Hello everyone,
Our education projects based on version V1 are now coming to an end.
There were two of them.
- The first was in English language, within South Africa high schools.
Articles were meant to be for Wikipedia. We are currently collecting the
texts produced and getting feedback.
- The second was in French langage, within schools in 4 French speaking
countries. Articles were meant to be for Vikidia and production was done
as part of a writing contest amongst schools. Participants were in the
9-12 years old range.
The list of articles produced may be found here :
https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Ecoles_d%27Afrique/Ecoles
Overall, it worked well ! We got some good feedback from teachers.
Apparently, the manual transfer of articles worked pretty well. What was
perhaps an issue was more about images (half of them were uploaded on
Commons, the other half on Vikidia, and most did not have attributions,
descriptions etc.)
We are discussing next steps with both partners (Orange Foundation in
the francophone countries and Moleskine Foundation in the anglophone
ones), trying to figure out the next best options.
We are starting to work on the next steps. Wikimedia Foundation and the
committee agreed to fund those :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WikiInAfrica/WikiFundi
Those will include
1. Fix existing bugs and make coding improvements that have been
reported by the current users,
2. Increasing the outreach, educational and training resources that are
available on the platform,
3. Increase the training experience of the users by adding interactive
tutorials in English and French,
4. Meet with and develop a dissemination strategy with relevant
partners working in the field of offline access to open source
resources,
5. Increase the communication reach and scope, and
6. Explore future improvements to the software.
If you want more info, or if you are interesting to know more and get
involved, please get in touch with me.
Cheers
Florence
Hi
These last days we have released updates for our Javascript based Kiwix
ports. As a reminder, these ports are not full featured like native code
based Kiwix ports and might be a bit slower, but offer other nice
properties. For example. thanks to their portability, we support systems
on which it would be otherwise impossible to have Wikipedia offline...
and more.
We have released new versions of our extensions for Web browsers, Kiwix JS:
* For Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kiwix/donaljnlmapmngakoipdmehbfci…
* For Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kiwix-offline/
Kiwix JS 2.2.0 Changelog:
* Support for StackExchange ZIM files (and maybe for some other ZIM
files with a structure * different than the Mediawiki-based ZIM files).
* Compatibility with split English wikipedia ZIM files (which now have
more than 26 files).
* Rename the project to Kiwix-JS instead of Kiwix-html5.
* Slightly improved memory handling of content decompression.
* Library updates (jQuery, Bootstrap, requireJS).
* Improved continuous integration (automated testing on several browsers).
* Avoid unnecessary 404 errors on images.
* Minor UI enhancements and fixes.
* Some code refactoring/cleaning on the way we handle the jQuery mode.
* Make geo: and tel: links work.
But we have also updated Kiwix JS for Windows and released the version
0.9.6. It's available here for Windows mobile and almost all Windows
based systems: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/kiwix-js/9p8slz4j979j
Last but not least, we have also started to release Custom apps for
Windows, which mean supporting only one type of content, by creating a
Wikivoyage offline app for windows here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/wikivoyage-by-kiwix/9n5sb90q4jbj
Hope you will enjoy all or part of these new apps, features and bug fixes.
Regards
Emmanuel
--
Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more
* Web: http://www.kiwix.org
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline
* more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication
Hello!
The New Readers team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been offered volunteer
development by a student group from UC Berkeley, called Diversatech.
They'll complete this work within their semester (ending in December).
Given results from the research into offline support in the Wikipedia
Android app
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Offline_support/V1_User_resea…>
(which I shared recently on this list) and the many requests from this
group, they're going to develop a prototype for consideration around what a
tool might look like that allows content curators for offline files to
develop a list of articles.
I'd love your feedback for what considerations they should take into play
as they're looking at this. Remember that this work is exploratory and the
scope will end up being smaller than what I imagine we all would like from
a tool like this :)
If you're interested, you can out my quick pass at requirements, and add
requirements there or other thoughts to the talk page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Offline/Content_curation
If we decide to invest further in something like this, we will be sure to
run a fuller consultation as well. I'm also going to encourage them to keep
their progress updated on that page, but can't guarantee that that'll
happen given the short timeline and exploratory nature of the work.
Thanks,
Anne
--
*Anne Gomez* // Senior Program Manager, New Readers
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers>
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate
<http://donate.wikimedia.org>. *
Bjoern,
That looks like an great project! I spoke to some of our offline group, and there are a couple of people who know MWoffliner well, and who could help with this. I’ll be in contact to see if we can set up a Skype or other group call.
Cheers,
Martin
Prof. Martin A. Walker
Dept. of Chemistry
SUNY Potsdam
Potsdam, NY 13676 USA
+1 315 2672271
walkerma(a)potsdam.edu
ORCID: 0000-0001-9202-0356
(walkerma on Wikipedia)
From: Offline-l [mailto:offline-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hassler
Sent: December 06, 2017 07:31
To: Using Wikimedia projects and MediaWiki offline <offline-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Olga Vasileva <ovasileva(a)wikimedia.org>; Nicolas VIGNERON <vigneron.nicolas(a)gmail.com>; textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org; discussion list for Wikisource, the free library <wikisource-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Offline-l] [Wikisource-l] FYI - WMF pausing and deprecating some functionality
Dear friends,
We use mediawiki to host teacher education resources for sub-Saharan Africa, see http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/OER4Schools. The teacher programme has had a wide impact, but on the technical side, we really struggle to maintain the site, especially with regard to export to PDF/ePub/ZIM. We've had some expert help some yeas ago from Emmanuel and a WMUK grant, and made some progress, but esp. the PDF export wasn't really ready for prime-time.
We would really appreciate a suite of tools that was well integrated into mediawiki, being able to produce good clean XML/HTML5 (per page), PDF/ePub/ZIM (ideally respecting the various 'hooks'). In fact, we're quite desperate to make progress on this, as we have a new programme starting in Zimbawe. Often it's said that Wikipedia/CC has a 'global reach'. However, we look at the 'legal freedom' (CC licensing, which gives "global legal freedom') vs. the 'technological freedom', the ability to export etc. Yes, "no connectivity" is very slowly disappearing, bu this isn't the issue: Connectivity remains expensive, intermittent, and slow for a large part of the planet, so "technological freedom" often remains elusive - many thanks to e.g. the Kiwix team working on such issues.
We do work in SSA day-to-day, and we'd also love for somebody to work with us to look at our requirements, and see whether they could feed into the overall requirements. If there's any way in which we can engage with those processes at WMF or elsewhere, we'd be very happy to do so.
Looking forward to your thoughts!
Bjoern
On 6 December 2017 at 11:28, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com<mailto:nemowiki@gmail.com>> wrote:
Nicolas VIGNERON, 11/10/2017 20:32:
should we try to integrate WSexport functionalities into more general tool? (for the second option, we need to exchange about our specific needs and desires).
This was already done with mwlib for ZIM and EPUB, but then WMF trashed it. Three years ago we were told "ePUB and ZIM are likely to return", now how much do you believe PDFs will ever work again?
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-September/0…https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T97672https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T73660
The Italian Wikisource users have used PDF exports nonetheless for a few things, although they are not as useful as the ZIM exports. Please don't rely on assumptions about uselessness of something for you to decide that it's fine to make that something worse.
Federico
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-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Offline-l] FYI - WMF pausing and deprecating
some functionality
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:28:13 +0100
From: Dirk Hünniger <dirk.hunniger(a)googlemail.com>
To: Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>, Using Wikimedia projects and
MediaWiki offline <offline-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Jon Katz
<jkatz(a)wikimedia.org>
CC: discussion list for Wikisource, the free library
<wikisource-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi,
my tool is also a solution to the problem.
https://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Benutzer:Dirk_Huenniger/wb2pdf
Yours Dirk
On 06.12.2017 11:52, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
> Jon Katz, 22/11/2017 03:29:
>> The issue you raise, is a known issue being tracked and worked on here
>
> The issue I raise is that you should not make a change that makes life
> worse for all users. The feature is currently useless in 100 % of
> cases, so you should have rolled back immediately to the previous
> system as long as it works even in 0,1 % of the cases.
