Moin,
having written a <graph>-plugin for Mediawiki, I would like to announce it here.
It takes textual graph descriptions between <graph></graph> like this:
For instance this input:
<graph> [ Bonn ] -> [ Berlin ] [ Berlin -> [ Frankfurt ] { border: 1px dotted black; } [ Frankfurt ] -> [ Dresden ] [ Berlin ] -> [ Potsdam ] [ Potsdam ] => [ Cottbus ] </graph>
Would be rendered in ASCII as (use monospaced font for viewing :o)
+------+ +--------+ ............. +---------+ | Bonn | --> | Berlin | --> : Frankfurt : --> | Dresden | +------+ +--------+ ............. +---------+ | | v +---------+ +---------+ | Potsdam | ==> | Cottbus | +---------+ +---------+
HTML looks similiar, but more pretty (well, maybe :)
All the gory details, the patch, software, testcases, screenshots etc can be found at:
http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/
This is a proof-of-concept - e.g. it is likely not to work #:o)=
It is also still very early pre-alpha. Especially the Graph.php is very rough - I never did read nor write PHP code before - but it looks suspiciously like Perl and seems to work, so I am not complaining :)
However, before I wander off over the proverbial big cliff, I'd rather get some corrections. Read: please tell me what you think about it, whether this is going to be usefull/work/bring world-peace etc.
There are quite a few thing that are simple not implemented yet - I do have plans to implement them in the near future, though :) However, most of the work remains in the external parser/renderer.
My main interest in this area lies in _easily_ documentating network plans, flow charts, schematics and other things in that area. IMHO having such a feature in a wiki would be very usefull.
Best wishes,
Tels
PS: Special thanx go to Omega for beta testing!
-- Signed on Wed Jan 12 16:43:06 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
Marketing lesson #1: The synergy of the result driven leverage can *never* incentivize a paradigm shift. -- Walterk (124748) on 2004-01-16 at /.
Hi,
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tels wrote:
It is also still very early pre-alpha. Especially the Graph.php is very rough - I never did read nor write PHP code before - but it looks suspiciously like Perl and seems to work, so I am not complaining :)
You seem to use an external Perl script... Any chance to rewrite it in PHP?
However, before I wander off over the proverbial big cliff, I'd rather get some corrections. Read: please tell me what you think about it, whether this is going to be usefull/work/bring world-peace etc.
You made the same mistake as I did: not using an extension. Extensions are small files which you place in extensions/ and activate by including them in LocalSettings.php. This also obsoletes the activation in the settings.
The extensions mechanism is preferable, because they are more or less independent of the rest of MediaWiki.
Ciao, Dscho
I want to start a wiki where users have the option to use a different language front-end - but all the data is held in one central database. So if I search from the German start page - I might get results that were originally added in Spanish or French - as well as German.
Is there an elegant way of achieving this?
Paul
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:02:17 +0100, paul@immediart.com paul.youlten@gmail.com wrote:
I want to start a wiki where users have the option to use a different language front-end - but all the data is held in one central database. So if I search from the German start page - I might get results that were originally added in Spanish or French - as well as German.
Is there an elegant way of achieving this?
I am not sure if I understand your question, but since MediaWiki 1.4, each user can choose his interface language in his preferences. So that you can have one wiki site (with one database), but users can see the interface in any language they want.
-- [[ cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec ]]
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Moin,
On Wednesday 12 January 2005 17:56, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
Hi,
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tels wrote:
It is also still very early pre-alpha. Especially the Graph.php is very rough - I never did read nor write PHP code before - but it looks suspiciously like Perl and seems to work, so I am not complaining :)
You seem to use an external Perl script... Any chance to rewrite it in PHP?
Since the external Perl script uses many (big) Perl modules - it passes basically just the data around, but the real work is still done in Perl. So, I think this is not going to work. Unless, of course, you can use Perl modules directly in PHP.
However, before I wander off over the proverbial big cliff, I'd rather get some corrections. Read: please tell me what you think about it, whether this is going to be usefull/work/bring world-peace etc.
You made the same mistake as I did: not using an extension. Extensions are small files which you place in extensions/ and activate by including them in LocalSettings.php. This also obsoletes the activation in the settings.
The extensions mechanism is preferable, because they are more or less independent of the rest of MediaWiki.
I didn't know about extensions. I'll have a look - if it is simpler, than that would be cool :) (I already wondered about the repetivive code that handles html, math etc). Can you please point me to a demo extension and/or doc about them?
Best wishes,
Tels
- -- Signed on Wed Jan 12 18:01:54 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"Spammed if you do, spammed if you don't." - Murphy's Law
Hi,
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tels wrote:
Since the external Perl script uses many (big) Perl modules - it passes basically just the data around, but the real work is still done in Perl. So, I think this is not going to work. Unless, of course, you can use Perl modules directly in PHP.
I see. Pity.
