Latest progress on iKi
Before my vacation time ends next week I wanted to have a more or less complete and stable version. So what have I added or changed in the last few days:
- The template processor was completely rewritten. I’ve learned that memory is not a problem on the iPod Touch but speed is. The new approach uses much more memory but is also much faster than the old version. While we’re on the subject: Speed is fine, but not amazing. it could happen that the iPod needs about 5-10 seconds to generate a large article. On the other hand the mobile safari need also a lot of time if a large article is displayed.
- I’ve added every parser function I’ve found in the documenation: {{lc:xxx}}, {{LOCALTIME}} and so on. Some are not very usefully, but some are: {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} which give you always 1 and that’s most of the time totally correct
- Added #switch and #ifexists parser functions. So every parser function except #ifexpr/#expr is working. The later are implemented as a stub.
- Added the Table of contents and the related handling (__TOC__, etc.)
- Port, binding address and base path can be change on the command line
- Namespace handling for different language editions is working nice. Even links to other editions are supported (if installed of course). Installed editions will be detected automatically.
- Added a config file for language/edition specific settings: The name of the template prefix or the title of the toc for instance.
BTW: The same code works on the MAC also. Nice for debugging. Compiling for a PC or another PDA should also work.
Still missing is a nice tool for splitting, indexing or even downloading the files from Wikipedia. Further, there is still no application to control the server on the device. You have to start it manually using SSH.
Januar 2nd, 2008 at 18:26
hi
wann denkst du wird dias tool released. bin schon sehr gespannt!
Januar 3rd, 2008 at 19:40
Michi, thanks for the question. You’re not the only one asking!
The question was: When will the tool be released?
If I find the time I will set up a Google code or SourceForge project this weekend. So afterwards you can install it. But…
The worst part is, that not everyone is able to install the wikiserver on his iPod Touch or iPhone. After downloading the article file from wikipedia you have to run several script (or use a make script for that). Have a look at Thanassis Tsiodras article (see some of the other blog entries). To make thinks worse I had to change Thanassis indexer a little bit to support german “Umlaute”. Afterwards you have to upload the files and the index to your device and install the software. At least a ssh connection is necessary, with some knowledge about Darwin/Unix.
Until these steps are be done by another application only some few people can use the tool.
Help is appreciated: So if anyone like to help out you’re welcome.
-Tom
Januar 4th, 2008 at 11:52
what about uploading the german “iphone ready wikipedia dump”(as you have it) to a freespace provider like mediafire.com so that people can just download it and install an webserver via installer.app?
Januar 6th, 2008 at 23:22
The software is not converting the Wikipedia dump to a bunch of HTML files. That would need way to much space.
It’s using the big XML dump file from Wikipedia directly. This file contains, in wiki markup language, all articles, redirects and template. So the software isn’t a simple webserver. It’s a converter of the wiki markup language to html in the form a web server. And the source, the wiki markup language, is still compressed. That is the magic why you only need 1 GB (plus 0.5 GB for the index) to have the complete German Wikipedia. BTW: No pictures.
The best solution is a program which downloads the data from Wikipedia, splits and indexes them, and put them on the device. Currently we don’t have it.