Extension:Spark

MediaWiki extensions manual

Spark Release status: beta
Implementation	Tag , Search, Extended syntax
Description	Adds a <spark /> tag that enables embedding Spark mash-ups. The spark library was created by Denny Vrandecic and Andreas Harth.
Author(s)	Jeroen De Dauwtalk
Latest version	1.0.0
MediaWiki	>= 1.35.0
License	GNU General Public License 3.0 or later
Download	Download extension Git [?]: Download Git master browse repository (GitHub) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review
Parameters $wgSparkFormat $wgSparkQuery
Hooks used ParserFirstCallInit
Quarterly downloads	0
Translate the Spark extension if it is available at translatewiki.net

Spark is a JavaScript library that allows the simple integration of data from all over the Web in any HTML page, using a rich set of visualisations. This extension enabled embedding of spark mashups using <spark /> tags.

About

Spark is a JavaScript library that allows the simple integration of data from all over the Web in any HTML page, using a rich set of visualizations. This extension enabled embedding of spark mashups using <spark /> tags.

Spark as described on the Spark website:

Spark is a library that enables HTML authors to create mashups more easily than ever before. Using standard Web technologies like SPARQL, RDF, HTML5, and JavaScript, Spark can query external knowledge sources (so called triple stores or SPARQL endpoints), and then visualise the results.

With Spark, website developers can create visually appealing mashups without having to write a single line of JavaScript, but merely using some markup elements describing the source of the data that is to be shown, a query to select the appropriate data, and selecting one from an expandable set of visualisations and their parameters.

This MediaWiki extension, unsurprisingly titled Spark, adds a <spark> tag to MediaWiki which is equivalent to <div class="spark"> as described in the spark library documentation. All parameters (except the class="spark" one) can just be copied over between spark divs in web pages, and the <spark> tag in MediaWiki.

Feature overview

• Visualization of data obtained via SPARQL queries.
• Support for all Spark visualizations.
• Use of the native Spark syntax, which can be copied from native spark divs to the spark tag and back.

Download

The extension can be retrieved directly from Git ^[?]:

• Browse code
• Some extensions have tags for stable releases.
  • Browse tags
  • Select the tag
  • Click "snapshot"
• Each branch is associated with a past MediaWiki release. There is also a "master" branch containing the latest alpha version (might require an alpha version of MediaWiki).
  • Browse branches
  • Select a branch name
  • Click "Continue"

Extract the snapshot and place it in the extensions/Spark/ directory of your MediaWiki installation.

If you are familiar with Git and have shell access to your server, you can also obtain the extension as follows:

cd extensions/ git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Spark.git

Installation

• Download and move the extracted Spark folder to your extensions/ directory.
  Developers and code contributors should install the extension from Git instead, using:cd extensions/
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Spark
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file:

  wfLoadExtension( 'Spark' );
  

•  Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

Version

This is a copy of the release notes file in the repo, which might be more up to date then this page.

Version 0.2 / 201x-0x-xx

• Added README, INSTALL, COPYTING and RELEASE-NOTES

Version 0.1 / 2011-05-30

Initial release with these features:

• ‎<spark> tag

Internationalization

Spark is fully internationalized. Translation of Spark messages is done through translatewiki.net. The translation for this extension can be found here. To add language values or change existing ones, you should create an account on translatewiki.net, then request permission from the administrators to translate a certain language or languages on this page (this is a very simple process). Once you have permission for a given language, you can log in and add or edit whatever messages you want to in that language.

Authors

Spark has been written by Jeroen De Dauw. It includes the Spark library created by Denny Vrandečić and Andreas Harth.

See also

• Semantic MediaWiki - extension that lets you store and query data within the wiki's pages and makes it available via the semantic web.