I didn't know about extensions. I'll have a look - if it is simpler, than that would be cool :) (I already wondered about the repetivive code that handles html, math etc). Can you please point me to a demo extension and/or doc about them?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Write_your_own_MediaWiki_extension
And (shameless plug) my LilyPond extension:
http://lily4jedit.sourceforge.net/mediawiki-LilyPond-extension-v3.tar.gz
Hth, Dscho
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Moin,
On Wednesday 12 January 2005 18:37, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
Hi,
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tels wrote:
Since the external Perl script uses many (big) Perl modules - it passes basically just the data around, but the real work is still done in Perl. So, I think this is not going to work. Unless, of course, you can use Perl modules directly in PHP.
I see. Pity.
I didn't know about extensions. I'll have a look - if it is simpler, than that would be cool :) (I already wondered about the repetivive code that handles html, math etc). Can you please point me to a demo extension and/or doc about them?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Write_your_own_MediaWiki_extension
Wow! Thanx, I'll use that for the next version. I had a look at some of the extensions in v1.3.9 but I couldn't figure out how they were actually "registered".
Thank you again,
Tels
- -- Signed on Wed Jan 12 18:46:17 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"Die deutsche Zensoren - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dummköpfe - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -." Heinrich Heine
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Hello again,
On Wednesday 12 January 2005 18:37, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
Hi,
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tels wrote:
Since the external Perl script uses many (big) Perl modules - it passes basically just the data around, but the real work is still done in Perl. So, I think this is not going to work. Unless, of course, you can use Perl modules directly in PHP.
I see. Pity.
I didn't know about extensions. I'll have a look - if it is simpler, than that would be cool :) (I already wondered about the repetivive code that handles html, math etc). Can you please point me to a demo extension and/or doc about them?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Write_your_own_MediaWiki_extension
However, I do not see how my extension can get:
* parameters like in:
<graph gid=123> some text </graph>
AFAICS, only <graph> is supported, e.g. not additional parameters. * user preferences, like whether the output should be in HTML or ASCII
Is it possible for an extension to define it's own user preferences that are visible when the extension is loaded, and invisible otherwise?
And then there is also:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GraphViz
Murphy dictates that I find this out now, and not 2 months ago :)
Sorry for asking so many silly questions,
Tels
- -- Signed on Wed Jan 12 18:49:58 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"Retsina?" - "Ja, Papa?" - "Warp 3." - "Is gut, Papa."
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:52:58 +0100, Tels nospam-abuse@bloodgate.com wrote:
However, I do not see how my extension can get:
parameters like in:
<graph gid=123> some text </graph>AFAICS, only <graph> is supported, e.g. not additional parameters.
Not yet, but there is progress towards implementing it: see http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=684
- user preferences, like whether the output should be in HTML or ASCII
Is it possible for an extension to define it's own user preferences that are visible when the extension is loaded, and invisible otherwise?
I'm not sure about this one. Does the new "callback hooks" system implement anything related to this? Or is there already code in there? Or neither?
Tels wrote:
having written a <graph>-plugin for Mediawiki, I would like to announce it here.
It takes textual graph descriptions between <graph></graph> like this:
...
However, before I wander off over the proverbial big cliff, I'd rather get some corrections. Read: please tell me what you think about it, whether this is going to be usefull/work/bring world-peace etc.
Thanks a lot for your efford but *please* do not try to invent another language. GraphViz's dot-language is a powerful standard for graphs almost like TeX is a standard for formulars.
My main interest in this area lies in _easily_ documentating network plans, flow charts, schematics and other things in that area. IMHO having such a feature in a wiki would be very usefull.
Then please call it <easygraph> or something like this. I'd better like a plugin for all kind of graphs and GraphViz is obviously the best one.
Greetings, Jakob
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Moin,
On Thursday 13 January 2005 19:43, Jakob Voss wrote:
Tels wrote:
having written a <graph>-plugin for Mediawiki, I would like to announce it here.
It takes textual graph descriptions between <graph></graph> like this:
...
However, before I wander off over the proverbial big cliff, I'd rather get some corrections. Read: please tell me what you think about it, whether this is going to be usefull/work/bring world-peace etc.
Thanks a lot for your efford but *please* do not try to invent another language. GraphViz's dot-language is a powerful standard for graphs almost like TeX is a standard for formulars.
My main interest in this area lies in _easily_ documentating network plans, flow charts, schematics and other things in that area. IMHO having such a feature in a wiki would be very usefull.
Then please call it <easygraph> or something like this. I'd better like a plugin for all kind of graphs and GraphViz is obviously the best one.
I have to disagree.
First, I didn't know that there is a graphviz plugin (or anyother extension, I overlooked extension), and if there is a name-clash, I will rename my plugin.
Second:
Even knowing the graphviz plugin, I would redo the work I did for several reasons:
* output: I don't like these types of graph-images. Beside that I like ASCII/HTML output over PNG etc, IMHO the output of graphviz looks ugly. * I find the graphviz language too complicated in the same sense that HTML is too complicated over the normal wiki language. Compare the example from http://www.wickle.com/wikis/index.php/Graphviz_extension with one of my more complicated examples, I think my formatting is visual more distinct. (Of course, both languages should be "equivalent", e.g. it should be possible to write a converter - which means the language the graph is written in will be irrelevant)
Anyway, thanx for your input,
Tels
- -- Signed on Thu Jan 13 20:11:45 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." -- Andy Finkel, computer guy
Tels wrote:
On Thursday 13 January 2005 19:43, Jakob Voss wrote:
My main interest in this area lies in _easily_ documentating network plans, flow charts, schematics and other things in that area. IMHO having such a feature in a wiki would be very usefull.
