david
/
xowa
mirror of https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa.git


			
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							<!DOCTYPE html>
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  <title>Blog - XOWA</title>
  <link rel="shortcut icon" href="https://gnosygnu.github.io/xowa/xowa_logo.png" />
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<body class="mediawiki ltr sitedir-ltr ns-0 ns-subject skin-vector action-submit vector-animateLayout" spellcheck="false">
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<div id="content" class="mw-body">
  <h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><span>Blog</span></h1>
  <div id="bodyContent" class="mw-body-content">
    <div id="siteSub">From XOWA: the free, open-source, offline wiki application</div>
    <div id="contentSub"></div>
    <div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr">
    
    <div class='infobox plainlinks' style='width:70px;'>
      <p>
        <span style='font-size:15px;font-weight:bold;'>Blog links</span><br>
        <br>
        2016<br>
      </p>
      <ul>
        <li>
          <b>2016-04</b>
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Blog/2016-03.html" id="xolnki_3" title="Blog/2016-03" class="xowa-visited">2016-03</a>
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Blog/2016-02.html" id="xolnki_4" title="Blog/2016-02" class="xowa-visited">2016-02</a>
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Blog/2016-01.html" id="xolnki_5" title="Blog/2016-01" class="xowa-visited">2016-01</a>
        </li>
      </ul>
      <p>
        <a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Blog/Archives.html" id="xolnki_6" title="Blog/Archives">Archives</a>
      </p>
    </div>
    <div id="toc" class="toc">
      <div id="toctitle">
        <h2>
          Contents
        </h2>
      </div>
      <ul>
        <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1">
          <a href="#Patch:_Missing_wikis_in_sidebar_.282016-04-13_21:34_Wed.29"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Patch: Missing wikis in sidebar (2016-04-13 21:34 Wed)</span></a>
        </li>
        <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2">
          <a href="#Release:_v3.4.2.1_.282016-04-10_21:00_Sun.29"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Release: v3.4.2.1 (2016-04-10 21:00 Sun)</span></a> 
          <ul>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3">
              <a href="#.28Desktop.29_Faster_search_database_build"><span class="tocnumber">2.1</span> <span class="toctext">(Desktop) Faster search database build</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4">
              <a href="#.28Desktop.29_New_English_Wikipedia_images_update_.282016-03.29"><span class="tocnumber">2.2</span> <span class="toctext">(Desktop) New English Wikipedia images update (2016-03)</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5">
              <a href="#.28Desktop.29_Minor_Wikia_parser_tags"><span class="tocnumber">2.3</span> <span class="toctext">(Desktop) Minor Wikia parser tags</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6">
              <a href="#.28Android.29_New_pages_for_.22Import_new_wiki.22_and_.22XOWA_Wikis.22"><span class="tocnumber">2.4</span> <span class="toctext">(Android) New pages for "Import new wiki" and "XOWA Wikis"</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7">
              <a href="#.28Android.29_Minor_fixes_for_crashes_.2F_obsoleted_items"><span class="tocnumber">2.5</span> <span class="toctext">(Android) Minor fixes for crashes / obsoleted items</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8">
              <a href="#Next_release:_v3.4.3"><span class="tocnumber">2.6</span> <span class="toctext">Next release: v3.4.3</span></a>
            </li>
          </ul>
        </li>
        <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9">
          <a href="#Release:_v3.4.1.1_.282016-04-04_20:00_Sun.29"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Release: v3.4.1.1 (2016-04-04 20:00 Sun)</span></a> 
          <ul>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10">
              <a href="#.28Desktop.29_Fixes_for_old_.sqlite3_wikis"><span class="tocnumber">3.1</span> <span class="toctext">(Desktop) Fixes for old .sqlite3 wikis</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11">
              <a href="#.28Desktop.29_Fix_for_offline_import_of_large_wikis"><span class="tocnumber">3.2</span> <span class="toctext">(Desktop) Fix for offline import of large wikis</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12">
              <a href="#.28Desktop.29_Command_to_shrink_English_Wikipedia_images_by_8_GB"><span class="tocnumber">3.3</span> <span class="toctext">(Desktop) Command to shrink English Wikipedia images by 8 GB</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13">
              <a href="#.28Package.29_Release_of_French_Wikipedia_2016-03"><span class="tocnumber">3.4</span> <span class="toctext">(Package) Release of French Wikipedia 2016-03</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14">
              <a href="#Next_release:_v3.4.2"><span class="tocnumber">3.5</span> <span class="toctext">Next release: v3.4.2</span></a>
            </li>
          </ul>
        </li>
        <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15">
          <a href="#Release:_NONE_.282016-04-03_22:00_Sun.29"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">Release: NONE (2016-04-03 22:00 Sun)</span></a>
        </li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <h2>
      <span class="mw-headline" id="Patch:_Missing_wikis_in_sidebar_.282016-04-13_21:34_Wed.29">Patch: Missing wikis in sidebar (2016-04-13 21:34 Wed)</span>
    </h2>
    <p>
      This is a patch for a defect in v3.4.2.1.
    </p>
    <p>
      v3.4.2.1 updated the CSS for the home wiki to fix a narrow search box. See <a href="https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/54" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/54</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      Unfortunately, this CSS also removed the wiki sidebar in the home wiki. I didn't notice this until yesterday.
    </p>
    <p>
      The patch updates one file: /xowa/bin/any/xowa/cfg/app/xowa.gfs . Just replace your version with it.
    </p>
    <p>
      You can also change this manually by finding the div_logo snippet and updating with the snippet below.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thanks.
    </p>
<pre>
  div_logo =
&lt;:["
  &lt;div id='p-logo'&gt;
    &lt;a style="background-image: url(~{portal_logo_url});" href="~{portal_nav_main_href}" class='xowa-hover-off'~{&lt;&gt;msgs.get_html_accesskey_and_title('p-logo');&lt;&gt;}&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
  &lt;/div&gt;
  &lt;div class="portal"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;!-- empty heading else wikipedia css will hide next &lt;h3&gt; after &lt;div id='p-logo'&gt;; DATE:2016-04-12--&gt;
"]:&gt;
</pre>
    <h2>
      <span class="mw-headline" id="Release:_v3.4.2.1_.282016-04-10_21:00_Sun.29">Release: v3.4.2.1 (2016-04-10 21:00 Sun)</span>
    </h2>
    <p>
      The desktop app is a minor release. It has a fix for slow search database builds and some better Wikia support
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Desktop.29_Faster_search_database_build">(Desktop) Faster search database build</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      As per <a href="https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/53" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/53</a> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I optimized some of the SQL code and reduced it to about 2 hours. That said, note the following:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <b>Fails on my 32-bit Windows XP dev machine</b>: 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.
