> – by default, gets replaced by the lowest number for which the page title that's generated is unique. Normally, this value starts out as blank, then goes to 2, then 3, etc. However, one can manually set the starting number for this value, by adding a “start=” parameter; this number must be 0 or higher. For instance, to have the number start at 1 and go upward, you should set the tag to be <unique number;start=1>. You can also instead set it to be a random six-digit number, by adding the "random" parameter, so that the tag looks like "<unique number;random>". Note that the parameter in either case is delimited by a semicolon.

Using #formlink

Creating query forms

Embedding query forms

{{Special:RunQuery/query form name}}

Modifying pages automatically