Emmanuel's Visit

Nikhil Sheth, 04/01/2012 | Source: Blog Trek, the next generation

Shantabai Ladkat English Medium School, Nanapeth Pune had a unique visitor in November 2011. Emmanuel Engelhart from Switzerland is the creator of a program called "Kiwix" which runs "Wikipedia for Schools", a digital encyclopedia that runs on any computer, has over 6000 articles equal to 20 large encyclopedias. And it is completely free of charge, made to spread to schools for the benefit of teachers and students. 


Our school was one of the first in India to install and use this wealth of knowledge in our computer lab. So Emmanuel came to Pune specially to meet us and spent two full days interacting with all the students and the teachers, seeing his program in action in our lab and he even taught us a little French. We held a special ceremony for him to convey our gratitude for his noble and selfless work in the field of education that can empower millions of students all over the nation.

Preferential treatment

GerardM, 03/01/2012 | Source: Words and what not

The latest #translatewiki.net localisation rally had a twist. To qualify, the localisation for the Kiwix and the Wikipedia Mobile applications had to be completed for the language before MediaWiki messages were accepted.

Our thinking was: the most used messages are typically already complete and at this time growth of our content is very much taking place off-line or on a mobile phone.

For mobile phone use we have statistics that show a growth of 144% compared with last year December. Our support for mobile phones and the support for different writing systems on mobile phones is improving. As more people buy increasingly sophisticated mobiles, this growth may even increase.

During the localisation rally 30 additional languages were completed for Kiwix bringing the total to 65. For Wikipedia Mobile we now support 68 languages completely. We hope that our December 2011 rally sets the stage for a wonderful 2012 with even more people sharing in the sum of all knowledge.
Thanks,
     GerardM

HOW TO deploy Wikipedia for Schools offline encylopedia on school computers

Nikhil Sheth, 15/12/2011 | Source: Blog Trek, the next generation

Bridge the internet divide; spread the light of knowledge to school computers the same way you share movies and songs with your friends: with Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and a few clicks!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AOffline_Wikipedia_install_guide.pdf

Thanks to Jessie and Emmanuel for their support and faith; it's an honor to be collaborating with you on this project!

Nikhil Sheth,
Teach for India Fellow, 2011-13
Grade 3 teacher, Shantabai Ladkat School, Nanapeth, Pune

The Mumbai hackathon was sweet

GerardM, 21/11/2011 | Source: Wikimedia blog » kiwix

When a hackathon is organised, it is wonderful when the reality of the results exceeds expectations. The reality was that some of India’s best and brightest attended the hackathon. They represented many of the languages  of India, and it showed.

Seven Indians and a German created an input method for their language. A Russian keyboard method is promised for the next day. There was a jQuery wizard who created a wonderful and necessary addition to the Narayam extension: a visual cue to where the characters are on the keyboard. This information comes directly from the Narayam definitions and the best part is that the visual cue actually works as well.

The WebFonts extension got its reality check. WebFonts provides default fonts in order to ensure that nobody sees the infamous Unicode squares and numbers instead of the desired characters. The MediaWiki software is exclusively open source, and consequently the fonts we deliver through the WebFonts extension need to be freely licensed, too.  The default font we use for the Indic languages is the Lohit font produced by Red Hat. It was quite astonishing to learn that some of the characters are not what the character should look like. Bugs have been filed for this at Red Hat and more work will be done.

We are going to roll out the WebFonts extension on December 12th. Our aim is to install it on the Indic projects. When we have freely licensed fonts that show languages correctly, we will finally be able to provide readable content to everyone. We will be working towards resolving the issues identified at the hackathon.

The Mumbai hackathon has also been good for the Kiwix off-line reader; not only was the software localised into several languages, new developers also familiarized themselves with the software itself to implement further improvements. This is quite important because many Indian people have no or intermittent access to the Internet. In addition to Wikipedia content, there are many projects in India to transcribe books that are in the public domain; as the Kiwix software gets ready to support this content, it will help more and more people get access to India’s rich cultural heritage.

