Semantic MediaWiki 1.7.0

Version 1.7.0 of Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) is the next major release after Semantic MediaWiki 1.6.1 that brings many new features, important behind-the-scenes improvements and a pile of bugfixes.

Compatibility changes

 * Dropped compatibility with MediaWiki 1.15.x (and earlier).
 * Dropped compatibility with old-style (SMW < 1.6) query printers. This means SMW 1.7 and later will not work with Semantic Result Formats < 1.7.
 * Full compatibility with MediaWiki 1.18 and forward-compatibility with 1.19.

Upgrading SMW 1.6.x
Installations of SMW 1.6.* and can be upgraded by replacing the files, and by running the database update (Special:SMWAdmin or SMW_setup.php script) as usual. Moreover, it is strongly suggested to enable the refresh process to update all data on Special:SMWAdmin. Older versions of SMW can be upgraded in the same way, but there can be more feature changes that require changes of wiki pages. See the current documentation for details on using the current version.

Upgrading SMW 1.5.x
SMW 1.6.0 introduces a new software dependency (which also applies to all later versions): the Validator extension that helps Semantic MediaWiki to validate user-provided parameters. It must be installed for SMW to work. Make sure that you include Validator prior to the inclusion of SMW in your "LocalSettings.php". Do note that Validator comes bundled with SMW releases as of version 1.6.0. If you are obtaining the code via svn, you will need to get a checkout of Validator yourself.

Do not forget to also install the extension Validator first and include it in LocalSettings.php prior to SMW with the following line of code. After that you may proceed to upgrade SMW.



Extensions for SMW versions up to 1.5.* should not be assumed to work with SMW 1.6.0 out of the box. All SMW extensions should be upgraded to versions that are compatible with SMW 1.6. Moreover, some functions changed and pages might need updates (see below). Additional remarks on upgrading older SMW versions are given below.

If not done already, it is suggested to change the inclusion of SMW in LocalSettings.php to the following as described in the installation instructions above:



Including "SMW_Settings.php" as in earlier versions will not longer work.

Native subobjects
SMW 1.7 introduces a new #subobject parser function, which is similar to the #set_internal_object of the Semantic Internal Objects extension.

Ask API
Added alpha version of native SMW Ask API with modules 'ask' and 'askargs'. This allows you to run ask queries against the MediaWiki API and get results back serialized in one of the formats it supports.

Special:QueryCreator
Added alpha version of a new ask query interface: "Special:QueryCreator". This was created by Devayon Das as part of Google Summer of Code 2011.

Special properties

 * Added setting to choose which optional special properties are enabled ($smwgPageSpecialProperties).
 * Added creation date special property (disabled by default).

Behind the scenes

 * Added value distribution functionality that can be used by result formats.
 * Added validation and manipulation of the format parameter using Validator.
 * Use of native MediaWiki sortable tables for the table formats.
 * Removed defunct "SMWLight" files.

Misc additions

 * Added support for selecting a default graph when using RDF stores, configuration called $smwgSparqlDefaultGraph
 * Added 'class' parameter to the 'table' format, which allows setting the CSS class.
 * Added automatically-generated CSS classes for rows and cells in 'table' format.
 * Added support for altitudes in geographic coordinates.
 * Added automatic invocation of the SMW_setup maintenance script when running update.php (for MW >= 1.19).
 * Added support for the Page Schemas extension.

Bugfixes
SMW 1.7 closes a number of bugs that have been identified in earlier versions. The more noteworthy ones include:


 * Fixed separator and filename parameters for the DSV format.
 * Fixed display of properties of type URL.
 * Fixed hide query functionality on Special:Ask.
 * Fixed display of internal SMW helper constants in certain queries.
 * Fixed some issues with the category result format (including ).
 * Fixed email validation issue.
 * Fixed incorrect handling of sort and order parameters on Special:Ask.
 * Fixed display of images to old behavior after a recent regression.
 * Fixed factbox links to Special:SearchByProperty containing numerical numbers for wikis in languages with the comma as decimal separator instead of a dot.
 * Fixed the "hide incoming properties" link on Special:Browse.
 * Added definitions for missing parameters (sort, order, searchlabel) to the base query printer.
 * Fixed bug in "further results" links causing the main column to be displayed twice on Special:Ask.
 * Fixed incorrect case-sensitivity of the format parameter.
 * Fixed fatal error in the concept cache maintenance script.
 * Fixed fatal error occurring for some invalid property definitions.
 * Fixed error in RSS when using creator or date parameters.
 * Fixed incorrect offset of export formats.
 * Fixed several more issues not listed here.

Extended translations
As usual, translations have been extended thanks to the Translatewiki.net project.