ClassificationPlugin

A topic classification plugin and application

Description

ClassificationPlugin is a taxonomy and folksonomy extension for Foswiki that allows you to manage knowledge assets stored in your wiki. Users can organize their content by filing topics into categories and by adding offhand tags. Classifying content using categories and tags are the key factors to foster sustainable knowledge management. This becomes even more important in a wiki environment where content is created quickly but has to be made available for a longer period of time.

Categories become the backbone spanning all of your content. Content can then be retrieved by browsing categories narrowing down search results interactively in addition to the normal full-text search.

Key features

Multilevel facet navigation: Wiki content is displayed dynamically by browsing a category tree or by means of interactive tag clouds.

Managing taxonomies the wiki way: Categories in a taxonomy are first-class wiki citizens that can be created, renamed, managed and reused as easily as normal wiki topics.

Expressive knowledge models: Categories may form poly-hierarchies where categories can have multiple parent categories. Wiki documents can be filed into multiple categories at the same time.

Multidimensional classification: A wiki document may participate in multiple taxonomies and folksonomies at the same time. Different facets of a document can be separated in a clean way.

Reusing and merging taxonomies: A category tree once defined in one web space can be imported into another web space effortless. You are free to chose which part of a tree you want to import. Multiple category trees from a number of web spaces can be merged and reassembled differently in a new web. That way predefined taxonomies can be managed in a centralized way and reused as needed in different webs. Any change to a taxonomy in one place will automatically show up in all webs that imported it.

Tagging for corporate intranets: While categories establish a predefined vocabulary, tags are a way to assign keywords to wiki content in an ad hoc fashion. This completes category knowledge management in a natural and fruitful way.

Standardized WikiApplicatons: ClassificationPlugin conforms to the WikiWorkbench application framework that grants for scalable and long-term maintainable WikiApplications.

Extensibility: ClassificationPlugin serves as a building block for further WikiApplications to be integrated in an overall knowledge management infrastructure. It serves as a middleware for a couple of higher order applications, like blogging, forums and skills management available separately.

Document types: ClassificationPlugin adds a couple of document types to the standard set that come with the WikiWorkbench. This gives you maximum flexibility in your knowledge management initiative. Further document types can be derived with ease. These will automatically participate in the overall knowledge management framework.

Facetted Search: ClassificationPlugin integrates well into SolrPlugin using tags and categories to drill down into search results.

Screenshots

Getting started

The easiest way to get started is to create a new web by using the _ClassificationTemplate web as a template. For this

1. go to WebCreateNewWeb (or ManagingWebs in case you are not using NatSkin)
2. enter the name of your new web, e.g. "Knowledge"
3. select _ClassificationTemplate as a template web
4. click Submit

This will create a new web called "Knowledge" which has got all the means preinstalled to create content under the control of the ClassificationPlugin such as:

• create new categories on the Knowledge.Category topic
• create new categorizable and taggable content either using the Knowledge.ClassifiedTopic form or by hitting the "New" button on the top of each button

Customize the frontpage of the new "Knowledge" web by describing the key content and thematic fields stored in it as well as their use. Note that for best findability it is recommended to install SolrPlugin along with ClassificationPlugin. SolrPlugin will be able to automatically generate recommended links to similar content in your "Knowledge" web based on category and tagging meta data. It also lets you filter and trim down search results selecting tags and categories in use.

For further information please contact foswiki@michaeldaumconsulting.com.

The ClassificationApp

ClassificationPlugin is based on the WikiWorkbench application framework as well as being a base for further wiki applications build with ClassificationPlugin itself. It has been used to build more specific apps such as

• contacts management
• skills management
• invoicing
• data center management

where categories and tags play a gluing role to extract and link together TopicTypes from various domains. In all of these cases custom TopicTypes have been implemented by extending the types coming with the ClassificationPlugin. By standardizing these applications using the WikiWorkbench approach and using the ClassificationApp as a building block, developing wiki apps has reached a new level being long-term maintainable, reusable, extensible and flexible as proven in many real-live corporate intranets.