>
> For now, I'm telling people to use the PediaPress book builder and
> ignore the PDFs produced by Wikimedia Foundation. This is not
> sustainable.
>
> Federico
>
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Nicolas VIGNERON, 11/10/2017 20:32:
> should we try to integrate WSexport functionalities into more general
> tool? (for the second option, we need to exchange about our specific
> needs and desires).
This was already done with mwlib for ZIM and EPUB, but then WMF trashed
it. Three years ago we were told "ePUB and ZIM are likely to return",
now how much do you believe PDFs will ever work again?
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-September/0…https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T97672https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T73660
The Italian Wikisource users have used PDF exports nonetheless for a few
things, although they are not as useful as the ZIM exports. Please don't
rely on assumptions about uselessness of something for you to decide
that it's fine to make that something worse.
Federico
Hey offliners,
In case you're interested, the Foundation will be working to replace OCG
over the coming months. I wanted to make sure you're aware in case you rely
on any of this infrastructure and/or have plans for further development
dependent on it.
What this means in the short term is that PDF book rendering (through Book
Creator) will be shut off for a few months at least while a suitable
replacement is researched, tested, and built.
Here's the full write up:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/PDF_Functionality
Let me know if you have any questions or if this has major impact to your
work.
Cheers,
Anne
--
*Anne Gomez* // Senior Program Manager, New Readers
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers>
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate
<http://donate.wikimedia.org>. *
Hi
The whole Kiwix team is proud to announce the first release of Kiwix JS
for Windows (mobile) devices. It is available in the Microsoft app
store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/p/kiwix-js/9p8slz4j979j
Kiwix JS for Windows runs on all recent Windows OSes but is in
particular thought for Windows Mobile and all Windows based mobile users
for whom we had so far no solution.
The app has been developed in the last 6 months based on the Kiwix JS
code base already used in Kiwix Firefox and Chrome Web extensions. It is
not fully featured like Kiwix for Android or iOS and is a bit slower...
but it is still really easy to use and can read all ZIM files.
We really hope it will find its public and that we will be supported
with feedbacks.
Regards
Emmanuel
--
Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more
* Web: http://www.kiwix.org
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline
* more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication
Hi
Kiwix ist a free software project aiming to provide access to free
knowledge to people without access to Internet. It is supported by the
Wikimedia movement, of Wikipedia fame.
Kiwix is a 10 years old software suite developed to give access to Web
content to people with no Internet access. It works a bit like a digital
offline library.
Its older piece, Kiwix desktop, is a classic desktop application for
Windows and Linux which reads data files with the extension *.zim. It
displays the content like a Web browser would do.
Based on the deprecated Xulrunner framework of Mozilla, Kiwix desktop
has now reached it end of lifecycle and also urgently needs a full
revamping of its user interface, using the Qt windowing library.
As far as features go, the new version of kiwix-desktop should more or
less offer the same functionalities as the older version:
* Portable on Windows/Linux
* Internationalization and localization support
* Remote and local library management
* Loading, displaying an searching in the ZIM files
* Tabulations
* Bookmarking/reading list
Most of the application’s “core” already exists as a software library
called Kiwix library. Most of the work is about binding it with a new –
and yet to be created – user interface.
You would work in close collaboration with a UX expert/UI designer and
with the C++ developer of the core library kiwix-lib. This work is part
of a more global effort to improve the Kiwix software as a whole.
You are a developer committed to (or at least familiar with) open source
software, and familiar with GNU/Linux. You already have a small working
experience with Qt and C++ (on personal projects for example). Ideally
you will to share, explain, and demonstrate a past project (for example
on Github).
This internship is paid ~1000€/month and takes place in Lyon, France.
The work will be organised and framed by an experienced developer
familiar with the project.
Candidates interested by this internship should send an email (cover
letter and CV) to Matthieu Gautier (mgautier at kymeria.fr).
Here is the online version of this open position:
http://www.kiwix.org/internship-c-qt-6-months/
Regards
Emmanuel
--
Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more
* Web: http://www.kiwix.org
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline
* more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication