Search feature "SMWSearch"

Search feature information
This page describes the "SMWSearch" feature, i.e an search engine to allow semantic queries directly from MediaWiki's standard search interface.
Collection
Loading... Screenshot showing the search and its results on "Special:Search" using the SMWSearch feature. (en)
Keywords
SMWSearch · Search · semantic search · search interface · functional class

The SMWSearch feature is supported since Semantic MediaWiki 2.1.0Released on 19 January 2015 and compatible with MW 1.19.0 - 1.24.x.1. It provides a search engine to allow semantic queries directly from MediaWiki's standard search by trying to interpret the search term as a semantic query. If successful, the pages according to the query will be returned, if not it will fall back to the default search engine.

Special page "Search" will show an informatory message2 including a cheat sheet3 in case this feature was enabled as well as the optional input assistance feature starting with Semantic MediaWiki 3.0.0Released on 11 October 2018 and compatible with MW 1.27.0 - 1.31.x.. The informatory message for the search including the a cheat sheet may be disabled by a user via the respective user preference.4

More importantly Semantic MediaWiki 3.0.0Released on 11 October 2018 and compatible with MW 1.27.0 - 1.31.x. also brought a full-text search on unstructured data, i.e. content not stored semantically via annotations, indicated by syntax element in:.5

Usage

Entering [[Category:City]] [[Located in::Germany]] into the standard search field of the wiki's skin or on special page "Search" will return all pages matching these selection parameters together with additional page content, e.g. if used on this wiki: click here.

The selection of pages will match the following inline query:

{{#ask:
 [[Category:City]]
 [[located in::Germany]]
}}

Entering [[Category:City]] [[Located in::Germany]] [[in:Points of interest]] will additionally highlight "Points of interest" within the additional page content shown for the pages resulting from the search.

The display of results will be styled as special page "Search" usually outputs search results.

Configuration

Users of "SMWSearch" should use the following configuration settings in their "LocalSettings.php" file after the enableSemantics() call:

$wgSearchType = 'SMWSearch';
$smwgFallbackSearchType = null; // default
// The two next parameters are recommended to highlight excerpts
$smwgElasticsearchConfig['query']['highlight.fragment']['type'] = 'plain'; // or 'unified' or 'fvh'
$smwgElasticsearchConfig['indexer']['raw.text'] = true;

• Configuration parameter $wgSearchType (MediaWiki.org) is provided by MediaWiki itself while the option SMWSearch is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.
• If $wgSearchType was set to anything other than null prior to changing it to SMWSearch you will have to set configuration parameter $smwgFallbackSearchTypeSets the search engine to fall back to in case SMWSearch is used as custom search engine but is unable to interpret the search term as an semantic query. to this preceding setting or choose an alternative default search engine.
• The parameter $smwgElasticsearchConfig['query']['highlight.fragment']['type'] should be specified in relation to Elasticsearch configuration, see more documentation.

See also

• Help page on selecting pages
• Help page on full-text search