ClassificationPlugin plays a central role in rolling out a unified knowledge management undertaking that covers very different kinds of content with varying data models.

For more details see the ClassificationApp itself.

Macros

HIERARCHY

Parameter	Description	Default
[web]	web for which to render the hierarchy for	base web
top	category within the hierarchy to start decending down the hierarchy	TopCategory
sort	sort categories on each step of the hierarchy according to the given property; possible values: order, name, title, ordertitle; order refers to the Order formfield of a category that can be used to influence sorting manually; sorting categories by order ignores their lexical order as would be the case using title; sorting by ordertitle first reads the Order property of a category and then falls back to lexical order	ordertitle
header	string to be prepended to categories
format	string to be used to render a category	<ul> <li> <img src="$icon" /> <a href="$url">$title</a> $children </li> </ul>
topformat	format to be used by the top category	same as format
nullformat	format to be used when no category was found in the web
separator	string to be inserted between categories rendered using format
footer	footer string appended to categories
placeholder	string to be used for the $children variable when a category has no children	(empty string)
indent	indentation string used for the $indent variable	' ' (three spaces)
mindepth	minimum depth from which to start rendering categories	0
depth	maximum depth traversing the hierarchy	0 (infinite)
matchattr	which attribute of a category to be used sorting the hierarchy; possible values: name, title	name
matchcase	case sensitivity sorting categories reading matchattr	on
exclude	regular expression to filter out categories reading matchattr
include	regular expression to filter out non-matching categories
filter	filter expression when counting topics subsumed by a category
unique	if switched on a category will only be listed once if found in multiple places within the hierarchy	off
open	list of category names to be considered open and which are traversed further down the hierarchy	by default all categories are considered "open"
hideclosed	if switched on all "closed" categories, i.e. those not listed in open are hidden/not rendered	off
hidenull	if switched on categories with no topis in them will be hidden	off
nrleafs	counts of leaf nodes of a category; this value is normally computed automatically; you might use this parameter when counts for are available using different means; format: cat:count, cat:count, ... ;	(computed automatically)
nrtopics	counts of all topics subsumed by a category; like nrleafs this value is normally compuited automatically; format: cat:count, cat:count, ...

Format strings such as header, footer, and format may contain the following variables:

Variable	Description
$breadcrumbs	comma separated list of categories from the top category down to the current one; note that this is a simplified linear representation of the category's location not taking multile parents into account
$call	number of iteration steps performed while expanding the %HIERARCHY macro
$count	number of topics subsumed by a category; see nrtopics above
$cyclic	boolean flag indicating whether the current category is part of a cycle in the hierarchy, which normally indicates a configuration error
$depth	distance of the current category to the top category
$icon	image url of the icon of the current category
$id	id of the category within the hierarchy
$indent	indentation string; this variable expands to the indent parameter times the depth of the current category
$index	index of the current category among its siblings
$isexpanded	boolean flag indicating whether the current category is "open" or "closed"; see the open and hideclosed parameter above
$leafs	number of leaf nodes of the current category; see also the nrleafs parameter
$link	render anchor markup to render a link to the current category; see also $url
$name	topic name of the current category; this value is unique within a hierarchy
$order	Order property of a category
$origweb	originating web where the category was defined; this value might differ from $web in case the hierarchy has been (partially) imported from another web
$parents	comma separated list of parent categories
$redirect	topic that this category redirect to
$siblings	number of sibling nodes
$subcats	number of subordinated categories
$summary	Summary property of a category
$tags	Tag property of a category
$title	TopicTitle property
$topic	topic name of a category (alias for $name)
$trunctitle	title of a category with the parent topic's title removed from the prefix if found
$url	url to the current category
$web	web of the current hierarchy; see also $origweb

ISA

Predicate that checks if a topic is filed in a specific category or one of its subcategories and either returns 1 or 0.

