[pmwiki-users] Motivation for hierachy

John Rankin john.rankin at affinity.co.nz
Tue May 30 18:36:54 CDT 2006


On Wednesday, 31 May 2006 5:17 AM, Dr Fred C <drfredc at verizon.net> wrote:
> John Rankin wrote:
><snip, snip, snip>  In this example, it's not obvious to me that the data fit 
>either the wiki's group.page structure or a hierarchy.
>But a starting point using a wiki might be: establish a
>group for each "real world" object, like Student, Teacher,
>Course. Then establish a group for each association
>between these real world objects.
>
>This seems to have wandered a long way from hierarchies...
>  
> You've done a reasonable job of explaining some of the ins and
>outs of various data structures that wikis might and might not
>use. 
>
> As a point of reference, after a bit of checking, our local
>schools use the following internet file structure :
>
><School>/<Student>/<Class>/ReportCard

Ah. They are using a hierarchy as a *presentation* method, not
necessarily as a *structural* method. This suggests the following
possible approach:

- set up "natural" wiki groups for entities like Student with
  pages like Student.JennyWren with a way to resolve duplicate
  names -- eg an ID number rather than a name, with the name as
  (:title:)

- perhaps use subpages for Student.JennyWren,Spanish

- or a StudentCourses group, with pages (relational data model)
  StudentCourses.JennyWrenSpanish
>
>¥ There's a Student page for everyone in the various district
>schools, including High School. 
>
>¥ Each Student page has it's own password which provides a list
>of the classes they are taking.
>
>¥ <School>/<Student>/Geometry
>¥ <School>/<Student>/Spanish, etc
>
>¥ Clicking on the each Class link allows Parents (with the
>password) to lookup the following for that Class
>
>¥ Overall grade,
>
>¥ quizes,
>
>¥ Tests,
>
>¥ homework turned in,
>
>¥ attendance,
>¥ Etc.
>
><snip>
 And then use the virtual hierarchy recipe for site navigation:

<quote>
Carlos schrieb:
> The recipe I was thinking about was named (by me) "VTREE" and I wrote some 
> thoughts about it , here:
> 
> http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Profiles/CarlosAB

It's a nice breadcrumb-display recipe (kind-of orthogonal to trails).

I see one downside: You still have to change all children if a parent 
gets moved to a different place in the hierarchy.
So I'd prefer something along the lines of

   (:vtree Name="Alternate hierarchy" parent=Recipe:)

Also, I'm not sure what the "spacer" parameter does.
If it's defining the amount of whitespace, it's probably better to make 
that parameter a string (then you can use whatever spacer you like, and 
use multiple &nbsp;s or CSS-adorned <span>s or even visible things as 
spacers).

Other than that: nice.

Regards,
Jo
</quote>
>
>
Implementatiuon details, such as password control on a per-student
basis (my page and its sub pages) are non-trivial, but could, I
think, be resolved. You would need to load Group.Page.php (with a
student password) for all subpages of Group.Page -- that could be
done. An exercise for the reader :-)
-- 
JR
--
John Rankin






More information about the pmwiki-users mailing list