On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Shiju Alex shijualexonline@gmail.com wrote:
Malayalam wiki community has indeed tried the Kiwix solution before we decided to develop our own solution. It is sad to find that still Kiwix is not in a state where we can create the CD/DVD with out the developer/expert support. But it is good to see that the issue with non-latin scripts/fonts are fixed. But the article selection feature needs to be enabled for Kiwix so that any one can create their own version of Wikipedia CD (as can be done using Wiki2CD).
I agree Kiwix should provide an easy way to create a custom selection and make a ZIM of it. It is not disabled or hidden ; everything is documented on the Kiwix wiki and sources are available. The problem is that it's difficult and painful. What we could do is create a tool on top of existing ones that would allow easy selection/zim-creation.
Why did you decide to go with your own custom solution (that's what is implied by your message, sorry if it's not the case) instead of contributing to Kiwix so that other projects can benefit from this all ; aka the reader, the tools, the standard, etc.
I find it offensive to the only spare-time developer of Kiwix that you reproach the lack of features but still decide to build something on your own.
But the point here is not the software, whether we need to provide whole dump of a wiki to schools. Definitely I am not for it due to my experience with the Malayalam Wikipedia CD.
Can you elaborate ? This is very fuzzy. I agree though that schools-targeted versions should include school-friendly content (whatever that means locally) ; that's why SOS version is so successful.
renaud