Hi Markus, Jeroen, For some time we were looking for ways to enable a combined search (Special:Search and Special:Ask) because the occasional user faces some obstacles when using Special:Ask (query language even though Special:Ask provides an interface, missing knowledge of existing annotations to a specific term/page).
We tried Special:QueryCreator but it did not fit our requirements to overcome those named obstacles for the "normal" user and therefore we tried to find another way to integrate part of the query process into Special:Search without violating SMM's or MW' core and without copying the whole/extent SpecialSearch class. We came up with the SMWSearchProfile [0] with its initial objective to increase convenience and enable the "normal" user to interact with the standard (Special:Search) and the semantic search (Special:Ask) at the same time (within one interface) without having the user concentrating too much on a specific query language. == SMWSearchProfile == Starting with MW 1.18/1.19, SpecialSearch provides several new hooks [1.1], [1.2] that enabled us to create an additional search profile with different input methods (property / category / namespace selector etc.) while all search functions in Special:Search keeping their original functionality (any particular search engine implemented in the back end, works without interference) this new SearchProfile allows us to provide some flexibility in how to present semantic context to an search term entered through Special:Search. SMWSearchProfile is ''A simplified input for a simplified search'' where less proficient or occasional users with a higher than average barrier to use Special:Ask become proficient to find semantic related content. SMWSearchProfile does not try to solve the problem to find the right (in terms of efficiency) semantic annotation for an entered term but rather helps to ease obstacles a user faces when he/she is confronted with a query language like as #ask or SPARQL. Our users were positively surprised about the possibility to have their standard search extended with some information that otherwise they had only been made aware of by using Special:Ask in a different search session. We are not sure in how far the SMW core team sees such functionality/effort necessary for its core deployment therefore our aim here is to make you notice of such implementation. We are reluctant to provide just another extension because this tiny bit of code merely justifies it nor does it introduce new functionality, it only expands on existing ones in a different context. A short video about on how this integration works, can be found [3]. We tried to make the code as compliant as necessary and the navigation as simple as possible (tool tips etc.) so that with less input from an user similar results in its output can be expected. It is far from perfect and much improvement/review is needed to make it general available. ==Implementation == A more lengthy description can be found at [0]. A separated class SMWSearchProfile (SMW_SearchProfile.php, see [0]) handles all necessary SpecialSearch hooks and withit limiting the risk of impacting other SMW core functionalities. The implementation uses the RequestContext class which means that older SMW/MW implementations will not work without this class present. The SMWSearchProfile has been disabled by default and the user has to opt-in (his/her user preference) to be able to see/use the semantic search profile in Special:Search. In order to keep response latency in Special:Search at a minimum (while using #ask queries), SMW_SearchProfile.php supports caching so that identical but repeated semantic queries are retrieved from cache rather than from the database (smw-searchprofile cache time is set to 15 min). We have tested the implementation on [ MW 1.18 SMW 1.7.0.2] and [MW 1.19 SMW 1.8 alpha] together with the standard MW search and SphinxSearch (as a search engine backend). SolrStore couldn't be tested (because SpecialSolrSearch did not inherit the hooks from MW 1.18/1.19 in their Special class). [0] https://github.com/mwjames/projects/tree/master/smw-searchprofile [1.1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_hooks_included_in_SpecialSearch.php [1.2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/86714 [3] http://youtu.be/tP7h7OySHEU Cheers, mwjames ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Semediawiki-devel mailing list Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel
