Provide interim MDwiki app release

[Jaifroid]

@tim-moody: Since openzim/zim-requests#1117 has been closed, I suggest we move discussion of this here, even though it would affect the Android packaged app too.

It seems we have three choices for releasing an updated MDwiki app:

1. Release a new app with the last available ZIM (June), i.e. only code update, no new content. Advantage is I can do this quickly, and it keeps the app "in the public eye". The downside is that updating an app that is working fine as-is without updating the information it contains uses people's bandwidth unnecessarily for what would be only minor code updates.
2. Prepare new ZIMs of mdwiki and mdwiki-app using the old API (on your side), and I upload these to download.kiwix.org. This assumes we have an updated medicine.tsv (no medicine.tsv for July 2024 openzim/mwoffliner#2069), so the content would indeed be new.
3. Wait until you can get dev to work fully on your side and provide a ZIM release based on dev and the new API.

We're currently on number 3 above. Please note that the format changes quite a lot with the new API, but I've got code in my app that deals with the differences and allows nearly all functionality to work as before. (I've been through this already with the Wikivoyage packaged app.)

Let me know if you think we should change strategy.

[tim-moody]

Please note that the format changes quite a lot with the new API

can you tell me more. I need to catch up with what is planned.

[Jaifroid]

can you tell me more. I need to catch up with what is planned.

Not really "planned"! What happened is the new Wikipedia/Wikimedia API returns subtly (and not so subtly) different page formatting and, especially, CSS. There is no change in the ZIM format, this is only about presentation and style of the content. The Kiwix override styles are not in their final form, from what I can tell. The new format broke a number of Wikipedia-specific features in the app, and I had to work around these on a temporary basis in the reader until we have a settled final format. One such feature was switching between mobile and desktop style. Other issues involved strange positioning or styling of elements. This should now be fixed reader-side, at least with Wikivoyage, but I assume there are the same issues with Wikipedia-based ZIMs. I won't know for sure till I get one to test. But I'm presuming that if you provide your own ZIMs now for mdwiki and mdwiki-app, these will be based on the old API for now?

[tim-moody]

I'm not sure what 'new' and 'old' api mean, but I am working towards invoking the REST API rather than the api.php api.

[Jaifroid]

Yup, I'm hazy on the details, as I don't work on the scraper, but "REST API" or "mobile-html" endpoint is what it's often referred to as. The previous one was called the "mobile-sections" endpoint, and it's deprecated: openzim/mwoffliner#1664 .

[Jaifroid]

@tim-moody Any update on progress? Don't mean to hassle, it would just be useful to know how things are going!

[tim-moody]

@Jaifroid I think I now have a way forward, but I'm still working on the code. It will depend on the answers to openzim/mwoffliner#2100

[Jaifroid]

OK, thanks for the update!

[Jaifroid]

@tim-moody I decided to go ahead with a code update release, as several improvements have accumulated. See https://kiwix.github.io/kiwix-js-pwa/wikimed/ . It would be great if we could release a content update in the New Year. In the meantime, I hope you have a good holiday season.

[tim-moody]

It would be great if we could release a content update in the New Year

Agreed.