[Foundation-l] Wiki-to-Print: mwlib and Collection extension

[Johannes Beigel]

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