English Wikipedia templates

[Inbefortus]

What I really admire about Wikipedia is its navigation, which makes it possible to read everything related to the Earth, for example. One way to navigate is through templates, which sadly are not available in the latest English Wikipedia 2021-03 build.

According to @zimwikiuser, templates were available in older dumps at the time, and have not been accessible since a long time. (openzim/zim-requests#294)

Everyone knows how meaningful they are, so I really recommend making them available again in the next and future dumps!

Templates increase the effectiveness of an article to the maximum level. Take a look at how lucidly instructive it can appear, providing many notable insights into the related article that are drastically difficult to find without templates.

Screen_Recording_20210702-104459_Samsung.Internet_1152x720.mp4

I'm a big fan of Kiwix and the idea behind it, I use Kiwix every day. But honestly, Kiwix is somewhat lacking in navigation right now. Templates would fill this gap very well and give you a better overall feeling while browsing through the millions of articles.

[Inbefortus]

I downloaded English Wikipedia 2018-10 just to check if @zimwikiuser was indeed right, and well, he was right.

Screen_Recording_20210630-000443_Kiwix_1294x810.mp4

Screen_Recording_20210630-000743_Kiwix_1726x1080.mp4

Screen_Recording_20210630-000621_Kiwix_1554x972.mp4

This is how it should always be. Kiwix at its highest peak, I would say. If only future dumps would turn out like this, man, that would rock.

Even German Wikipedia 2021-03 features templates (thankfully):

Screen_Recording_20210701-172719_Kiwix_1152x720.mp4

That the English Wikipedia, the most of the importance of all languages, does not do the same, is unfortunate.

Compare the amount of information in the article "Barack Obama":

2021-03:

Screen_Recording_20210701-231303_Kiwix.mp4

2018-10:

Screen_Recording_20210701-231100_Kiwix_1468x918.mp4

A huge difference.

@zimwikiuser and @knowledge-is-power are of the same opinion.
Without templates, too much relevant information is flushed down the toilet. I was going through the original English Wikipedia a lot recently, and I desperately have to say, templates are outright a must. It's so much more pleasurable to go from article to article, and knowledge is by far more convenient to obtain thanks to them. Without them, it's like reading a huge book without an index.

It would be a real shame if they are illogically omitted from future dumps and critical information is lost as a result.

[kelson42]

I don’t have made an in depth analysis, but my guess is that you check with the desktop version, and we scrape the mobile version.

[Inbefortus]

I don’t have made an in depth analysis, but my guess is that you check with the desktop version, and we scrape the mobile version.

I merely don't understand why you guys don't scrape templates anymore. You did it back then likewise, as I evidenced in my post (2018-10 English Wikipedia). Back then, you have done nothing wrong with the involvement of templates, because it has brought us Kiwix users solely enormous advantages.

Again. Through them, navigation is significantly improved and the educational process of beneficial knowledge is enhanced many times over.

I assume whenever you read my post thoroughly, you will recognize that this should be reconsidered. This would not yield any drawbacks. No more and no less.

[Inbefortus]

I take back what I alleged. @Jaifroid brought my attention to https://pwa.kiwix.org

I am quite surprised. When you open 2021-03 English Wikipedia there and adjust the display style to desktop style, templates are viewable:

Screen_Recording_20210705-120048_Samsung.Internet_1294x810.mp4

Screen_Recording_20210705-122308_Samsung.Internet_1208x756.mp4

My bad. I steadily presumed that they were not embedded. Back when I tested it on the computer (Windows 10), I retained precisely the same results I got with the Android version. But the fact that you simply have to alter one tiny setting is something I wouldn't have fancied.

It would be superb if you could somehow make them unhidden again in the next and future ZIMs, like 2018-10 English Wikipedia.

[knowledge-is-power]

@Inbefortus Thank You for your last post about pwa. i had been using kiwix desktop application and kiwix chrome extension but never could get templates/table-of-contents in articles even after tinkering with settings (settings doesnt even have desktop/mobile mode option). i have a two year old zim file which i believed did not even contain templates/ToC data - until now! i installed the pwa and set the display to desktop mode just as you said and voila! there they are. this is the first time i have accessed the templates from my zim file in two years!!

if the desktop application, chrome extension, pwa (with display mode 'auto') are unable to access templates/ToC data, then this is surely a bug and needs to be addressed. even pwa works only with display mode set to 'desktop'.

[Jaifroid]

@knowledge-is-power I'm the dev of the PWA version of Kiwix. The reason we don't display the templates in "auto" mode is because auto uses the ZIM archive's native style (in this case, it is the mobile style; in much older ZIMs it is the desktop style). With the mobile style, even on Wikipedia online, the templates / navboxes are hidden. Therefore it is only when you explicitly request desktop style that these templates are revealed by the desktop CSS. I realize this means that some info that some users find important is missing in default display mode, but I'm not sure what could be done about this without deviating from Wikipedia's own styles (mobile = hidden; desktop = displayed).

