Thanks for the tip about tooltips :) I'll investigate that.

Meanwhile, yes, instructions can be put next to the field -- but
that's no assurance that the instructions will be ntocied much less
heeded. Further, instructions unnecessarily clog up the display when a
value has (already) been entered for the field. Hmm, I mentioned 2 use
cases, the other being the prefilled namespace prefix, which I'm sure
users would appreciate having alot.

On the arg-less template issue, maybe templates are used differently
in a straight mw application, but in a smw application, the template
should be enforcing business rules relevant to the category with which
the template is associated, prior to either formatting output or prior
to performing a series of #set statements.  Property cardinalities in
particular are enforced there (where else? pray tell). My point is
that only a small minority of categories (classes) do *not* require
any properties with non-zero cardinality (that small minority consists
of classes representing boolean existential facts, e.g., category:Gray
Haired Person, a subcategory of category:Person).  Hence, it is the
exceptional template that does not require at least one non-null arg.

Your counter-example -- http://mographwiki.net/London -- unfortunately
is a case of a mw application, not a smw application (and an
exceptionally poorly performing mw application at that). Yes "London"
is categorized as a "Cities" but "Cities" has no form... it is not a
'semantic category' at all.

On Mar 12, 10:23 am, Yaron Koren <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ah, it's for instructions and such. Well, you can always put them right next
> to the form field; many people do that. I should also mention the
> heavily-underdocumented SMW parser function #info, which displays a
> Javascript tooltip - I don't know if there's documentation for it anywhere,
> but you can see it in use near the bottom of this page (the little question
> mark icon):
>
> http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Configuration
>
> Actually, I've never heard of an SMW template that's only useful when it has
> at least one non-null argument. And I've seen quite a few cases of pages
> that contain nothing but an argument-less template call; here's one example:
>
> http://mographwiki.net/London
>
> -Yaron
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:07 PM, John McClure <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > For the second one, there are 2 cases that come to mind.
> > (1) pre-fills with anticipated prefixes (e.g., namespace:)
> > (2) pre-fills with data entry instructions (eg "Enter MM/DD/YYYY")
>
> > It would also be nice to have a {{{field |name ||tip=text}}} parameter
> > also, which is formatted into the title= attribute on the <input> (or
> > whatever) widget.
>
> > For the first one, the use case is that the developer simply doesn't
> > want the template called when there are no args to pass to the
> > template because, as I mentioned, templates are normally designed as
> > dependent on receiving at least one non-null argument.
>
> > Thanks.
>
> > On Mar 12, 9:47 am, Yaron Koren <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Okay, now I think I understand. Could you give a use case or two for why
> > you
> > > think each feature is important? I'm especially curious about the second
> > one
> > > - why have a default value if it's just going to get ignored?
>
> > > -Yaron
>
> > > On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 1:24 PM, John McClure <[email protected]
> > >wrote:
>
> > > > On Mar 12, 5:32 am, Yaron Koren <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > > > Oh - by "for-template" fields, do you mean fields contained in
> > > > > multiple-instance templates, the ones that use "remove" and "add
> > > > another"?
> > > > > Or are you talking about all templates?
>
> > > > I'm requesting that all templates should have this switch. As for its
> > > > name, I was thinking of
> > > > {{for template |templatename |no-null-call}}
> > > > where no-null-call = suppresses output of the template call when *all*
> > > > args are null
>
> > > > > The second issue I didn't understand either - what's an argument
> > > > formulated
> > > > > from a value?
>
> > > > The value of the input widget is transformed into the value of the
> > > > argument passed to the template.
>
> > > > I'm requesting that all fields should have this switch. As for its
> > > > name, I was thinking of
> > > > {{field |fieldname |no-default-arg}}
> > > > where no-default-arg = suppresses output of arg when user has not
> > > > changed the field's default value- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Semantic Forms" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/semantic-forms?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Reply via email to