Wiki news items

Namespace

To create the News: namespace, and have it recognized by SMW, we add to LocalSettings.php:

define("NS_NEWS", 112);
define("NS_NEWS_TALK", 113);
$wgExtraNamespaces[NS_NEWS] = "News";
$wgExtraNamespaces[NS_NEWS_TALK] = "News_talk";

$smwgNamespacesWithSemanticLinks[NS_NEWS] = true;
$smwgQDefaultNamespaces = NULL;

Of course this section must occur after the line that enables SMW (enableSemantics(<name>);)

News item

To create a news item, we use a template that sets certain semantic parameters:

• headline:: of type string, contains the headline.
• newsdate:: of type date, contains the entry date of the news item.
• newsauthor:: of type string, contains the author of the news item.
• news expires:: of type date, contains the date at which the news item is no longer valid.
• newsblurb:: of type string, contains a short excerpt of the news item.

When called, the template sets the semantic properties, and produces the headline, the byline with author and dates, and a nice box containing the blurb.

To create a news item, we now create a new page in the News: namespace, invoke the template, and put the news item text below it.