Parameter	Description	Default
[topic]	the topic to look up	current base topic
web	the web that holds the hierarchy of categories to use	current base web
cat	a category or a comma separated list of multiple categories	TopCategory

Categories listed in the cat parameter are checked in the given order. %ISA returns 1 for the first category found that "contains" topic.

SUBSUMES

Predicate that checks if a category is a parent category of another and either returns 1 or 0.

Parameter	Description	Default
[_anonymous]	a category name at an upper level of the hierarchy	current base topic
cat	a category or a comma separated list of multiple categories
web	the web that holds the hierarchy of categories to use	current base web

The macro tests all categories listed in cat and returns 1 if at least one of them is being subsumbed.

Example:

%SUBSUMES{"CorporateCategory" cat="CustomerCategory, HumanResourcesCategory"}%

Hierarchy:

• CorporateCategory
  • …
  • ProductsCategory
  • CustomerCategory
  • …
• DepartmentsCategory
  • …
  • HumanResourcesCategory
  • …

The result is 1 because CorporateCategory subsumes CustomerCategory even though it doesn subsume HumanResourcesCategory.

DISTANCE

A function that returns the numerical distance of two categories or topics being located in a shared hierarchy. This macro reads the distance matrix being calculated internally that caches the network topology of the hierarchy. Both, the %ISA as well as %SUBSUMES macro are based on distance properties of the items being compared.

Parameter	Description	Default
[from]	the starting point where to start measuring from; this can be a category or a topic	current base topic
to	the end point to measure the distance; this can be a category or a topic	TopCategory
abs	boolean flag to switch on/off absolute distances; if switched off results can be negative as well given the order endpoints are specified in from and top	off
web	the web that holds the hierarchy to use	current base web
format	format string	$dist
undef	format string that will be returned in case from or to weren't found or aren't connected at all	(empty string)

The distance is defined as follows:

• return 0 if from equals to
• returns the minimum number of nodes including the to node to get from category from to category to
• if from is a topic (not a category) the result is decreased by one
• if to is a topic (not a category) the result is increased by one
• if from and to are not connected the result is undef
• if from is located "higher" in the hierarchy than to the result is negative unless abs has been set to on

When either from or to are topics (not a category) then the set of categories they are filed into are taken into consideration to compute the minimum distance.

CATINFO

Render category information for a given category or topic.

The macro either operates in "cat mode" or "topic mode" when either the topic or the cat parameter has been specified. In "cat mode" the macro returns information about this one category. In "topic mode" it returns information about all categories the topic is filed into.

Parameter	Description	Default
subsumes	only return info about categories subsumed by this category	TopCategory
parentsubsumes	only return info about parent categories subsumbed by this category	TopCategory
matchcase	boolean flag indicating the case sensitivity of the include and exclude match operation	on
sortchildren	switch on/off sorting of returned childdren	off
hidenull	hide children that have no leafs	off
matchattr	attribute of a category to test exclude and include against; possible values are name and title	name
web	the web that holds the hierarchy to use	current base web
separator	format string used to separate list items	=, = (coma + blank)
header	header string prepended to the result	(empty string)
footer	footer string appended to the result	(empty string)
morechildren	in case more than maxchildren items have been found, insert this format string to indicate that there are more	(empty string)
null	format string to be returned in case the category or topic wasn't found	(empty string)
format	format string to render category information; see the list of possible variables below	$link
maxchildren	maximum number of children to return info about; 0 means no limit	0
limit	maximum number of categories to process; 0 means all	0
skip	number of categories to skip while rendering results; this parameter allows to implement paging together with limit	0
[topic]	the topic to return category information for
cat	a category to return information for; note that topic and cat are exclusive; you can only specify one of them
exclude	regular expression to filter out non-matching categories
include	regular expression to that matching categories must match
truncate	regular expression to be removed from from the $title variable and stored in the $trunctitle variable to be used in the format string

The format, header and footer parameter know the following variables:

Variable	Description
$breadcrumb, $breadcrumbs	breadcrumb list of links to parent categories
$breadcrumbnames	breadcrumb list of parent category names
$breadcrumbtitles	breadcrumb list of parent category titles
$children, childrenlinks	list links to children
$childrenname	list of child names
$childrentitle	list of child titles
$childrenurls	list of child urls
$count	number of categories found
$cyclic	returns 0 or 1 depending on the category being part of a cycle or not
$icon	url to icon representing the category
$index	running number of all categories being formated
$leafs	number of leaf nodes of the current category
$link	link to the current category as an html anchor
$more	expands to the morechildren parameter in case maxchildren has been reached
$name, $topic	name of the current category
$order	order of the current category
$origweb	original web where the current category has been defined; this might differ from $web when part of the hierarchy including this category has been imported from another web
$parentitles	list of titles of the parent categories
$parentlinks, $parent, $parents	list of links to the parent categories
$parentnames	list of names of the parent categories
$parenturls	list of urls of the parent categories
$summary	summary property of the current category
$tags	tags of the current category
$title	title of the current category
$trunctitle	title of a category with the parent topic's title removed from the prefix if found
$url	url to the currrent category
$web	web where this category is being located (see also $origweb)

TAGINFO

Render tag information for a given category or topic.

Parameter	Description	Default
[topic]	topic for which to render tag information	%!BASETOPIC%
format	format string to render tag information; see the list of possible variables below	$link
separator	format string used to separate list items	=, = (coma + blank)
header	header string prepended to the result	(empty string)
footer	footer string appended to the result	(empty string)
web	web of the topic, note that this might also be specified in the topic parameter	%!BASEWEB%
exclude	regular expressions to filter out tags
include	regular expression that tags must match to be rendered
limit	maximum number of tags to show
skip	number of tags to skip in the list of tags to be rendered

SIMILARTOPICS

Returns a list of topics that are similar to the current one. Similarity between two topics is a value expressed in percentage, where 100% means that the topics are extremely similar and 0% means that the compared topics aren't corelated at all. The similarity is computed on the base of the categorization and tagging information using a weighted matching coefficient.

Integration into query language

ClassificationPlugins adds three new operators to the query language to make use of category information in wiki applications. Note however that for now only the %DBQUERY language is supported (see DBCachePlugin).

Operator	Description
cat1 SUBSUMES cat2	returns true when cat1 subsumes cat2
topic ISA cat	returns true when topic is covered by cat
catOrTopic DISTANCE catOrTopic	returns the distance between two categories, a category and a topic or two topics within the context of the same hierarchy; see the above definition of the %DISTANCE macro

Cache maintenance

When you share categories definied in one place in a couple of other webs, those categories aren't updated in all other webs right away. For example say you defined a taxonomy in some MetaData web and these categories are imported to a couple of other webs Web1, Web2, etc in an atempt not having to maintain all categories per each web but just in one spot. If you add, rename, modify, delete some of the categories in the MetaData web then those changes aren't visuble in Web1, Web2 etc. Categories have to be "refreshed" manually. This can either be done using an URL parameter refresh=cat in the webs, or click on the "Refresh" button on the Category topic of each web. Instead you might click below button to update all categories of all webs in one go:

Refresh all categories

Installation Instructions

You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server.

Open configure, and open the "Extensions" section. "Extensions Operation and Maintenance" Tab → "Install, Update or Remove extensions" Tab. Click the "Search for Extensions" button. Enter part of the extension name or description and press search. Select the desired extension(s) and click install. If an extension is already installed, it will not show up in the search results.

You can also install from the shell by running the extension installer as the web server user: (Be sure to run as the webserver user, not as root!)

cd /path/to/foswiki
perl tools/extension_installer <NameOfExtension> install

If you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in configure, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See https://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.