[knowledge-is-power]

@Jaifroid <https://github.com/Jaifroid> ah, now i see the problem. you have named the setting 'auto' because you are thinking like a developer but to the end-user the 'auto' setting means something else. for end-user, it means the kiwix pwa will automatically adjust the display mode by detecting the device that it is being used on. the 'auto' doesn't specify what it actually does. so, may be change the 'auto' to 'default' and provide a popup tooltip that explains what this 'default' does plus mentioning that current zim archives have native mobile mode. tooltips are very helpful indeed, its one the reasons for vlc player's popularity, i think tooltips must be there in every software cuz no one likes to read long help files. Since you are here, i'd like to mention one other problem in pwa. whenever i right-click a link (in wikipedia) and select 'open in new window with pwa kiwix', the new pwa window opens up but doesn't display anything. however, when i configure the settings such that a new window should open up just by right-clicking a link, it works fine (i.e. when right-click doesn't open context menu but straight away open the link in new pwa window). i'd prefer opening through the context menu instead, so look into it. There are two suggested improvements which i hope you could implement. first, ability to open links in tabs within the pwa window itself. second, ability to bookmark articles. these two features are already available in kiwix desktop application but it'll be great to have them implemented in pwa!!

…

[Jaifroid]

@knowledge-is-power Thank you for the suggestions. I like the idea of renaming "auto" to "default", and I can certainly add a tooltip explanation of what the user can expect with that setting. I've opened kiwix/kiwix-js-pwa#183 for this.

Regarding right-click, it's not possible to patch the existing context menu as far as I know in an html/js app. I did quite a lot of research trying to find a solution for this. I'd have to write my own context menu to replace the default one, and try to simulate the default menu, which wouldn't be very successful.

The only solution I can suggest for now would be to add a small option not to replace right-click. I.e., ctrl-click and long-press (or middle-click if you have a mouse with middle button) would still open the new tab or window, but right-click would open the context menu.

Regarding tabbed browsing, if you open https://pwa.kiwix.org/ in a browser window instead of opening the installed PWA, it will still work offline (if you have previously visited the site in the same browser), and then you can open multiple tabs in the same browser window (make sure the option "Open in new window instead" is off).

Regarding bookmarks, I've opened kiwix/kiwix-js#757 for this sugestion.

Thanks once again.

[knowledge-is-power]

@Jaifroid <https://github.com/Jaifroid> Thanks for your response and considering my suggestions. About tabbed browsing, i'm already aware of the method that you mentioned. but the whole point of an installed pwa is that it should work as a self-contained app that is independent from any other program. if it is dependent/requires chrome browser for a particular task, it's not serving its basic purpose. i would want the pwa to work as an independent app without requiring me to open my browser, so i would want tabs within the pwa window itself. I hope you get my point here. about right-click issue, i have a better idea and i think you'll like it. the solution you mentioned will still force the users to choose between context menu or new pwa window. i suggest that you use 'double right-click' for opening new window and retain 'single right-click' for context menu i.e. just change the current 'single right-click' to 'double right-click' for opening new pwa window. that way, the user will get both functions easily - single right-click opens context menu and double right-click opens new pwa window. easy! one other thing, the config option 'remove max page width restriction' doesn't clarify its function. i'm unsure what it does so please tell me exactly what it does and may be include a tooltip explanation for this in next version. Thanks for all your help!

[Jaifroid]

@knowledge-is-power I'll look into the double-click idea (it is indeed a good one, if I can find a way to detect a double-click event -- I'll probably have to simulate it by waiting a set amount of time for a second click).

Regarding tabs, this depends on whether PWAs support tabs natively. There appears to be an experimental API here: https://web.dev/tabbed-application-mode/ . It's quite new. If I join the experiment, I believe it would only work on Chromium browsers (e.g. Chrome and Edge, possibly also Samsung Internet), but I haven't looked into it yet. I'm interested to do so.

Regarding "Remove max page width". This is something that you only really notice if you have the app maximized on a PC. To illustrate the difference, see below, with the first image showing this setting turned off, and the second showing the setting turned on or Auto (this is Desktop style, but there is a similar effect in Mobile display style):

I'd be happy to add a tooltip, but I think the description describes it quite well.

[knowledge-is-power]

@Jaifroid <https://github.com/Jaifroid> I really appreciate your positive response and I Thank You for it. Have a nice day!

[kelson42]

At this stage, I have no clue what should be done with this ticket honestly. This ticket talks about so many different things that I consider to have no chance to give any proper answer. Will close it.

I can only repeat what has been said at #1492 (comment): If the rendering is different from the Wikipedia app, then this is a bug on our side, otherwise this is a feature and you should complain to Wikimedia why they remove this or that from the mobile HTML rendering.