[pmwiki-users] Re: yet another documentation suggestion ...

John Rankin john.rankin at affinity.co.nz
Wed Aug 3 20:50:09 CDT 2005


On Thursday, 4 August 2005 1:16 PM, V.Krishn <mistyfire at autograf.pl> wrote:
>> The markup [[PageName?action=dc]] would show the metadata
>Has this become a standard, recognized by all meta-readers and search-engines:
> <link rel="meta" href="http://wiki.example.com/ExamplePage?action=dc" /> ?

Almost, I think it should read:
<link rel="meta" type="text/xml" href="http://wiki.example.com/ExamplePage?action=dc" />
Example:
<link rel='meta' type='text/xml' href='http://wiki.tertiary.govt.nz/~InstitutionalRepositories/Main/ReportOfFindings?action=dc' />

I think 'this is a standard, recognized by some meta-readers and search-engines'

>One strange thing, this page
>http://www.emacswiki.org/cw/DublinCoreForWiki
>describes <dc:description> -- ignore, or use the first paragraph of the wiki 
>page. 
>
>Which means the standard HTML <meta name='description' content=text /> is 
>ignored or not taken into account. :-(

:-( indeed.

I think it's that once again PmWiki is ahead of the wiki pack in 
having a (:description:) directive! here's how I think it might work
in practice:
- assume for the sake of this example that there is an 'edit metadata' link

- we create and save a new wiki page, then click the edit metadata link

- pmwiki brings up a dc-based form that is populated with sensible
  default values, based on the content of the page (eg description
  contains the de-wikified text of the first paragraph)

- some of the fields are not editable, as they are derived from
  information about the page

- we edit values as we see fit and save the metadata record
>
>Secondly, similarly it ommits the meta Keywords??
>Please guide me if the grasp is loose.

As I understand it, Dublin Core defines /structure/ not content.
I think we could map (:keywords:) to dc:subject -- again pmwiki
is ahead of the pack in having a (:keywords:) directive. Or, we
might choose to use the !categories.
>
>So now we can start with some present standards like:
>(:title <test>:)
>(:keywords <word list>:)
>(:description <text>:)
>
>and implementing a script to extract meta according to definitions by 
>DublinCore into 
><link rel="meta" href="http://wiki.example.com/ExamplePage?action=dc" /> 
>would not be difficult, infact it would be quite similar to rss module.

Exactly right. For me the big design question is whether to embed the
metadata in the page itself or as a separate metadata record or a bit 
of both.

As an aside, with this in place, the dc metadata could be used to 
describe uploaded files that one wants to make discoverable. In
effect, the pmwiki page becomes the metadata record for the 
attachment.

-- 
JR
--
John Rankin






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