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Subject: Permaculture Database

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  • From: Rich Morris <mailinglists@pfaf.org>
  • To: pcdb <pcdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcdb] [Fwd: Re: [permaculture] To wiki or not to wiki]
  • Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:06:28 +0000

To show what can be done with a wiki I've now got a wiki with the pfaf database in it at
http://www.pfaf.org/wiki/index.php

I've added some extensions to media wiki to make it easier to use more semantic style elements

A typical page is
http://www.pfaf.org/wiki/index.php/Cichorium_intybus

Points to note:

The basic botanical info about a plant is displayed in standard format
this is achieved by using the template mechanism, basically a form of macro inclusion.

{{Disp:Plant heading
|author={{author|L.}}
|common names={{common name|Chicory}}
|family={{family|Compositae}}
|....
}}

This sort of mechanism could be used to establish a look and feel for the pages.

The templates are use in a second way
{{family|Compositae}}
sets the family of the plant. This puts the plant in the category of plants in the Compositae family.
http://www.pfaf.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Family:Compositae

there are similar templates for the author, genus, Common name, Habit, Habitat, Height, Width, Range and Use. Theres also an extensible mechanism
{{prop|Hardyness|3}}
which allows any other property of the plant to be defined.

The second feature of these templates is that it stores the data in a
'propetries' table. This table can be queried to find plants with a given property and also to return a specific property of a plant.
The full list of properties for a plant can be output in xml, see for example
http://www.pfaf.org/wiki/index.php/Special:Properties/Cichorium_intybus
(note due to the way the data was imported this table has not been populated fully yet).

Feel free to mess about.

Rich

--
Plants for a Future: 7000 useful plants
Web: http://www.pfaf.org/
Post: 1 Lerryn View, Lerryn, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0QJ
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