Hi
I have released the first beta of Kiwix 0.9. Binaries for Win32, MacOSX, Ubuntu (PPA) are available, like the source code. You may download them from Sourceforge or Kiwix Web site.
This took us almost 9 months to prepare this release... what is really a long time between two dev. releases. But a lot of things were done like: * the Mac OSX port, * the integrated content/download manager, * the new search user interface.
Behind the scene, we newly integrate: * aria2c to deal with downloads/uploads, * ctpp2 as a template engine, * pugixml as xml parser, ... and rebanped the whole set of compilation scripts.
Here is the CHANGELOG: * Remove a hard coded path in kiwix-compact.sh (ID: 3135956) * Avoid the flickering during mouseover links after canceling the indexing * Under Windows, installer adds now shortcuts to all users * Force loading no plugin to avoid any problem (with libmoon for example) * Under Windows, the displayed (disk) "space required" value is now correct in the installer * kiwix-index backend argument is now an option and set as "xapian" per default * Fix regressions responsible for lower case titles in result list (ID: 3147594) * Implement the HTTP 404 error in kiwix-serve * Fix a small bug in the indexing code to avoid forgetting around 100 articles per ZIM file * Disable DNS prefetching for external links * New locales: Polish, Dutch * Open a ZIM file directly from the command line * Gnome and KDE integration: mime-type recognition + icon & application associations (ZIM double-click feature) * New checksum checker to be able to check ZIM file integrity * A list of ZIM files to download is dynamicaly downloaded in the help page if user online (ID: 3165272) * Simplification and improvment of the searchbar (no search button anymore, always available, standardized, ...) * New Find-in-text bar (like in firefox, at the bottom), to replace the dialogbox. * Result sidebar removed and replaced by a result web page "a la google" * Usage of jar files for a quicker startup * Kiwix for Mac OSX * kiwix-serve CPU usage improvement (ID: 3213104) * Update the Window title by switching the tabs * New integrated content manager/downloader * Introduction of Desktop notifications (ID: 3315162) * New way to open link in new tab with shortcuts or drag&drop (ID: 3311320) * Option to change the profile directory
Online: http://kiwix.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/kiwix/moulinkiwix/CHANGELOG
The most important, we have done the mandatory work to setup a decentralized solution to spread/share content (ZIM Files). We still do not use all the power offered by the Metalink tech... but we will (we still need new mirrors, please contact us if you may setup one).
As a result almost all features we wanted to introduce for 0.9 are now there and we plan now to use the next beta and RC releases to fix bugs (I'm sure we will detect also a few regressions) and polish the software. 0.9 Final release should be there for Christmas in the worth case.
More people than usual helped me to prepare this version, I want especially to thank: * Tomasz and Ryan, from the WMF, for the big support and together work, * Renaud for the OSX port, * Testers which were for the first time really involved and help us so much with their remarks.
Regards Emmanuel
Congratulations!
Very good news and a great timing to have that available just before the Developers Meeting and Wikimania!
/Manuel
Looks great! Couple of first impressions ...
1) Had to apt-get remove --purge an older version and reinstall xulrunner to get it to run on Ubuntu Natty. Just updating the package from the PPA led to a non-working binary. YMMV.
2) Search - as we discussed in Berlin it would be great if we could filter out redundant titles from the index.
3) Downloader - looks fantastic already! Really nice to see this out there.
4) Potential major BUG: I downloaded a file (Urdu WP), started indexing, then downloaded another (Swahili WP) and loaded it. It prompted me that an indexing process was already running. When the index process finished, however, it seemed to associate the index of the Urdu Zim file with the Swahili one. So, now I can search on the Swahili file, and get Urdu results. :p
5) Possible bug: I had to manually associate external links in Kiwix with a browser. May have been GNOME funkiness on my end.
6) UX: I would suggest adding the Library to the File pull-down menu, so it's not just accessible via the button.
Again, really coming together nicely and the library is a real killer feature :-)
Erik
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- Had to apt-get remove --purge an older version and reinstall
xulrunner to get it to run on Ubuntu Natty. Just updating the package from the PPA led to a non-working binary. YMMV.
I think Tomasz had the same problem but I did not.
- Possible bug: I had to manually associate external links in Kiwix
with a browser. May have been GNOME funkiness on my end.
Same here. real pain.
- UX: I would suggest adding the Library to the File pull-down menu,
so it's not just accessible via the button.
agrees.
renaud
Hi Emmanuel, and the offline team, This is great news, and I really appreciate all your efforts. I am in talks with the Ministry of Education in Zanzibar and they have shown some interest in the Zanzibari schools using the offline Wikipedia. Most probably, they might want be to go and install the offline Wikipedia in their schools in September. That being said, is it possible for you guys to release the final version by then? BTW, since they are Swahili speakers, we'll also use the Swahili version. I understand that it may be difficult for you to push the release date forward, so if you think that it's not possible to do so; it's fine with me :) Sincerely Abbas.
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:50:28 +0000 From: rgaudin@gmail.com To: offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Offline-l] [KIWIX] 0.9 beta1 for Win/Mac/Linux is out!
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- Had to apt-get remove --purge an older version and reinstall
xulrunner to get it to run on Ubuntu Natty. Just updating the package from the PPA led to a non-working binary. YMMV.
I think Tomasz had the same problem but I did not.
- Possible bug: I had to manually associate external links in Kiwix
with a browser. May have been GNOME funkiness on my end.
Same here. real pain.
