From SMW+ A Semantic Web Enterprise Wiki

This article describes the Faceted Search interface and gives details on how to use Faceted browsing to explore sets of information by applying filters.

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Applies to version: Help:SMW+ 1.5.3,Help:Enhanced Retrieval extension 1.4.1,
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Contents 1 Introduction 2 Requirements 3 Accessing the Faceted Search interface 4 Description of the Faceted Search interface 4.1 Search section 4.2 Result area 4.3 Facets area 5 How to browse through your wiki's data 5.1 Searching for titles 5.2 Selecting facets (adding restrictions) 5.3 Changing and removing facets

Introduction

Faceted browsing is a technique that lets you explore a collection of information based on filters. It is especially useful for users who are not familiar with the type and structure of the stored information.

Faceted browsing helps you to explore the unknown information space by providing so called facets. The starting point of this exploring is a special page similar to a search page.

The page lists facets (categories and properties) of the wiki and lets you browse them. By selecting one facet, you navigate deeper in the hierarchy of the content of the wiki.

Requirements

• A Solr server installation

- ref.: Installing a Solr server user guide.

Accessing the Faceted Search interface

The Faceted Search via the special page Special:FacetedSearch.

This presents you with the Faceted Search interface which lets you browse and filter though the stored information.

Description of the Faceted Search interface

The faceted search interface consists of three areas:

The Faceted Search interface The Faceted Browsing - search section - contains the search text field and the Selected facets (restrictions). The Faceted Browsing - result area - shows the hit list of your search. The Faceted Browsing - facets area - shows all categories and properties which could specify your search.

Search section

The search text field lets you browse through your wiki's data. The search text field only makes reference to the titles of your semantic data i.e. instances, properties, categories.

Faceted Browsing Search When you enter a word into the text field, the result area and the facets area will automatically be refreshed with every character that you type in. Below the text field is the Selected facets - it shows you the restrictions that have been applied in your search. - by default, no facet filter is set meaning that no restrictions are made. You can add restrictions to your search inside the facets area.

Result area

The result area shows the results sorted by the date of the last change. Every entry has the following information:

Sample presentation of the search results "title" "icon" - instance, property or category "is in category:" - the first five categories are shown (alphabetical order).Click more to see all categories. "has properties:" - click show to see the properties and their values. "date of the last change"

Facets area

The facets area always refers to the current result of your search.

List of properties There are two lists: List of all categories List of all properties. Every category or property in these lists describes at least one entry in the current result list. There is a number in brackets that is beside every category or property. These numbers are counts of the result hits that belong to the respective category or those that own the respective property. Categories: The list of categories shows up to ten categories, which are arranged in descending order according to the number of result hits that belong to them. Click more to view the next ten items in the category list (if applicable). Properties: The list of properties shows up to ten properties, which are arranged in descending order according to the number of the result hits related to them. Click more to view the next ten items in the property list (if applicable). Click on the triangle in front of a property to get a list of the different property values. String values are also ordered by their appearance in the results. Numeric values or dates are automatically structured into five ranges.

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How to browse through your wiki's data

You can browse through the data in your wiki with these actions:

• Searching for titles
• Selecting facets ( this is equivalent to adding restrictions)
• Changing and removing facets

Searching for titles

Enter a string into the search text field. The result list will immediately display the result hits and limit the results with every character that you type in. The result hits will be the instances, categories or properties which contain the entered string in their title.

Selecting facets (adding restrictions)

You can select facets in the facets area. There is the possibility of adding four different restrictions:

• Add a category - the results must belong to this category.
• Add a property - the results must have this property.
• Add a exact value of a property - the results must have this value set for the property.
• Add a range for a value of a property (numeric or data type) - the results must have a value inside the range set for the property.

Adding a category:

1. Look for the categories in the category list - click on more to expand the category list and view all categories.
2. Click on the category you want to add.

Adding a property:

1. Look for the properties in the property list - click on more to expand the category list and view all properties.
2. Click on the property you want to add.

Adding an exact value or a range:

1. Click on the triangle in front of the property you want to add.

- this displays the values assigned to a property:

• string values are arranged by the number of their appearance - click more to see more values.
• numeric or data values are presented as five automatically created ranges.
2. Click on the value or the range you want to add

Automatically created ranges: The ranges will be calculated automatically. The highest and the lowest value (or date) assigned to the property are used to compute the range. The difference of the two values is subdivided into five equal ranges (these subdivisions are not made in relation to the number of result hits).

Example: Let's presume that several buildings have the property year built with the oldest building having been built in 1973 while the newest was built in 1987. The following ranges will be computed:

• 1973 - 1975
• 1976 - 1978
• 1979 - 1981
• 1982 - 1984
• 1985 - 1987

Changing and removing facets

Every selected facet which restricts your search is displayed below the search field.

Image showing the selected facet and supported operations This section lets you execute the following operations: To remove all selected facets, click remove all. To remove a single facet (category or property), click on the red cross behind the facet. To add a value or range of property, click on the triangle to see the assigned values ( If you have selected just a property without a value). Click on the value or the range you want to add. To remove the value of property, click on remove range underneath the value. To change the value of property, first remove the value and then add another value to the property again.

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Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the article "GNU Free Documentation License".