Domotiki

Domotiki.eu aims to bring together all the knowledge and information in the field of automation for including hardware, software, protocols, dealers, installers and builders.

A typical page on domotiki describe hardware, software or professional activities (constructors, vendors, or installators).



Who is using the wiki?
Domotiki is visited by people interested into home automation which have a project for their home or just want to discover this field. Contributors are maily professional that edit their pages's company.

Why was this wiki created?
Domotiki.eu was created in February 2010 with an ambitious goal : storing the maximum of information about home automation in french.

What is Home Automation?
Home automation (Domotique in french) technologies to control, monitor and communicate them to various electrical, multimedia and other automation habitat. It aims to increase the comfort and safety of people and property. It also saves energy consumed by the housing. The automation includes four information media to convey information between devices (powerline, wireless, wired and vdi), a number (too) important protocols (X10, Zigbee, RFXCOM ...), and multitude of manufacturers (Chacon, DELTADORE, Marmitek ...) and many more materials available on the market.

Why Semantic MediaWiki
Domotiki.eu was used MediaWiki without SMW for 2 years, but only using the category tag was becoming insufficient to store all the relationships between items.

The Semantic MediaWiki extension allows domotiki to collect, display and search information such as where departments involved installers, products offered by resellers. In short, the wiki is a collaborative database editable by a large audience without knowledge in wiki syntax.

Home automation is a vast and complicated that is why domotiki.eu uses the power of semantic mediawiki to allow:
 * contribute to its enrichment easier even for those who do not know wiki syntax using the forms
 * easier to search data using semantic searches

Many other extensions are useful for domotiki. (see Extensions)

Content
The major content pages are articles that contain information regarding home automation retailers, installers, or manufacturers, equipment and software.

Retailers can display product that they are selling, their main shelves...

Installers can display french department and/or belgim provinces and/or switzerland cantons where they can work, the protocols and box they are mastering and their specialties.

Domotiki is also a collaborative price comparator, every visitor can freely add a retailer's price for every product and thus share their hints and tips.

Extensions

 * Semantic Forms
 * Used to input structured data into the site


 * Semantic Drilldown
 * Used to find in 2 or 3 mouse clicks an equipment, a software or a professional


 * Semantic Maps and Maps
 * Used to show location of installers on a map in order to allow user to select the closest professional.


 * Semantic Result Formats
 * Used to show a Directory of professional with their website screenshot and information concerning their activities


 * Semantic Internal Objects
 * Used to link equipment with retailers catalogue for showing their price and a direct link with their product page. When several retailers are selling the same item, this wiki could be used as a price comparator thanks to this extension.


 * Confirm Edit ans Assira
 * To allow contributions by anonymous vistors, Confirm edit with assira is successfully used : No one spam bot vandalism has occured since this extension has been installed with the Assira option.


 * Header Tabs
 * In order to avoid afraiding contribtors, forms has been split on more clearly sections thanks to the extension Header Tabs.


 * Semantic Compound Queries
 * Used to display at the same time Installers and Showrooms location on the map.


 * Data Transfer
 * Sometimes retailers has a large catalog impossible to enter one by one. Thanks to Data Transfer extension they can format their list product into a csv format for a quicker integration into domotiki.


 * Widgets
 * Widgets extension allows professionels to display a facebook like box and/or their twitter account feeds. Thanks to Semantic Forms they just have to enter their facebook adresse or Twitter account name when they register. See an example