Dependencies

Name	Version	Description
Foswiki::Contrib::JSTreeContrib	>=3.20	Required
Foswiki::Contrib::NatSkin	>=4.00	Optional
Foswiki::Contrib::WikiWorkbenchContrib	>=6.00	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::BreadCrumbsPlugin	>=2.0	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::DBCachePlugin	>=4.10	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::FilterPlugin	>=1.40	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::FlexFormPlugin	>=2.61	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::GridLayoutPlugin	>=1.00	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::JQueryPlugin	>=7.00	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::MoreFormfieldsPlugin	>=0.11	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::MultiLingualPlugin	>=4.10	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::NatEditPlugin	>=7.11	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::JQLimitListPlugin	>=0	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::RedDotPlugin	>=4	Optional
Foswiki::Plugins::RenderPlugin	>=7.0	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::TagCloudPlugin	>=4	Required
Foswiki::Plugins::QMPlugin	>=1.00	Optional
Foswiki::Plugins::LikePlugin	>=2.00	Optional
Foswiki::Plugins::TopicTitlePlugin	>1.00	Required for Foswiki < 2.2

Change History

28 Jan 2025:	replacing (optional) dependency on WorkflowPlugin with QMPlugin; improved formfields cat and tag; depending on WikiWorkbenchContrib >= 6.00; improved category based webdav browser using WebDAVContrib; new pagination templates to navigate between topics, e.g. blog postings; new BaseTemplates to make features more modular
02 May 2019:	major rewrite based on latest WikiWorkbench framework
23 Jan 2017:	added support for Foswiki:Extensions/LikePlugin; added "Responsible Person" to Category topics; replace css and js inline with proper files created by AttachContentPlugin; hide the sidebar on categories by default; improvements to ControlledTopics and ClassifiedControlledTopics; added quality checks to ClassifiedTopics: missing tags, missing categories, duplicate h1; improved view template for workflow history; removed old IconSet: now using icon formfield of MoreFormfieldsPlugin; improved visualization of workflows using GraphvizPlugin; fixed WebDAV view for categorized content; some fixes for cat and tag formfields; rewrite of core code to be more oo-ish ; new REST hander updateCache to refresh the classification cache occasionally; new notification handler that lets you subscribe to any changes within a category; auto-subscribe ResponsiblePerson to its category: may be switched on/off by AUTOSCUBSCRIBE_RESPONSIBLE_PERSON preference; fixed memory leaks; implemented special ACLs to control edit rights on categories
17 Aug 2016:	add support for Foswiki:Extensions/MultiLingualPlugin to make categories translatable
17 Jul 2015:	add support for WikiWorkbench-3.0er new-topic creator added support; integrate workflows into classification framework; improved Open Graph support for better SEO; added multi-lingual support
03 Nov 2014:	don't init core with base-web and base-topic
28 Aug 2014:	new "icon" formfield from MoreFormfieldsPlugin; added virtual filesystem for WebDAVContrib based on categories; new "redirect" feature for Categories to redirect to a portal page representing this category instead of rendering the plain category view
10 Jun 2014:	added options to disable some parts of a category view template; added tool to list uncategorized topics; fully specify all security switches for rest handlers
22 May 2014:	fixes to Category factory; initial work on a category-based virtual filesystem for webdav
23 Apr 2014:	improved topic info layout; added WebTagList; added back Clear button to category editor
04 Apr 2014:	fixed compatibility with foswiki >= 1.2.0; flag rest handlers that don't require authentication
18 Mar 2014:	fixed syntax error in jstree combponent (Foswiki:Main/DanieleGondoni); added sort paramteter to HIERARCHY macro; sorting all categories by title now (was by order before); fixed infinite recursion on malformed category data ; fixed hierarchy not being properly refreshed using the jstree component; fixed jstree component's way of setting the category title for a new node
11 Feb 2014:	implemented sort paramenter for %HIERARCHY; protect against possible infinite recursion on mal-formed category data
13 Nov 2013:	implement drag&drop interface for hierarchy widget
07 Nov 2013:	rewrite of hierarchy widget using Foswiki:Extensions/JSTreeContrib; new TopicType SeoTopic
07 Jan 2013:	first public releaes
30 Oct 2007:	first check-in to svn
30 Oct 2006:	Initial version