FYI, for anybody who is subscribed here but isn't subscribed to foundation-l
--Andrew Whitworth
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Johannes Beigel <johannes.beigel(a)pediapress.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 8:39 AM
Subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki-to-Print: mwlib and Collection extension
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hello.
As the testing of the wiki-to-print project (see WMF press release
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikis_Go_Printable) is currently in
progress on labs (http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page,
http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hauptseite), I'd like to tell you a
bit
about the project to open up the topic to a broader audience.
The goal of the wiki-to-print project is to add a high quality
print and
export facility to the MediaWiki. Users can easily collect wiki
articles which
are rendered as PDFs (or OpenDocument Text, Docbook, XHTML; more formats
possible) or sent to print-on-demand services.
The two OpenSource software parts used to realize this
functionality are
* the Python packages mwlib and mwlib.rl (http://code.pediapress.com/mwlib
,
http://code.pediapress.com/mwlib.rl) that contain a MediaWiki
wikitext
parser, tools to fetch articles/images/templates via MediaWiki API
and
several writers that render documents in different formats.
* and the Collection extension
(http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection) -- a MediaWiki
extension that allows collecting of articles, saving/loading them
as regular
wiki pages, rendering documents in PDF or another format and
ordering printed books from a print on demand partner like
PediaPress.
We have a mailing list (http://groups.google.com/group/mwlib) and a
wiki +
bug tracker (http://code.pediapress.com). If you have specific
suggestions or
problems feel free to discuss on that list or create tickets.
In coordination with Erik Möller and Brion Vibber, we are looking
forward to
a soonish deployment on Wikibooks and eventually on Wikipedias.
Probably lots of you have their own MediaWiki installations. We
invite you
to try out the Collection extension: If you have a low-traffic wiki,
you don't
even have to install any Python software, because you can use the public
render server (which is configured by default). Just make sure that
your wiki
is reachable from the outside internet and has api.php enabled.
-- Johannes Beigel
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We're hosting an open textbook virtual meeting later today:
http://blog.okfn.org/2008/09/29/open-textbook-virtual-meeting-today/
If you can make it please put your name on the wiki, or pop me an email.
I would be grateful if you could pass this on to relevant colleagues,
post on blogs, etc.
Warm regards,
Jonathan Gray
The Open Knowledge Foundation
We're hosting an open textbook virtual meeting on 29th September 2008 at
1000 PST, 1800 BST or 1900 CEST:
http://blog.okfn.org/2008/09/10/open-textbook-virtual-meeting-29th-septembe…
It would be great if any of you would be able to pop in! If you can make
it please put your name on the wiki, or pop me an email.
I would be grateful if you could pass this on to relevant colleagues,
post on blogs, etc.
Warm regards,
Jonathan Gray
The Open Knowledge Foundation
I've found an interesting website today called vectorsite.net
(http://www.vectorsite.net/) that contains a number of nice but
sparsly-formatted writings, all released into the Public Domain. Some
of his works are not useful to Wikibooks, but he has a number (about
computing, science, and mathematics) which I think would be very very
useful for us. Plus, the lack of complicated formatting means that it
should be very easy for us to translate to wikitext and upload them at
wikibooks.
I think I am going to do this for a few books (there are books on Awk
and C programming that I am particularly interested) probably starting
next week. I'll try to get a bot together to do the translation. If
anybody wants to help, or suggest any books from this site to import
as well, let me know. I'm also going to send a friendly email to the
site's owner telling him that we're using his materials (and invite
him to become a wikibookian!).
--Andrew Whitworth