      </li>
      <li>
        <b>Really benefits from an SSD</b>: 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)
      </li>
      <li>
        <b>If you want the new search, downloading from archive.org is the easiest way</b>: There are other complexities with the search database rebuild (PageRank algorithm and the 10 GB pagelinks dump: See <a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/App/Search/Overview.html" id="xolnki_7" title="App/Search/Overview" class="xowa-visited">App/Search/Overview</a>). As such, the easiest way is to download prebuilt copies from archive.org: 
        <ul>
          <li>
            <a href="https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_latest/Xowa_enwiki_2016-03-05_wiki_core.7z" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_latest/Xowa_enwiki_2016-03-05_wiki_core.7z</a>
          </li>
          <li>
            <a href="https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_latest/Xowa_enwiki_2016-03-05_wiki_xtn_search.7z" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://archive.org/download/Xowa_enwiki_latest/Xowa_enwiki_2016-03-05_wiki_xtn_search.7z</a>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Desktop.29_New_English_Wikipedia_images_update_.282016-03.29">(Desktop) New English Wikipedia images update (2016-03)</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      I uploaded new consolidated versions of English Wikipedia images (2016-03) to archive.org. See <a href="https://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_latest" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://archive.org/details/Xowa_enwiki_latest</a>.
    </p>
    <p>
      In terms of usage, pick one of the following:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <b>New user</b>: 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.
      </li>
      <li>
        <b>Existing user (2015-06)</b>: 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 <a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Dashboard/Files/Deletion.html" id="xolnki_8" title="Dashboard/Files/Deletion" class="xowa-visited">Dashboard/Files/Deletion</a>. Once you remove the deleted images, you will have a set that is exactly the same as the 2016-03 version.
      </li>
      <li>
        <b>Existing user (2013-11 or something else)</b>: 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.
      </li>
    </ul>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Desktop.29_Minor_Wikia_parser_tags">(Desktop) Minor Wikia parser tags</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      A user requested some parser functionality for Wikia wikis (see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gnosygnu" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gnosygnu</a> . This release now supports the &lt;choose&gt; and &lt;tabber&gt; extensions.
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Android.29_New_pages_for_.22Import_new_wiki.22_and_.22XOWA_Wikis.22">(Android) New pages for "Import new wiki" and "XOWA Wikis"</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <b>XOWA Wikis</b>: 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.
      </li>
      <li>
        <b>Import new wikis</b>: 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.
      </li>
    </ul>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Android.29_Minor_fixes_for_crashes_.2F_obsoleted_items">(Android) Minor fixes for crashes / obsoleted items</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      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
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id="Next_release:_v3.4.3">Next release: v3.4.3</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      For wikis, the Wikimedia dump server is stalled again. I'm going to wait for it to resume before continuing with German Wikipedia.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br>
    </p>
    <h2>
      <span class="mw-headline" id="Release:_v3.4.1.1_.282016-04-04_20:00_Sun.29">Release: v3.4.1.1 (2016-04-04 20:00 Sun)</span>
    </h2>
    <p>
      The desktop app is a minor release. It has a few fixes related to old .sqlite3 wikis and offline imports.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Android app has not been changed.
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Desktop.29_Fixes_for_old_.sqlite3_wikis">(Desktop) Fixes for old .sqlite3 wikis</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      As reported in <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/xowa/discussion/defects/thread/f142ca23/" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://sourceforge.net/p/xowa/discussion/defects/thread/f142ca23/</a> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      v3.4.1 has 2 fixes for the following:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <b>Open old .sqlite3 wikis</b>: Previously, XOWA would just show a blank page
      </li>
      <li>
        <b>Allow old .sqlite3 wikis to upgrade to the new search system</b>: Previously, XOWA would keep prompting to upgrade
      </li>
    </ul>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Desktop.29_Fix_for_offline_import_of_large_wikis">(Desktop) Fix for offline import of large wikis</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      This was reported in a separate ticket: <a href="https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/51" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/51</a> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      v3.4.1 fixes this issue. I tested with English Wikisource 2016-03: <a href="http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwikisource/20160305/" rel="nofollow" class="external free">http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwikisource/20160305/</a>
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Desktop.29_Command_to_shrink_English_Wikipedia_images_by_8_GB">(Desktop) Command to shrink English Wikipedia images by 8 GB</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      If you have English Wikipedia and have been following along with the updates, go to <a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Dashboard/Files/Deletion.html" id="xolnki_9" title="Dashboard/Files/Deletion" class="xowa-visited">Dashboard/Files/Deletion</a> and follow the instructions therein.
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id=".28Package.29_Release_of_French_Wikipedia_2016-03">(Package) Release of French Wikipedia 2016-03</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      I had a request to update French Wikipedia, but have been delaying it for several weeks. I updated French Wiki and uploaded it here: <a href="https://archive.org/details/Xowa_frwiki_latest" rel="nofollow" class="external free">https://archive.org/details/Xowa_frwiki_latest</a>
    </p>
    <h3>
      <span class="mw-headline" id="Next_release:_v3.4.2">Next release: v3.4.2</span>
    </h3>
    <p>
      I'm planning to work on Android-only matters and release a "beta" app on Google play. For wikis, I'll update German Wikipedia.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br>
    </p>
    <h2>
      <span class="mw-headline" id="Release:_NONE_.282016-04-03_22:00_Sun.29">Release: NONE (2016-04-03 22:00 Sun)</span>
    </h2>
    <p>
      Sory all. I'm postponing the release for tomorrow night. I'll post again tomorrow evening. Thanks.
    </p>
  
