Last modified: 2011-04-14 15:13:19 UTC

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Bug 9559 - aggregated Labelled Section Transclusion
aggregated Labelled Section Transclusion
Status: NEW
Product: MediaWiki extensions
Classification: Unclassified
Extensions requests (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Low enhancement (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
:
Depends on: 5881
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2007-04-11 12:48 UTC by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
Modified: 2011-04-14 15:13 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 2007-04-11 12:48:00 UTC
dear wikimedians,

thank you for _already_ having done the LST enhancement :)

i have a second (just as important) idea - _reverse_ LST.

basically it goes like this:

 * place a marker in a page {{LSTtarget:<name>}}

 * in any page, place a tag {{reverseLST:<page>#<name>:<optional numbering N[.N]*>}}
   and obviously its corresponding end tag

 * have a special tag which allows the numbering optionally given in the tag
   to be displayed inline, in the "target" marker page (LSTtarget:<name>)

the purpose is this:

 i am currently doing some research.  the research is complex.
 i am finding links all over the place.
 i have a list of unsorted things to resolve,
 and i also have a list of "posts to keep an eye on".
 this list i want to split up into the individual
 research pages AND i want them to appear on the "main" page.

 without duplication.

 by placing an {LSTtarget:monitor_postings} tag on the "main" page,
 and then by placing this on my UbuntuResearch page:

{{reverseLST:ThingsToDo#monitor_postings}}
 * http://forums.ubuntu.org something really stupid i said on ubuntuforums
{{endreverseLST:ThingsToDo#monitor_postings}}

 i expect there to be created a bullet-point of a single item
 on the UbuntuResearch page **AND** a bullet-pointed list comprising
 ALL monitored postings to appear on the "main" page.

 the purpose of adding a section number is, obviously, so that the
 list can be sorted and, if desired, numbered.  or auto-numbered.
 _whatever_.

 at least it's a start.

 but bear in mind that it might be useful to have "outsourced" scripts
 which are run whenever a page is edited (see ikiwiki concept, which is
 a much better way to create a wiki) which can do some pre-parsing for
 you to generate the pages.

 ( extensions on steroids, basically, but not restricted to php )

 you are in danger of creating a programming language (i've already seen
 enough ifs and buts and stuff) and doing that is _always_ a stupid idea,
 as can clearly be seen by the extensions.conf abominations that are
 required for asterisk.

 cut the shit and use a proper programming language.

 l.
Comment 1 Rob Church 2007-04-11 14:56:11 UTC
Please provide a proper feature request with a decent explanation of what's
being asked for and decent examples of how it should work, because what I see
above is a very loose and not particularly clear request, and I don't come away
with any understanding of your problem or the requested addition.

Please also limit feature requests to the request, and not random musings on
other parts of MediaWiki; our bug tracker is not the place to begin any sort of
dialogue on your objection to the parser functions slope, much as I agree with
some of your sentiments.
Comment 2 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 2007-04-11 16:04:29 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Please provide a proper feature request with a decent explanation of what's
> being asked for and decent examples of how it should work, because what I see
> above is a very loose and not particularly clear request, and I don't come away
> with any understanding of your problem or the requested addition.

 sorry!

 ok.

 this is a quite complex thing to describe, and i do not know the language
 that you use / terminology that you use, so please be patient whilst we thrash
 this out: it might take a few rounds.

 the problem that i want to solve is this: i want sections of wiki content to
 be "amalgamated" (duplicated) into one target.

 example: i have multiple pages on which i am maintaining http links as part of
 my research.  i want all of those links to be merged into ONE location WITHOUT
 i repeat WITHOUT having to resort to stupid pointless cut/paste duplication.


 another way to put it is by analogy: one-to-many is to LabelledSectionInclude
 as many-to-one is to InverseLabelledSectionInclude.  so, where LST can be used
 to drag/duplicate ONE section of a page in to MANY locations, i want MANY
 sections on MANY pages to be drag/duplicated into ONE section of a page.

 hence the need for specifying some sort of ordering on the sections being
 "dragged in".

 (actually, it's many-to-many but that's another story)

 so.

 ResearchPage1 content:

{{reverseLST:ThingsToDo#monitor_postings}}
* http://forums.ubuntu.org something really stupid i said on ubuntuforums
{{endreverseLST:ThingsToDo#monitor_postings}}

 ResearchPage2 content:

{{reverseLST:ThingsToDo#monitor_postings}}
* http://lists.debian.org something even stupider i said on debian-devel
{{endreverseLST:ThingsToDo#monitor_postings}}

 PostsToKeepAnEyeOncontent:

  {LSTtarget:monitor_postings} 

results in the following html:

<ul>
<li /> http://forums.ubuntu.org something really stupid i said on ubuntuforums
<li /> http://lists.debian.org something even stupider i said on debian-devel
</ul>

and on ResearchPage1:

<ul>
<li /> http://forums.ubuntu.org something really stupid i said on ubuntuforums
</ul>

and on ResearchPage2:

<ul>
<li /> http://lists.debian.org something even stupider i said on debian-devel
</ul>

cool, huh? :)

now scale that up to 50 pages with over 200 links in total being amalgamated
from those 50 pages, and you start to appreciate why i certainly do not want
to be duplicating stuff all over the place.


> Please also limit feature requests to the request, and not random musings on
> other parts of MediaWiki; our bug tracker is not the place to begin any sort of
> dialogue on your objection to the parser functions slope, much as I agree with
> some of your sentiments.

 *lol* ok :)
Comment 3 Steve Sanbeg 2007-04-11 18:10:02 UTC
If I understand this, "aggregated" may be a better description than "reverse"

With LST, you transclude a specified section from a specified page.  It seems
like you want to get the specified section without specifying the page, by
getting it from all pages it appears on.

i.e. page1 has <section begin=agg/>some random wiki text
<section end=agg/>

page2 has <section begin=agg/>some more wiki text
<section end=agg/>

So you can do something like {{#lstall|agg}}

To get:
some random wiki text
some more wiki text
Comment 4 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 2007-04-12 06:44:32 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> If I understand this, "aggregated" may be a better description than "reverse"

 yeah, that's exactly it.

 imagine it like this: you have a btree, with back-pointers to the "parent" in each
 child node.

 LST is like the child-to-parent pointers.

 Agg is like the parent-to-child back-pointers.


 another way to put it: in advogato, there is the concept of Certification.
 in the XML documents for each user, _who_ you have Certified, and who has
 Certified _you_, are each stored in your profile.xml.

 LST is like the "who you have Certified".

 Agg is like the "who has Certified you".


Comment 5 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 2007-04-12 06:47:41 UTC
... of course, with each of the examples and analogies given, no ordering is
possible.

therefore it is necessary to _add_ some sort of hierarchical numbering scheme.

and one thing that would be very helpful there would be to have a _really_ special
"Edit" page which allows the aggregated content to be edited and then put back
in each of the pages from whence the aggregated content came!

now that _would_ blow people's minds!!!

meta-page-editing *argh*!

:)
Comment 6 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 2007-04-12 06:49:36 UTC
PLEASE DISREGARD that last comment from me, until such time as aggregated LST is
working, and in effect.

i'll raise a SEPARATE feature enhancement once the dust settles from agg-LST.

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