28 May
2019
28 May
'19
4:44 p.m.
Fawad,
Thanks for your feedback.
Regarding the data model:
- Map: we clearly need a Map class :-). As discussed, it will hold the map configuration,
and possible links to sub-configurations (such as the visual theme, to be discussed).
Primarily, the map needs data, so it needs a field for storing a query that will make it
possible to retrieve data. You certainly already found the Solr Query API documentation
below, I suggest you give it a try and read the basic query principles, then we can set up
dedicated examples together on real data in the next days. This brings us to the question
of real data. We will quickly need sample data to work with, I think, I'm
investigating how to download GeoJSON data from OpenStreetMap, which itself contains links
to Wikidata or Wikipedia, this would allow us to grab some content and even images and to
have a good sample data set to work with. I'll keep you posted about that.
https://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/Solr%20Search%20Query…
In parallel, you could start thinking about the design and implementation of the query
endpoint that will return GeoJSON. Looking a bit into the code of
"Main.SolrSearchMacros" could be useful I would say, I'll think about it as
well.
- Spatial entities : Point, Shape, Path, ...: I agree with you having one XClass for each
is probably the way to go, but I would suggest we start just with "Point" and
postpone the decision to a bit later if you agree, just to make sure we don't make
wrong assumptions and introduce too much complexity (probably not, but to be discussed).
Even the "icon" property might be too early at this stage imho, because in real
world scenarios I believe it's more important to provide the ability to associate
icons to facets key/value pairs than to individual items. It may be useful in the future,
but we'll see, I would say.
- Content: considering using content ids, or XPaths or XWiki DOM (XDOM) queries could be
quite powerful. We don't want the users to maintain manually popup content, while they
already have the burden to maintain the main content itself. Using content ids / queries
would avoid duplicating content. This shares some concern with the Page Preview
application, see links below. I don't have a clear answer yet, we need to discuss a
bit further. But we could start with the first page paragraph for instance.
https://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Drafts/Page%20Preview%20Application
https://xwiki.markmail.org/message/zhbaw7m3rsnbm26m?q=preview
https://github.com/xwiki-contrib/application-page-preview
I'll be off in the next couple of hours but I'll provide more feedback as soon as
possible.
Cheers
Stéphane
Fawad Ali:
Hi Stéphane and Ecaterina,
Thanks for the update to the design page. It feels much more detailed now imo. However it
has left me confused with all the details. I was focused on a more straightforward
approach but we need to be more detailed as I see it.
I would like to know how I should move forward with what I have already done. Considering
the kind of structure Stephane suggests for the application, we will have to redo it
completely because I do not think what I did so far is suitable for such requirements.
Let me first discuss the data model since that will be the basis of the application.
We have the main entities as Map, Point, Shape, Path and Content. I think it's better
if we have an XClass for each of them with properties that will highlight the available
configurations for the entities. For example, for the Point class, we can have properties
icon, location, content (may be an id from a content class object?).
Also, I am not much familiar with Solr or any of the query languages in XWiki since I was
not going in that direction. I did try to look into Solr quite a bit but it would help me
a lot if you could provide me an example.
And direction on how I move from here on out would also help a lot.
Best,
Fawad
On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 6:14 PM Stéphane Laurière <slauriere(a)xwiki.com
<mailto:slauriere@xwiki.com>> wrote:
Hi Caty, Fawad, all,
[...]
--
Stéphane Laurière
XWiki – https://xwiki.com
* I've read again the GSOC project
description. The main purpose of the
application is to allow multiple people to create POIs and other shapes on
the Maps. There is a note that the POIs will have additional information
about the location.
Some questions:
** can a POI be displayed in multiple Maps? For example: if we someone
creates a 'Centre Pompidou' POI in a page, where adds information about the
place, images, etc. Should we be able to display this POI in multiple maps
(one that contains museums, while others contain modern architecture)?
I would say it's important that a point of interest or any other entity can be
present in multiple maps indeed. A map is defined in particular by a query imho – I would
suggest a Solr query as argued on the design page, what do you think? – which returns a
set of elements. Then the user can refine this set at will using full-text search, facets
or spatial search.
** in any case, the POI storage could be done in
objects or in individual
pages. We need to think about performance too. Pages will lots of objects
can have performance issues, so storing as pages (that will contain objects
for POI type) might be better?
Ideally that'd be great to support both options I would say.
In terms of priority I would go for one object per page to start with. Typically, in
the encyclopedia use case defined in the design page, having one object attached to each
target page would be very convenient imho: it would ease the maintenance of information,
both textual and geographical, related to each page.
Supporting multiple objects per page could be quite useful as well. Imagine for
instance that we want to represent the "Battle of the Somme" on a map. The
content itself may refer to multiple locations (as on the Wikipedia article below and its
static image map representation), so it could be handy to let the user input all these
locations (points, areas, lines...) as objects attached to the "Battle of the
Somme" page itself without the need to create individual pages for each location.
There is no reason to hit a very large number of objects in this scenario though. What do
you think?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme
* Maps will also be pages, containing
configuration (custom backgrounds),
etc.
Indeed, a map page will consist of a map configuration imho. We need to define what
is needed to configure a map, beside the query. The visual configuration is important as
well and can be possibly complex, and other options could arise...
Stéphane
--
Stéphane Laurière
XWiki – https://xwiki.com