Hi Chengbin, ZIM is an upcoming standard for using HTML contents offline. It is derived from the Zeno file format used on the german Wikipedia DVDs since 2006 (ZIM = Zeno IMproved).
There are currently several reader applications for it, for instance the zimreader made by the openZIM project or Kiwix. There are some ports around like Kiwix on Windows and zimreader on openmoko / ARM. The zimreader by openZIM works like a small webserver, it serves the contents of the ZIM file locally. Once the HTML dump on static.wikimedia.org is fixed and ZIM file creation has been integrated you will be able to download fresh ZIM files of all Wikimedia projects directly from download.wikimedia.org. Currently the Kiwix team has created some ZIM files and we try to build a ZIM file directory: http://openzim.org/ZIM_File_Archive ZIM actually stores the article text portion of the HTML output of the Wiki in a compressed cluster. It can hold also all type of other MIME types such as images, CSS files etc. http://openzim.org/ZIM_File_Format It is an open standard and has currently been developed and implemented by the openZIM team (sponsored by Wikimedia CH) in C++. There is a library (zimlib) which can be integrated in other reader or dumping applications to make them ZIM-aware. Using the open documentation ZIM can be implemented in any other language as well. The idea of ZIM is to make the data files freely interchangeable with any reader application. It is also flexible enough to store other works than only data from Wikipedia/MediaWiki. Then it tries to keep the reader application as simple and stupid as possible. There is only uncompression and HTML rendering to be done while a HTML renderer should be available on nearly all devices. Greets, Manuel Am Mittwoch, 2. September 2009 schrieb Chengbin Zheng: > On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Manuel Schneider < > > [email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Chengbin, hi list, > > > > static.wikimedia.org is currently not being updated and while the dumps > > processing has been assigned to and completely rewritten by Tomasz Finc > > (developer at WMF), there has not been made any assignment concerning > > HTML dumps. > > > > We had a Wikipedia Offline meeting at Wikimania last week and discussed > > several issues. One issue is the fact, that WMF wants to see the ZIM file > > format being used for offline dumps and has suggested to include it into > > the > > regular dumping process. > > So one question was: When will that happen, what is the status of WMF ZIM > > dumping? > > As ZIM uses HTML extracts Tomasz clarified that once > > static.wikimedia.orghas been rebuild to be stable and sutainable, > > integrating ZIM would be trivial. But he also informed us that this task > > has not yet been assigned. > > > > As Brion Vibber and Erik Möller have been at the meeting as well we hope > > that > > this assignment will be made soon and this task has got higher priority. > > > > This said I may also advise you not to you use the pure HTML dumps but > > the ZIM > > files for your Archos, because that's what they are meant for. > > A ZIM file containing all german Wikipedia articles (>900,000) is 1,4 GB, > > an > > additional full text search index takes another 1 GB. > > > > Greets, > > > > > > Manuel > > > > Am Mittwoch, 2. September 2009 schrieb Chengbin Zheng: > > > I bring this old issue up because I want to know if (or if not) > > > progress (or plans) are made to update the static HTML version of > > > Wikipedia. B&H photos just leaked the next generation of Archos > > > portable media players. Unbelievably, the rumors of a 500GB version is > > > true! This is already tempting (especially the price at $420). Just > > > waiting for specs > > > > on > > > > > September 15, the Archos event. I really hope it will support NTFS so I > > > > can > > > > > use the compression feature. > > > > > > It would be really cool and convenient to have an offline copy of > > > > Wikipedia > > > > > anywhere I go without the need of Wi-Fi. What am I gonna do with 500GB? > > > > > > BTW, does anyone know what is the size of the current static HTML > > > English Wikipedia version uncompressed? Thanks. > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > -- > > Regards > > Manuel Schneider > > > > Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens > > Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge > > www.wikimedia.ch > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > I'm not familiar with the file extension .zim. What is that? Some sort of > compressed html format like .chm? Where can I get a .zim file? I need to > get check if this format is compatible with my Archos's Opera browser. > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l -- Regards Manuel Schneider Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge www.wikimedia.ch _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
