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Patch: Missing wikis in sidebar (2016-04-13 21:34 Wed)
This is a patch for a defect in v3.4.2.1.
v3.4.2.1 updated the CSS for the home wiki to fix a narrow search box. See https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/54
Unfortunately, this CSS also removed the wiki sidebar in the home wiki. I didn't notice this until yesterday.
The patch updates one file: /xowa/bin/any/xowa/cfg/app/xowa.gfs . Just replace your version with it.
You can also change this manually by finding the div_logo snippet and updating with the snippet below.
This will be part of the next release. I didn't want to release an entire new version for a one-line text-file fix.
Thanks.
div_logo =
<:["
<div id='p-logo'>
<a style="background-image: url(~{portal_logo_url});" href="~{portal_nav_main_href}" class='xowa-hover-off'~{<>msgs.get_html_accesskey_and_title('p-logo');<>}></a>
</div>
<div class="portal"><h3></h3></div><!-- empty heading else wikipedia css will hide next <h3> after <div id='p-logo'>; DATE:2016-04-12-->
"]:>
Release: v3.4.2.1 (2016-04-10 21:00 Sun)
The desktop app is a minor release. It has a fix for slow search database builds and some better Wikia support
The Android app is a major release. It has new pages for importing a wiki. It is the release candidate for XOWA beta on Google Play later this week.
(Desktop) Faster search database build
As per https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/53 William was unable to build the new search databases on his machine. I tried it on an older dev machine, and found that it could take upwards of 5 hours to complete.
I optimized some of the SQL code and reduced it to about 2 hours. That said, note the following:
- Fails on my 32-bit Windows XP dev machine: I don't know why. The same build works on 2 Windows 7 64-bit machines, 1 openSUSE Linux 64-bit machine, and 1 Mac OS X 64-bit machine. It also works on the 32-bit JVM on the Windows 7 64-bit machine. However, the lone 32-bit Windows machine fails, and fails in a very strange way (it fails silently in release mode, and hangs in debug mode). I'm going to hope this is the non-dominant behavior, and reinvestigate at a later point in time.
- Really benefits from an SSD: SQLite really does better with an SSD. I tried some tricks like changing PRAGMA synchronous to OFF, but this only shaves off a dozen or so minutes. In contrast, an SSD will easily knock off an hour if not more (from 2 hours to about 40 min)
- If you want the new search, downloading from archive.org is the easiest way: There are other complexities with the search database rebuild (PageRank algorithm and the 10 GB pagelinks dump: See App/Search/Overview). As such, the easiest way is to download prebuilt copies from archive.org:
(Desktop) New English Wikipedia images update (2016-03)
I uploaded new consolidated versions of English Wikipedia images (2016-03) to archive.org. See https://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_latest.
In terms of usage, pick one of the following:
- New user: Download the new 2016-03 version. Previously you would have to download 2015-06 set, and then download separate updates for every month between 2015-07 and 2016-03. This was just too cumbersome.
- Existing user (2015-06): Ignore the 2016-03 version. You downloaded the 2015-06 set and presumably have been keeping up with the monthly updates. The 2016-03 set is the same as your set, except it is smaller (it no longer has deleted images). If you want to remove about 8 GB of deleted images, see Dashboard/Files/Deletion. Once you remove the deleted images, you will have a set that is exactly the same as the 2016-03 version.
- Existing user (2013-11 or something else): Download the 2016-03 version. You have an old set of XOWA image databases that I really can't support any longer (they have an extension of .sqlite3). I know downloading 80 GB is painful, but I'm not planning to change database formats again in the future.
Finally, after I release XOWA Beta for Android, I'm going to work on a new update feature that will more gracefully handle monthly updates. In the meantime, please bear with the manual process.
(Desktop) Minor Wikia parser tags
A user requested some parser functionality for Wikia wikis (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gnosygnu . This release now supports the <choose> and <tabber> extensions.
(Android) New pages for "Import new wiki" and "XOWA Wikis"
The last major piece for XOWA Beta was more usable screens for importing wikis and managing wikis. Both these pages are now part of the latest release:
- XOWA Wikis: The "XOWA" button in the left-nav now opens a page that lists all wikis. It also allows you to import a new one by pressing the "+" icon.
- Import new wikis: The "Import" screen got a new design overhaul to make it much prettier and more intuitive. A lot of thanks goes to anonymous4 for helping with layout and feedback.
(Android) Minor fixes for crashes / obsoleted items
There were two minor crashes that would occur when using the left-nav button. The main one was pressing "Random" when on the "Import" screen
I also removed two features: "Nearby" and "Log in to Wikipedia". Neither of these seem useful for offline XOWA, and I didn't want them taking up screen real-estate.
Next release: v3.4.3
I'm planning on releasing XOWA Android Beta on Google Play mid-week. I'm sure that there will be spillover work that leads to another Android app update next week.
For wikis, the Wikimedia dump server is stalled again. I'm going to wait for it to resume before continuing with German Wikipedia.
Release: v3.4.1.1 (2016-04-04 20:00 Sun)
The desktop app is a minor release. It has a few fixes related to old .sqlite3 wikis and offline imports.
The Android app has not been changed.
(Desktop) Fixes for old .sqlite3 wikis
As reported in https://sourceforge.net/p/xowa/discussion/defects/thread/f142ca23/ v3.3.4 did not work for old .sqlite3 wikis. These wikis were phased out last year (in 2015-04), but I didn't want to drop support for them entirely.
v3.4.1 has 2 fixes for the following:
- Open old .sqlite3 wikis: Previously, XOWA would just show a blank page
- Allow old .sqlite3 wikis to upgrade to the new search system: Previously, XOWA would keep prompting to upgrade
(Desktop) Fix for offline import of large wikis
This was reported in a separate ticket: https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/51 Basically, the new search system caused offline imports to fail for large wikis. A large wiki is defined as one with a dump file of 1.5 GB.
v3.4.1 fixes this issue. I tested with English Wikisource 2016-03: http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwikisource/20160305/
(Desktop) Command to shrink English Wikipedia images by 8 GB
The total size of English Wikipedia is about 90 GB. 8 GB is from old images: images removed from articles during the day-to-day editing churn.
If you have English Wikipedia and have been following along with the updates, go to Dashboard/Files/Deletion and follow the instructions therein.
(Package) Release of French Wikipedia 2016-03
I had a request to update French Wikipedia, but have been delaying it for several weeks. I updated French Wiki and uploaded it here: https://archive.org/details/Xowa_frwiki_latest
Next release: v3.4.2
I'm planning to work on Android-only matters and release a "beta" app on Google play. For wikis, I'll update German Wikipedia.
Release: NONE (2016-04-03 22:00 Sun)
Sory all. I'm postponing the release for tomorrow night. I'll post again tomorrow evening. Thanks.