Mobile support was the third centre of gravity; many first-time Wikimedia hackers teamed up with seasoned Wikimedia developers and this produced great results. This included work on a mobile landing page for India, as well as a gateway that allows users to receive Wikipedia articles over SMS and the carrier-specific USSD technology. To appreciate this, many people do not have access to the Internet and consequently to our content. Work also continued on the “Wikipedia Zero” project, which aims to bring Wikipedia and other Wikimedia content to millions of users without data charges.

We also saw an interesting connection with the October 2011 Coding Challenge. Developer Yuvipanda implemented Android 2.2 support for one of the coding challenge submissions, the “Share with Wikimedia Commons” Android app (as well as for the official Wikipedia Android app).

All this will get some review, maybe some polishing but we are quite eager to bring this functionality to you.

Many of the hackers were new to MediaWiki. With an introduction by Erik and private tutoring by Sumana, Tomasz, Patrick, and others, several people really got into the swing of things to the extent that some bugs were smashed.  The hackathon proved as always that when you bring great people together special things can and do happen.

Thanks,
Gerard Meijssen
Internationalization / Localization outreach consultant

#Localisation rally for #MediaWiki and #Kiwix

GerardM, 12/09/2011 | Source: Words and what not

The #translatewiki.net localisation rally is finished. The results particularly for Kiwix are great. Thanks to the addition of 2,672 messages Kiwix is now fully localised in 53 languages. This makes it much easier for people to use our content off-line.

When you read the announcement of the results, it is particularly smaller languages that have benefited with the exception of traditional Chinese. When you look at the statistics, there are more languages that could have benefited from the rally and/or from more localisations.

This time the benefit to translators is EUR 37.50. The benefit to the users of the 20 languages however is where this rally makes a real difference.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Localisation rally for #MediaWiki and #Kiwix

GerardM, 05/09/2011 | Source: Words and what not

The Dutch #Wikimedia chapter sponsors #translatewiki.net regularly to run a translation rally. Such a rally serves multiple purposes;
  • to bring the necessity of localisation to the front
  • to support the localisation of MediaWiki and Kiwix
  • to make the MediaWiki projects more usable
Internationalisation and localisation together make it possible for software to be used by people who do not understand the default language used for the User Interface of software. When these two factors are an integral part of software development like they are for MediaWiki, it becomes possible to support Wikipedia in over 270 languages.

The translatewiki rallies give an additional incentive to our localisers to do a little bit more. Many languages, including big ones like Spanish or Hindi can do with more effort. Both languages are used as "fall back" languages when the localisation of a language is not adequate but they need to be complete to do their job.

MediaWiki does gain relevant functionality over time; off line support with Kiwix and mobile telephone support now integral to MediaWiki are recent examples. This support is not restricted to Wikipedia, it is available to Wikimedia and non-Wikimedia projects alike.

You can join in the fun of the rally, you can make the user interface in your language more usable. The info can be found here but all your contributions are welcome for any and all the projects we support at translatewiki.
Thanks,
        GerardM

    5 ans déjà !

    Kelson, 02/09/2011 | Source: Kiwix au jour le jour

    Il y a cinq ans le projet Kiwix était lancé. Cela faisait déjà 6 mois à l'époque que c'était dans les cartons et après quelques tentatives de faire financer la chose par Wikimédia France, il a bien fallu se rendre à l'évidence : cela ne se ferait pas de cette manière.

    Comme dit le diction On n'est jamais aussi bien servi que par soi même, je lançais donc le projet par moi même.

    Où en sommes-nous aujourd'hui :

    • L'intérêt pour l'accès à nos contenus hors-ligne est plus grand que jamais. Kiwix et openZIM occupent une place de choix parmi les solutions techniques proposées.
    • Nous avons maintenant une solution tout à fait viable pour Windows, OSX et GNU/Linux avec pas mal de fonctionnalités intéressantes. Bref, nous sommes bien plus loin que nos objectifs initiaux.
    • Kiwix a fusionné complètement avec Moulinwiki et nous sommes désormais un peu plus nombreux à travailler sur le logiciel, même si nous sommes vraiment encore trop peu.
    • Nous avons une audience honorable et en croissance constante avec au dernier recensement environ 300 visiteurs uniques et 120 téléchargements du logiciel par jour.
    • Kiwix est soutenu par plusieurs chapters très concrètement et par la WMF, ainsi que des organisations extérieures au mouvement.

