Section-aware annotations for query/display

[brettz9]

As a possible enhancement (assuming it is not already possible), I'm wondering if it may be possible for annotations to store information, accessible upon query and result formatting, about the particular subsection within which they occur (or possibly relative to the nearest ID on the page, e.g., as added by the likes of a page-marker template preceding the annotation).

[mwjames]

formatting, about the particular subsection within which they occur (or possibly relative to the nearest ID on the page, e.g., as added by the likes of a page-marker template preceding the annotation).

I have to admit I'm not fully able to grasp what this request is about. Given the reference to "... particular subsection within which they occur ..." I would assume you mean the context in which a query is embedded such as in the following example where the #ask is part of Section 1. A parser function {{#...}} is not aware about it surroundings meaning where it is placed and there is no method (as I'm aware of) to determine its context unless you explicitly give that information manually to the parser function. Also, you cannot search for the parser function within the text to find out where it is relative to some section because the parser will process those functions first and replace them with a placeholder.

some text

== Section 1 ==

{{#ask: ... }}

== Section 2 ==

Aside from the technical issues, what is the use case, why would someone need that information?

[brettz9]

I was thinking along the lines of properties:

=Animals=

== Domestication ==

...
[[Has topic::wild dogs| ]]

== Breeding ==

[[Has topic::domestic dogs| ]]
[[Has topic::cats| ]]

So that an ask query could turn up something like:

Title	Topic
Animals#Domestication	wild dogs
Animals#Breeding	domestic dogs
Animals#Breeding	cats

Even better would be this (e.g., as part of a book):

<div id="chapter6"></div>
<div id="page321"></div>
...
[[Has topic::wild dogs| ]]
<div id="chapter7"></div>
...
<div id="chapter8"></div>
<div id="page451"></div>
[[Has topic::domestic dogs| ]]
<div id="page452"></div>
[[Has topic::cats| ]]

Title	Chapter	Page	Topic
Book of animals	6	321	wild dogs
Book of animals	8	451	domestic dogs
Book of animals	8	452	cats

I know the <div id> could not be reliably parsed with the above info only. One could conceive an implementation based on custom markup (e.g., <section val="chapter=6" priority=1> and <section val="page=321" priority=2>) or by queries enabled to define a pattern:

{{#ask:
 [[Has topic::*]]
|mainlabel=Title
|?prefix="chapter",type=numeric;label=Chapter
|?prefix="page";type=numeric;label=Page
|?Has topic
}}

[mwjames]

I understand the request but unless you codify the position at the time of the input there is no way an annotation knows its embedding context (i.e. meaning knows which part of #Domestication or #Breeding it to be).

Furthermore, I wouldn't know a method to make such information available and besides the technical issue of finding the context, each such annotation would have to be stored as "subobject" to record the value and its context (aka. position) because a simple [[Foo::Bar]] doesn't allow to store that information.

[brettz9]

Ok, sure... Well, maybe as just a enhancement request if it becomes more technically feasible in the future?

[mwjames]

Well, maybe as just a enhancement request if it becomes more technically feasible in the future?

Unlikely, but I suggest you have a look at [0, 1] which uses named subobjects and can be used to identify a section context.

[0] https://sandbox.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Issue/3961
[1] https://sandbox.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Issue/3961/Q

[brettz9]

A helpful demo, thank you, and I guess with templates, one could more easily add subobjects for the pages or chapters along with topics, and if #3702 were implemented, I suppose pages could be nested inside chapters.