GSOC Proposal Link: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161609

Projects worked on: Cargo, Page Forms

Github Mirror Repository - Cargo: https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-Cargo
Github Mirror Repository - Page Forms: https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-PageForms

Primary Project Page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cargo

About my GSoC project

The project is about adding support for hierarchy fields in Cargo MediaWiki extension. The project also involves the addition of support for hierarchy fields in Page Forms MediaWiki extension, to ensure easy input from users entering hierarchy data into the wiki.

What are hierarchy fields

There was a need for a field that allows to store and query data of the following form, efficiently.

The proposed hierarchy field stores the required information to understand such relation, in order to perform query efficiently.

What ease does it provide

Several times the data has such nature and the need arises to query the data over a value as the parent and the children (all the successors). My work allows to do certain queries over the hierarchy fields in an easy manner using "WITHIN" and "HOLDS WITHIN".

Let’s say there is a Cargo table called “Cuisines”, holding some Cuisines and it’s “Main Ingredient”, you can do the following query to look for Cuisines having "Main ingredient" as one of the “Root Vegetables”.

{{#cargo_query:
tables=Cuisines
|fields=_pageName=Cuisine,Main_ingredient
|where=Main_ingredient WITHIN “Root Vegetables”
}}

The hierarchy field can also hold a list of values. In that case, let’s say there is a table called “Movies”, which has information about some movies and contains a field which holds hierarchy as well as list of values called “Genres”. If you want to query all the movies with Genre - Fiction and its sub-genres, you could do the following query:

{{#cargo_query:
tables=Movies
|fields=_pageName=Movie
|where=Genres HOLDS WITHIN “Fiction”
}}

For easy usability, a tree input has been chosen as default input type through Page Forms which looks like following:

The drilldown feature of Cargo extension allows querying by clicks and allows to have an overview of the counts of the values in the pages. The drilldown has been adapted accordingly so as to allow usage with hierarchy fields.

Planned Objectives

1. Add support for declaring and querying over hierarchy fields in Cargo Extension.
2. Add support for query using new Cargo keyword - “WITHIN”.
3. Modify Cargo’s 'Drilldown' interface to incorporate hierarchy fields.
4. Add support for hierarchy fields in the Page Forms extension to set default input type as "tree" for hierarchy field.
5. Add support for hierarchy fields in the helper pages of Page Forms extension for compatibility with Special:CreateClass and Special:CreateTemplate.

Status of the objectives

I have completed all the above-proposed objectives. In addition to that, I have fixed some other minor bugs which I have mentioned in the 'miscellaneous' section of Change logs.

The only work left to do is to update the project's documentation. It's been proposed to be done along with the release of the new version of the software. However, I have prepared my part of the documentation ( here).

Change log

Add support for declaring and querying over hierarchy fields in Cargo Extension

Add support for query using new Cargo keyword - “WITHIN”

Modify Cargo’s Drilldown interface to incorporate hierarchy fields

Add support for hierarchy fields in the Page Forms extension to set default input type as tree for hierarchy field

Add support for hierarchy fields in the helper pages of Page Forms extension for compatibility with Special:CreateClass and Special:CreateTemplate

Other miscellaneous changes that were required

Link to all the merged commits

View at Github: All merged commits in Cargo Extension Project
View at Github: All merged commits in Page Form Extension Project

Link to all the commits merged/open

View at Gerrit: All commits

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my mentors Yaron Koren(@Yaron_Koren), Nischay Nahata(@Nischayn22) and Tobias Oetterer(@Oetterer) for guiding me, and solving all of my doubts patiently. This project would not have completed without their contribution.

Special thanks to Srishti Sethi(@srishakatux) and the complete Wikimedia Foundation, for all their support.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Google for providing this opportunity to explore the open source software through the "Google Summer of Code" program.