    Statistiques de Fréquentation de http://www.kiwix.org

    Sur quoi travaillons nous :

    • Nous voulons sortir la version 0.9 finale d'ici la fin de l'année et investissons beaucoup pour améliorer l'ergonomie du logiciel et sa stabilité.
    • On cherche en parallèle à augmenter le nombre de plateformes supportées avec plus de binaires, des packages et de nouveaux ports (pour Sugar par exemple, mais nous tentons aussi de trouver des solutions pour Android).
    • Nous voulons aussi absolument améliorer la version serveur http de Kiwix et développer une solution clef-en-main pour Plug computers.
    • Améliorer la communication et faire participer plus de gens (amélioration du site Web, meilleur communication avec l'aide de la WMF, utilisation de Translatewiki, mise en place d'un système de Feedback, …).
    • Développer des outils pour rendre la création de ZIM beaucoup plus simple.
    • Documenter et faciliter les déploiements massifs de Kiwix.

    Face à tous ces challenges, il faut tous ensemble faire un effort et toutes les bonnes volontés sont le bienvenu. Pour ma part je travaillerai à partir d'octobre à temps plein sur Kiwix.

    There are few messages to localise for #Kiwix

    GerardM, 22/08/2011 | Source: Words and what not

    Kiwix can be localised at #translatewiki.net. and it started with 14 languages already localised. Two days later, 18 languages are completely localised and for 6 languages the localisation is underway.

    With only 79 messages to localise, there is not much effort needed to localise Kiwix. Given that it is the client that does support the openZIM format, it helps support the Wikimedia Foundation in its effort to have a credible off-line strategy.

    Check out the status, and help us to create the best off-line experience for your language.
    Thanks,
           GerardM

    Kiwix localisation is supported at translatewiki.net

    GerardM, 20/08/2011 | Source: Wikimedia blog » kiwix

    Offline use of Wikimedia content is a strategic goal for the Wikimedia Foundation. Kiwix is an offline app that allows user to read content without an internet connection, and it can now be localized into many languages on translatewiki.net.

    There are many instances where people do not have an Internet connection available, or where it is cheaper to work offline, notably in the “Global south”.

    Data from Wikimedia projects can be exported to the openZIM format, and then read offline on Kiwix, the only openZIM client.

    Several projects with local developers invested a considerable amount of time creating their own offline app for their language, their script or for special requirements like formatting for books.

    With the localization of Kiwix on translatewiki.net, it is now much more of an option to work on such features in Kiwix. Customizations like including fonts with a package or having specific formatting for a book or a source remain possible.

    We hope our community will help localize Kiwix in the 270+ languages we currently support with Wikimedia projects. Please start translating the interface and let us know how it goes.

    Thanks,

    Gerard Meijssen
    Internationalization / Localization outreach consultant

    Come beta test offline Wikipedia

    Tomasz, 16/08/2011 | Source: Wikimedia blog » kiwix

    I’m happy to report that we have a new beta version of Kiwix available for testing. For those new to the project, Kiwix is the simplest and easiest way to take Wikipedia with you when you have no internet connection.

    We’ve added some features that I’ll talk about below but for those of you that are just looking to get involved: download a fresh copy and give us feedback. Head over to our project pages if you want to see our full roadmap.

    With this new beta we have some exciting new features:

    • Mac OS X version;
    • Content Manager
    • Revised search interface

    While the majority of our user base is Linux and Windows we didn’t want OSX users to feel left out. It’s now part of our regular build process. Three platform builds per release .. that’s our goal.
    We’re especially happy with how the content manager has turned out. Rather than having to scour the internet to find openZim files you’ll now be able to discover new ones right within Kiwix.

    We’re starting out with a limited set of data files to simplify our testing, but we’ll be expanding in the next months as we connect the download manager to the Books collection extension. This will greatly expand the amount of content you can download from Wikipedia. With the extra content, we’ll also add filtering capabilities to make sorting easier.

    Finally, we’ve tweaked the look and feel of search results. It’s now far more similar to search engine results pages, which will hopefully make both search and browse much easier.There are also lots of others change under the hood and for those curious head over to the change log.

    Tomasz Finc
    Director Mobile & Special Projects