Hi all,
Hope you have been well! We have just released v4.2 of the Commons
Android app to production. The update is now available on Play store [1]
and F-droid [2]. You could also build the app directly from our GitHub
repository [3].
An important thing we wanted to communicate. We've changed the Mapbox
API key used by the app in this release (v4.2.1) due to some unforeseen
circumstances. We also had to revoke the old API key that is being used
by the older version of the app (< v4.2.1).
You might face issues with accessing maps in those versions of the app
such as the Nearby screen appearing blank etc. We request your to kindly
upgrade to v4.2.1 in order to continue using the features for which
rendering a map is necessary. Other features should work fine. We regret
the inconvenience that this may cause. Feel free to open an issue in our
issue tracker [4] for any assistance. We'll be glad to help.
This release also includes the done by Ritika Pahwa during GSoC 2023.
This includes changes done to improve the reliability of the failed,
stuck uploads and changes to prevent location metadata loss for uploads
done via in the app.
In case you've been facing issues with the uploads, do give the latest
version a try. It should be better than before. Feel free to reach out
to us with any feedback you may have. It would be very helpful.
Other significant changes:
- Dark mode colour improvements
- Uploading via the in-app camera has been fixed and should work
normally.
- Provide the ability to edit an image to losslessly rotate it while
uploading.
- Category search now shows exact matches without any discrepancies
- We've switched to using MapLibre instead of Mapbox and thereby
disabled telemetry sent to Mapbox. We're also actively exploring
alternatives to Mapbox so that we could completely move away from it.
Check out the related issue [5] for information regarding the same.
- Fix some redundant crash issues
Checkout our changelog [6] for a more detailed set of changes since the
last announcement.
[[ References ]]
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons
[2]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/fr.free.nrw.commons
[3]: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/releases/tag/v4.2.1
[4]: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues
[5]: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/5352
[6]:
https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
Best regards,
Sivaraam (User:Kaartic)
Hi Folks,
We encourage each and everyone of you to create a program submission. You can submit an interactive workshop or panel, a lecture, a short lighting talk or a poster for our dedicated poster session. Submissions are catered to both onsite and online (live or pre-recorded) or a hybrid combination. We at the Core Organizing Team would like to see a program submission related to projects related to mobile devices.
The theme for this year's Wikimania is Diversity, Collaboration, Future. Topics that strengthen collaboration especially future-thinking topics like Wikimedia products and services on mobile devices are topics we like to see this year.
Session submissions for Wikimania 2023 are open until 28 March.
Visit the following links for further info:
Wiki page: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Program/Submissions
Diff post: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/28/be-part-of-the-wikimania-2023-program/
Program Submission Form: https://pretalx.com/wm2023/cfp
Kind regards,
Butch Bustria
Chair, Program Subcommittee
Event lead, ESEAP Wikimania 2023 Core Organizing Team
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Adam Baso <abaso(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 4:45 AM
Subject: Service Decommission Notice: Mobile Content Service - July 2023
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
TL;DR: The legacy Mobile Content Service is going away in July 2023. Please
switch to Parsoid or another API before then to ensure service continuity.
Hello World,
I'm writing about a service decommission we hope to complete mid-July 2023.
The service to be decommissioned is the legacy Mobile Content Service
("MCS"), which is maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation's Content
Transform Team. We will be marking this service as deprecated soon.
We hope that with this notice, people will have ample time to update their
systems for use of other endpoints such as Parsoid [1] (n.b., MCS uses
Parsoid HTML).
The MCS endpoints are the ones with the relative URL path pattern
/page/mobile-sections* on the Wikipedias. For examples of the URLs see the
"Mobile" section on the online Swagger (OpenAPI) specification
documentation with matching URLs here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#/Mobile
== History ==
The Mobile Content Service ("MCS") is the historical aggregate service that
originally provided support for the article reading experience on the
Wikipedia for Android native app, as well as some other experiences. We
have noticed that there are other users of the service. We are not able to
determine all of the users, as it's hard to tell with confidence from the
web logs.
The Wikimedia Foundation had already transitioned the Wikipedia for
Android and iOS apps to the newer Page Content Service ("PCS") several
years ago. PCS has some similarities with MCS in terms of its mobility
focus, but it also has different request-response signatures in practice.
