smwcon fall 2013 managing content structure with smartcore

Managing SMW content structure with SmartCore™

Erwin Oord (ArchiXL)

@erwinoord

SMWCon Fall 2013

Wednesday, October 30th 2013

Berlin, Germany

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About us…

• ArchiXL

– Independent Dutch consultancy specialised in enterprise architecture (EA)

– Located in Amersfoort

– Customers mainly public sector

– Started using SMW internally for EA repository

• XL&Knowledge (“Excellent knowledge”)

– Knowledge management label for ArchiXL

– Knowledge management world is much larger than only EA

– Semantic MediaWiki as knowledge management platform

– Gold sponsor of SMWCon Fall 2013 Berlin

• Erwin Oord

– Enterprise architect & managing partner at ArchiXL/XL&Knowledge

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1 What is SmartCore about?

2 SmartCore architecture

3 Interesting details

4 Some thoughts on content structure

5 (If time allows) real-life demo: NORA online

Agenda

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SmartCore summary -- what it does

SmartCore™ is an “extension” to SMW

that, in a user friendly way, enables editors to manage content structure

and have changes reflected immediately

in forms and templates used by end-users.

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SmartCore

SmartCore summary -- what it is

250 km/h BMW 740i BMW A.G.

Top speed Car model Created by

Property Element type

(Class) Relation

Co

ncr

ete

Ab

stra

ct

Content

Content structure

Content structure structure

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Why SmartCore? If your content is structured like this…

…and you want to, e.g., add a relation…

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… your templates end up like this!

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How do we avoid this?

• What if we could make our forms and templates dynamic?

• Dynamic =

– Editor can add or modify content structure himself/herself, in a user friendly way

– Changes are reflected immediately in forms and templates

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SmartCore does exactly this

• First, you define the content structure

– SmartCore provides forms and templates for

• Element types

• Properties

• Relations

• Then, create/manage the content

– SmartCore uses the defined content structure to display fields in a standard form

– SmartCore automatically creates categories for element types

– SmartCore can customise the navigation menu

– SmartCore allows for manually customised display templates

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Agenda

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SmartCore architecture

“BMW 740i”

Template: Car model

Form: Car model

Property: “Top speed”

“BMW 740i”

Template: Element

Form: Element

“Car Model”

Template: Element type

Form: Element type

Property: “Top speed”

Traditional SmartCore


Form: Element type

Element type = Car Model

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SmartCore architecture example: Form:Element

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SmartCore architecture example: BMW 740i Source

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SmartCore architecture example: BMW740i page

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SmartCore architecture example: Template:Element

Looks horrible… but you never have to change this!

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SmartCore architecture example: Element type Car Model

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SmartCore architecture example: Element type Car Maker

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SmartCore architecture example: Property:Top speed

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SmartCore architecture example: Property Form

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SmartCore architecture example: Relation Created by

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SmartCore architecture example: Knowledge Model

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Other stuff

Element type Property Relation Element Knowledge Model

SmartCore architecture overview of components

Form: Element type


Category: Element types

Form: Property

Template: Property

Category: Properties

Form: Relation

Template: Relation

Category: Relations

Form: Element

Template: Element

Template: Create fields

Template: Autocreate category X

Template: Knowledge

model

More stuff…

Form: Knowledge

model

Category: Knowledge

models

Category: Elements

More stuff…

Standard layout

Navigation sidebar

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Agenda

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Why distinguish between properties and relations?

• Technically, there’s no real difference…

– Relations are stored as wiki properties (“Property:Xyz”)

– We could model relations as property of type “Page”

• But we want to represent relations graphically

– Need to know property or relation

– Need to identify line style, arrowhead, arrowtail (from ArchiMate)

• And we want to restrict property values to specific element types

– e.g. “Created by” can only point to a page of type “Car maker”

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Semantic Forms reversed <nowiki> tags

{{{field|Country|values=Germany,France,Sweden,US}}}

{{{field|Country|values={{#ask:...}} }}}

{{{field|Country|values=</nowiki>{{#ask:...}}<nowiki>}}}

Wiki code in “Form:Car Model”:

Wiki code in “Form:Element”:

Wiki code in “Form:Element”:

But that doesn’t work in SF…

But needs to be dynamic…

Works just fine!

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Parameter paralysis -- still not resolved

{{Element|Top speed=250}}

{{ElementLayout| Top speed ={{{Top speed|}}} }}

{{ElementLayout|{{GetPropName}}={{{{{GetPropName}}|}}} }}

Wiki code in “BMW 740i”:

Wiki code in “Template:Element”:

Form:Element Template: Element Set Props

Template: Element Layout

Unfortunately that doesn’t work…

Page

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Agenda

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Comparing SmartCore to alternatives

Special: CreateClass

Page Schemas SmartCore

Create content structure Yes Yes Yes

Change content structure No Yes Yes

Reuse e.g. properties No No Yes

Mechanism Generate code Generate code Dynamic code

Audience SMW experts SMW experts SMW users

Open source Yes Yes Not yet

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Content structure (manually )

Ideally, content structure is not defined in your wiki at all… but is externalised to an ontology server

BiZZdesign Architect Architecture content

Archi

Ontology server

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Agenda

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Wrap up

• Questions? Remarks? Want to share your thoughts?

• Right here, right now...

• ... or contact me:

smwcon fall 2013 managing content structure with smartcore

Technology