- UX: I would suggest adding the Library to the File pull-down menu,
so it's not just accessible via the button.
agrees.
renaud
Offline-l mailing list Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l
On 24/07/2011 12:08, Abbas Mahmood wrote:
I am in talks with the Ministry of Education in Zanzibar and they have shown some interest in the Zanzibari schools using the offline Wikipedia. Most probably, they might want be to go and install the offline Wikipedia in their schools in September. That being said, is it possible for you guys to release the final version by then? BTW, since they are Swahili speakers, we'll also use the Swahili version. I understand that it may be difficult for you to push the release date forward, so if you think that it's not possible to do so; it's fine with me :)
Difficult to give an answer. I know they are a few things I want absolutely to be fixed and part of them are not so trivial. So I would say: we do our best to release 0.9 final version ASAP.
I think, for you, as the end user, the most important is that it does what you want, and I think Kiwix 0.9 branch still works pretty good.
For an official department I understand they need a little bit more guaranty about the software. My answer would be : (1) we are open to any structured project with concrete aims, timeline, ... (2) if they want a professional support contract, this is also possible.
Abbas, hope to see you in Haifa. If you want, we could speak more in details about your needs.
Regards Emmanuel
Hi,
On 24.07.2011 12:23, Emmanuel Engelhart wrote:
Abbas, hope to see you in Haifa. If you want, we could speak more in details about your needs.
I'd like to emphasize that we have a workshop scheduled exactly for such things:
on Friday, 15:15, in the "Tavor" room: http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikimedia_Offline
Who of you will be there, who likes to present something?
/Manuel
Hi,
Am 24.07.2011 12:08, schrieb Abbas Mahmood:
Hi Emmanuel, and the offline team, This is great news, and I really appreciate all your efforts. I am in talks with the Ministry of Education in Zanzibar and they have shown some interest in the Zanzibari schools using the offline Wikipedia. Most probably, they might want be to go and install the offline Wikipedia in their schools in September. That being said, is it possible for you guys to release the final version by then? BTW, since they are Swahili speakers, we'll also use the Swahili version. I understand that it may be difficult for you to push the release date forward, so if you think that it's not possible to do so; it's fine with me :)
at least the Swahili Translation should be possible - as far as I have been told by Siebrand he has set up Kiwix on TranslateWiki during the Fundraising Summit in June.
Can someone give us more pointers concerning this? If that works the guys in Kenya and Zanzibar could go on and prepare the GUI translation of Kiwix while the Emmanuel takes care for the programming.
/Manuel
On 24/07/2011 12:30, Manuel Schneider wrote:
Hi,
Am 24.07.2011 12:08, schrieb Abbas Mahmood:
Hi Emmanuel, and the offline team, This is great news, and I really appreciate all your efforts. I am in talks with the Ministry of Education in Zanzibar and they have shown some interest in the Zanzibari schools using the offline Wikipedia. Most probably, they might want be to go and install the offline Wikipedia in their schools in September. That being said, is it possible for you guys to release the final version by then? BTW, since they are Swahili speakers, we'll also use the Swahili version. I understand that it may be difficult for you to push the release date forward, so if you think that it's not possible to do so; it's fine with me :)
at least the Swahili Translation should be possible - as far as I have been told by Siebrand he has set up Kiwix on TranslateWiki during the Fundraising Summit in June.
Kiwix User Interface translation to Swahili is trivial (with or without TW... we are still in the middle of the migration). Just contact me if ths is important.
Same for the content. I have already made a ZIM of WP in Swahili: http://download.kiwix.org/zim/0.9/wikipedia_sw_all_04_2011.zim.torrent
But if needed, I may made new ones...
So, both content and SW localisation are details for me. This may be done pretty easily. That's the reason why I forgot to answer to this point. Sorry about that.
Emmanuel
On Fri, 22 Jul 2011 02:21:45 -0700, Erik Moeller wrote:
- Had to apt-get remove --purge an older version and reinstall
xulrunner to get it to run on Ubuntu Natty. Just updating the package from the PPA led to a non-working binary. YMMV.
It seems we have problems to deal with symlinks in our packages. We also met difficulties with the package for Gentoo.
Bug was open here: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3377130&group_id=17...
Will try to understand what exactly goes wrong.
- Search - as we discussed in Berlin it would be great if we could
filter out redundant titles from the index.
It seems to me this is something I have forgotten to track: http://www.kiwix.org/index.php/Usability_Testing_Script#Hackathon_2011
Just to be sure I understand you right: You don't want in the searchbar suggestion list to see the same article twice or more (in fact, also redirects are listed)? Maybe you have an example in mind?
- Potential major BUG: I downloaded a file (Urdu WP), started
indexing, then downloaded another (Swahili WP) and loaded it. It prompted me that an indexing process was already running. When the index process finished, however, it seemed to associate the index of the Urdu Zim file with the Swahili one. So, now I can search on the Swahili file, and get Urdu results. :p
The software has still a few bugs related to multiple ZIM files handling. Here is the corresponding bug report I have open: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=175508&atid=873515
- Possible bug: I had to manually associate external links in Kiwix
with a browser. May have been GNOME funkiness on my end.
Yes, this is really not handful... Have to find a solution for that. Here is the feature request: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3376639&group_id=17...
- UX: I would suggest adding the Library to the File pull-down menu,
so it's not just accessible via the button.
Fully agree, will do that ASAP https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3377139&group_id=17...
Emmanuel