PCS, as with MCS, is intended to primarily satisfy Wikimedia
Foundation-maintained user experiences only, and so this is classified with
the "unstable" moniker.
== Looking ahead ==
Generally, as noted in the lead, we recommend that folks who use MCS (or
PCS, for that matter) switch over to Parsoid for accessing Wikipedia
article content programmatically for the most predictable service.
The HTML produced by Parsoid has a versioned specification [2] and because
Parsoid is accessed regularly by a number of components across the globe
tends to have fairly well cached responses. However, please note that
Parsoid may be subject to stricter rate limits that can apply under certain
traffic patterns.
At this point, I do also want to note that in order to keep up with
contemporary HTML standards, particularly those favoring accessibility and
machine readability enhancements, Parsoid HTML will undergo change as we
further converge parsing stacks [3]. Generally, you should expect iteration
on the Parsoid HTML spec, and of course as you may have come to appreciate
that the shape of HTML in practice can vary nontrivially wiki-by-wiki as
practices across wikis vary.
You may also want to consider Wikimedia Enterprise API options, which range
from no cost to higher volume access paid options.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Access
== Forking okay, but not recommended ==
Because MCS acts as a service aggregate and makes multiple backend API
calls, caveats can apply for those subresources - possibility of API
changes, deprecation, and the like. We do not recommend a plain fork of MCS
code because of the subresource fetch behavior. This said, of course you
are welcome to fork in a way compatible with MCS's license.
== Help spread the word ==
Although we are aware of the top two remaining consumers of MCS, we also
are not sure who else is accessing MCS and anticipate that some downstream
tech may break when MCS is turned off. As we are cross-posting this
message, we hope most people who have come to rely upon MCS will see this
message. Please feel free to forward this message to contacts if you know
they are using MCS.
== Help ==
Although we intend to decommission MCS in July 2023, we would like to share
resources if you need some help. We plan to hold office hours in case you
would like to meet with us to discuss this or other Content Transform Team
matters. We will host these events on Google Meet. We will provide notice
of these office hours on the wikitech-l mailing list in the coming weeks
and months.
Additionally, if you would like to discuss your MCS transition plans,
please visit the Content Transform Team talk page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Content_Transform_Team
Finally, some Content Transform Team members will also be at the Wikimedia
Hackathon [4] if you would like some in-person support.
Thank you.
Adam Baso (he/him/his/Adam), on behalf of the Content Transform Team
Director of Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Specs/HTML
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Parser_Unification/Updates
[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2023
Hello all,
The Android team
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Android> has heard many
requests from the community to have ways to ensure that the edits made in
the apps are of good quality. With the team's recent release
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Android/Communication>
of a native watchlist, contribution history, and edit history, as well as
the addition of the undo and rollback button on the diff screen, there is
an opportunity to create a moderating solution in the app. We would like to
do this in partnership with the community. We would like to invite you to
test the first iteration of the patrolling tool designs. Your input at this
stage will allow us to improve the tool before development as well as
gather important feedback for the second iteration of the tool.
If you are interested in joining, please reply to this email.
Respectfully,
*Amal Ramadan* (She\Her)
Sr. Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Cross posting the announcement about office hour for the mobile apps. Find more details below.
-------- Original Message --------
From: Amal Ramadan <aramadan(a)wikimedia.org>
Sent: 7 March 2023 2:52:03 pm IST
To: wikitech-ambassadors(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikitech-ambassadors] App's Office Hour - 2023
Hey all,
I would like to invite you to the first office hour for the mobile apps
team in 2023.
It will take place on the 24th of March at 5 pm UTC.
You can check your zone’s exact time through this zone stamp
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1679677247>.
The host will be Jazmin Tanner, Sr. Product Manager of the apps team, with
a number of our software engineers.
You can join at the mentioned time through this link:
https://meet.google.com/aww-miri-kik.
And the meeting will be recorded.
You can add your questions and thoughts about Wikipedia’s mobile apps here
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/10xejqvocsr3suSmGkwpEcMiGsFSed1AqU9ES9vd…>,
and the last date to add your input will be on the 20th of march at 12:00
UTC; feel free to spread the word about the office hour to your communities.
We will be waiting for you all!
Respectfully,
*Amal Ramadan* (She\Her)
Sr. Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
--
Sivaraam
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
Hi all,
Hope you have been well! We have just released v4.0 of the Commons Android
app to production on Google Play - this version includes tons of new
features (a map displaying nearby Commons pictures, custom SPARQL queries,
user profiles, and a custom picture selector), as well as fixes for major
bugs such as the "date uploaded" bug. The app can be downloaded from the
Play Store[1] or directly from our GitHub repository[2].
I should probably also add that this will likely be my last release - I am
currently transitioning to a new career, and will be stepping down from the
role of project lead, which I have held for the past 6 years. I intend to
stick around on a volunteer basis, but the amount of time that I can put
into the app from now on will be much more limited. I have discussed this
with the app's community, and I believe that a new grant team might be
emerging, and one of the volunteers might step up to take on the project
lead role.
Thank you very much for the support that you have all shown to the Commons
app over the years. It was an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you
- I have learned so much and met so many amazing people in the Wikimedia
community, and I certainly hope to continue being part of it. I also hope
that the app and the community surrounding it may have benefited from my
work here, and that the new team will be able to bring it to places that I
might not have ever foreseen.
Best regards,
Josephine (User: Misaochan)
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons
[2] https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/releases
Hi!
Does Anyone know of a generic MediaWiki editing app?
(one that could be used by any MediaWiki instance)
Was there any effort in that direction at any point?
Best Z. Blace
Hi there,
If this isn't the best place to ask this question, please let me know.
I used to enjoy the Wikipedia app's functionality for finding articles by
location. It was good for exploring interesting places near and far and
learning about what was there.
That feature seems to have been dropped, so I made my own FOSS app,
available here: https://github.com/matthew-matvei/wikiscape
It's very basic but it's enough for my own personal use. *I wanted to know
if there was any interest in Wikimedia to bring some attention to the
project, initially with developers and then users.* If there is, I'd be
happy developing it further to support more advanced features; if there
isn't, then I would leave it where it is, which would be a shame since I
can't help but think I'm not the only one who misses the simple 'Map'
functionality in the old Wikipedia app.
I've checked out the seemingly similar Wikivoyage, but found that it
doesn't aim to provide the same functionality of exploring wikipedia
content using map-based location that Wikiscape would serve to provide.
Please let me know if there's any interest.
Kind regards,
Matthew James
Hi everyone,
The Android team has recently released watchlists, talk pages, and an image
recommendations experiment. To make sure we hear from editors we don't
normally hear from
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Android/Communication/Us…>
in the software development process, and who might have needs and use cases
we miss, we also specifically reached out to a list of communities,
regions, and types of users.
We were fortunate enough to also get some feedback from Indonesian
Wikipedia editors, Arabic editors in Morocco, and an English Wikipedia
editor based in Nigeria. The outcomes of our respondents' qualitative
feedback
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Android/Communication/Us…>,
coupled with previous feedback from the community and members of staff,
along with an ABC test <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T290995> we are
finishing up, has resulted in us finalizing the changes we are making in
the app to ensure communication is not lost for our users.
Our most recent release
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia> now ensures
users can see their notifications in-app no matter what screen they are on,
including while reading an article, something that was highly requested
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mobile_communication_bugs>.
Before After
As we wrap up our work on notifications, we will shift from ensuring every
user that edits on the Android app can clearly see the notifications and
alerts they've received to ensuring the workflows for sending a
communication are as intuitive as possible for mobile devices. We already
have native user and article talk pages in the app. We will now conduct
research to see what gaps exist for our users, and introduce new (to us)
concepts like quick reactions; please check out this demo
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-xQSCREGic> to see our ideas so far.
We hope you will engage with us and tell us any thoughts you have regarding
promoting communication in our movement through the use of our tools. We
also encourage you to send more users our way that meet the demographics we
requested for notifications. Feel free to reach out to our team
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team>, or comment on our
team's communications project talk page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Android/Communicati…>
.
PS: If you're an iOS user, they're also working on some great things
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/iOS/Notifications#Septem…>
related to communications.
Cheers,
--
Dmitry Brant
Lead Software Engineer (Android)
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering