On 18/09/2009, at 10:00 PM, Bryan Tong Minh wrote:
As you may know we use ugly uselang hacks on Commons
to create our own
distinct upload forms. I want this functionality in MediaWiki.
We all do, I think it'll be thrown in as part of the Ford Foundation
work.
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.
Actually, as I understand it, we're hoping that we can throw together
a generic workflow management system for MediaWiki that could be used
to re-implement deletion, promotion, upload, blocking, and other
processes.
In my opinion, HTMLForm forms could be the framework we're looking for
for adding forms to this system, good thinking.
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.
The only sane idea is a proper special page. Adding configuration
through JSON or XML, especially in the MediaWiki namespace, is lazy at
best.
--
Andrew Garrett
agarrett(a)wikimedia.org
http://werdn.us/