[cc commons-l, please keep the discussion on wikitech-l]
As you may know we use ugly uselang hacks on Commons to create our own distinct upload forms. I want this functionality in MediaWiki.
HTMLForm provides a great way to abstractify form construction by providing a descriptor that can be transformed into an HTML presentation. What I want is to have allow Commons admins to create custom uploads forms by providing a descriptor suitable for HTMLForm, which is then translated to HTML and accessable via Special:Upload/formname.
The question is how to allow admins to edit this descriptor. In PHP this is simply an array. We could allow input as JSON or XML in a MediaWiki: namespace message, which is then translated to an array and then fed to HTMLForm. Or it could be only GUI editable via a Special page and the forms can be stored elsewhere in the database.
Opinions, ideas?
Cheers, Bryan