Then please call it <easygraph> or something like this. I'd better like a plugin for all kind of graphs and GraphViz is obviously the best one.
I have to disagree.
First, I didn't know that there is a graphviz plugin (or anyother extension, I overlooked extension), and if there is a name-clash, I will rename my plugin.
Ok, if there is also <graphviz> I don't mind. Thanks for your work anyway.
Second:
Even knowing the graphviz plugin, I would redo the work I did for several reasons:
- output: I don't like these types of graph-images. Beside that I like
ASCII/HTML output over PNG etc, IMHO the output of graphviz looks ugly.
Well, uglyness is a very subjective argument that may fit to both.
- I find the graphviz language too complicated in the same sense that HTML
is too complicated over the normal wiki language. Compare the example from http://www.wickle.com/wikis/index.php/Graphviz_extension with one of my more complicated examples, I think my formatting is visual more distinct. (Of course, both languages should be "equivalent", e.g. it should be possible to write a converter - which means the language the graph is written in will be irrelevant)
If you draw complicated graphs, graphviz is complicated but not more compicated than any other language, including yours. But there is a limit in graphviz: you cannot embed Wikilinks! So if your plugin produces clickable images like Erik's Timeline that would be really useful.
Greetings, Jakob
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Moin,
On Friday 14 January 2005 01:03, Jakob Voss wrote:
Tels wrote:
On Thursday 13 January 2005 19:43, Jakob Voss wrote:
My main interest in this area lies in _easily_ documentating network plans, flow charts, schematics and other things in that area. IMHO having such a feature in a wiki would be very usefull.
Then please call it <easygraph> or something like this. I'd better like a plugin for all kind of graphs and GraphViz is obviously the best one.
I have to disagree.
First, I didn't know that there is a graphviz plugin (or anyother extension, I overlooked extension), and if there is a name-clash, I will rename my plugin.
Ok, if there is also <graphviz> I don't mind. Thanks for your work anyway.
Second:
Even knowing the graphviz plugin, I would redo the work I did for several reasons:
- output: I don't like these types of graph-images. Beside that I
like ASCII/HTML output over PNG etc, IMHO the output of graphviz looks ugly.
Well, uglyness is a very subjective argument that may fit to both.
- I find the graphviz language too complicated in the same sense that
HTML is too complicated over the normal wiki language. Compare the example from http://www.wickle.com/wikis/index.php/Graphviz_extension with one of my more complicated examples, I think my formatting is visual more distinct. (Of course, both languages should be "equivalent", e.g. it should be possible to write a converter - which means the language the graph is written in will be irrelevant)
If you draw complicated graphs, graphviz is complicated but not more compicated than any other language, including yours. But there is a limit in graphviz: you cannot embed Wikilinks! So if your plugin produces clickable images like Erik's Timeline that would be really useful.
Cool idea :o) I am currently on a vacation, but I will implement it soon to see how that looks :)
Interestingly enough, since my plugins output is some sort of text, you can also copy & past the output, and in quite a lot of cases and up with something resembling the original input. Which means, that also searhc engines will be able to index it etc. I think any graphical output could be "spiced" up with mouse-over maps, annotations and/or comments, if I ever go this route.
Best wishes,
Tels
- -- Signed on Fri Jan 14 11:52:55 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law. Right now, any professor can show a complete movie in his classroom without paying a dime - that's fair use. What is not fair use is making a copy of an encrypted DVD, because once you're able to break the encryption, you've undermined the encryption itself." - Jack Valenti
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Moin,
On Friday 14 January 2005 11:55, Tels wrote:
Moin, On Friday 14 January 2005 01:03, Jakob Voss wrote:
Well, uglyness is a very subjective argument that may fit to both.
:-)
But there is a limit in graphviz: you cannot embed Wikilinks! So if your plugin produces clickable images like Erik's Timeline that would be really useful.
Ask and ye shall receive :o) I updated my code (and webpage) today.
Graph::Simple is now:
* is an extension living in extensions/. (This makes wiki integration SOO much easier, but AFAICS we loose the user-setting for which output style (s)he want's to see. Is there a way an extension can register a page/tab in the user preferences?). * understands titles (for mouse-over) and (internal/external) links. See this example:
http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/test.html#syntax_0024.txt
Details on what else is new in this version can be found here:
http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/history.html
Thanx for all your work and feedback (I still would like to hear more ideas and/or arguments, though :o)
Best wishes,
Tels
- -- Signed on Mon Jan 24 21:43:10 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"Den wahren Wert dieser Software werden vermutlich nur Fach Läute und Firmen erkennen." -- "So isst es. Ein gewißer Standart muss schon gewart beiben!" -- Kabe (http://tinyurl.com/3kucx)
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