    </div>
  </div>
</div>


<div id="mw-head" class="noprint">
  <div id="left-navigation">
    <div id="p-namespaces" class="vectorTabs">
      <h3>Namespaces</h3>
      <ul>
        <li  id="ca-nstab-main" class="selected"><span><a id="ca-nstab-main-href" href="index.html">Page</a></span></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

<div id='mw-panel' class='noprint'>
  <div id='p-logo'>
    <a style="background-image: url(https://gnosygnu.github.io/xowa/xowa_logo.png);" href="http://xowa.org/" title="Visit the main page"></a>
  </div>
  <div class="portal" id='xowa-portal-home'>
    <h3>XOWA</h3>
    <div class="body">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="http://xowa.org/" title='Visit the main page'>Main page</a></li>
        <li><a href="http://xowa.org/screenshots.html" title='See screenshots of XOWA'>Screenshots</a></li>
        <li><a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Help/Download_XOWA.html" title='Download the XOWA application'>Download XOWA</a></li>
        <li><a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Dashboard/Image_databases.html" title='Download offline wikis and image databases'>Download wikis</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="portal" id='xowa-portal-started'>
    <h3>Getting started</h3>
    <div class="body">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}App/Setup/System_requirements.html" title='Get XOWA&apos;s system requirements'>Requirements</a></li>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}App/Setup/Installation.html" title='Get instructions for installing XOWA'>Installation</a></li>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}App/Import/Simple_Wikipedia.html" title='Learn how to set up Simple Wikipedia'>Simple Wikipedia</a></li>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}App/Import/English_Wikipedia.html" title='Learn how to set up English Wikipedia'>English Wikipedia</a></li>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}App/Import/Other_wikis.html" title='Learn how to set up other Wikipedias'>Other Wikipedias</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="portal" id='xowa-portal-android'>
    <h3>Android</h3>
    <div class="body">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}Android/Setup.html" title='Install XOWA on your Android device'>Setup on Android</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="portal" id='xowa-portal-help'>
    <h3>Help</h3>
    <div class="body">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}Help/About.html" title='Get more information about XOWA'>About</a></li>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}Help/Contents.html" title='View a list of help topics'>Contents</a></li>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}Help/Media.html" title='Read what others have written about XOWA'>Media</a></li>
        <li><a href="{{page_root}}Help/Feedback.html" title='Questions? Comments? Leave feedback for XOWA'>Feedback</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>
  
  <div class="portal" id='xowa-portal-blog'>
    <h3>Blog</h3>
    <div class="body">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="http://xowa.org/wiki/home/page/Blog.html" title='Follow XOWA''s development process'>Current</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="portal" id='xowa-portal-links'>
    <h3>Links</h3>
    <div class="body">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html" title="Get wiki datababase dumps directly from Wikimedia">Wikimedia dumps</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=xowa" title="Search archive.org for XOWA files">XOWA @ archive.org</a></li>
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