User:Mun206/MzReader

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This page is for MzReader comments ONLY. For other comments, use my talk page. For more information about this page and MzReader, see Wikipedia:Database_dump and Wikipedia:Tools/Alternative_browsing. For MzReader itself, click here. Please leave your comments about MzReader on this page (in a new section), with your name and signature.

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I liked it! Mun206 (talk) 13:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Problems with BzReader

BzReader fail when it created the index, I don’t know if the problem is in the dump file. You said that it takes about 2 hours to create the index, but of which dump, it took to me about 2 hours for the French dump which have of size of 1GB, which is 4 time less than the English dump (on my PC Pentium 4 running at 2.6 GHz and with 1GB of RAM). I wish you have understood what I mean. Thanks a lot.

Re: Problems with BzReader

Hi, I understand your question to be: why did it take so long for the French dump, which is smaller than the English dump?

I'm not too sure, but I recommend you talk to the author of BzReader at [1].

Unfortunately I do not work on BzReader and therefore cannot assist you directly with this. I hope this helps to answer your question.

Problème with Mzreader

Thanks for your reponse, I find the soulution. Now I instaled Mzreader under windows 7, but it doesn't work ?

Re: Problème with Mzreader

I can't test it on Windows 7 at the moment, but I'll look into it for you.

I was also wondering if you had any experience with servers (such as Apache) and PHP, because I've made a script that does the same thing as MzReader but you can view it from your browser.

For example, on my laptop, if I go to http://localhost/wikipedia.php?port=BZREADER_PORT&title=Main_Page then I can access the dump from any web browser.

If you feel this is a better solution then I may be able to help you with that instead.

Joseph Webber

==Problem with MzReader== 5 March 2010

I downloaded Wikipedia and installed BzReader and MzReader. I installed Visual Basic 6.0 runtime and the Package setup and replaced Wikipedia.htm, I indexed Wikipedia with BzReader, called an article and copied the URL. I started MzReader but never had the chance to paste the URL because it immediately aborted with “Run-time error ‘380’ Invalid property value”.

Am I doing something wrong?

Addition: 6 March 2010

I forgot to mention one thing: when I ran Package setup I got this message:

"Setup cannot continue because some system files are out of date on your system. Click OK if you would like setup to update these files for you now. You will need to restart Windows before you can run setup again. Click cancel to exit setup without updating system files."

I clicked OK, it rebooted and I ran setup again, but I got the same message; that is probably why MzReader is failing, but the message does not tell me which system files are out of date or why it has not updated them for me as it promised. If I take the option of not updating system files it stops.

I decided to manually update those system files which were later than mine. When I rebooted, the system crashed and I may have to reinstall.

Why can't MzReader run with older system files?

I am using Windows XP Home SP2.

I would appreciate a reply as I would like to use this program if I can.

Addition: 8 March 2010

OK, after re-installing Windows I modified SETUP.LST to reflect the versions of my installed system files. This time MzReader started and asked for the port number. I entered it and it replied with error -2147467259. I pressed OK and it showed me the full Wikipedia entry, but whenever I entered a search it gave me the heading with no content.

Is there anybody there? I seem to be doing all the work. I would really appreciate a reply.

Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

Hi, sorry for the delayed response. MzReader isn't the best tool (anymore) for reading an offline Wikipedia dump. I have a better solution that you can use to view the offline dump through your web browser (which I imagine will be much more user friendly and will require less hassle).

Basically, I can walk you through the process of installing Apache and PHP, and then give you the PHP script I wrote to read the dump (this is more reliable than MzReader as it does not fail with runtime errors). You can then view the dump in your favourite browser.

Would this perhaps be a better solution for you?

Mun206 (talk) 20:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I would be interested in that.

Do I assume that 1.0.1 will not be coming out or does that now apply to the browser version?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Re: Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

Hi,

No there will be no 1.0.1, I won't be supporting MzReader any longer.

OK, so basically the Apache web server you can get from here: [2]. It's best to get 2.2.15, and no SSL is fine (get the Windows binary).

Next we need to get PHP. For me, PHP 5.3 didn't work, so I got PHP 5.2.13 instead (which is fine for our purposes). You can get PHP here: [3]. (If you have problems and instead get PHP manually, get the "Thread Safe" one, that's what worked for me).

First install Apache, and then install PHP. When installing PHP, it'll ask you for the web server you have installed - choose Apache 2.2.x from the list (or Apache 2.0.x if the other one is not there). It should automatically configure Apache for you.

(Make sure that you allow both Apache and PHP access to the Internet from your firewall)

Now, the most important thing to do is to make sure that you do not have any ports open on your router. I assume you use a router to connect to the Internet; if not, that's OK, you should be fine. We'll check for open ports later anyway.

Once you've set up Apache, type http://localhost into your browser. It should come up with a default page ("It works!" or something similar).

OK, if this works, you'll need to find your IP address (e.g. by going here: [4]). Get your IP address (e.g. 128.12.28.39) and copy it into the address bar, with http:// before it (e.g. http://128.12.28.39). If you put this into your web browser and navigate to it, you SHOULD get a broken connection. If you get a page like "It works!" then you need to turn off the server immediately.

Once you've confirmed that this works, I can send you the files for the browser-based MzReader. Mun206 (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

So far so good. I’m ready for the files now.

Many thanks.

[For your information, I am not on the internet at home, so I use the local library internet service. But that should not affect any of this.]

Re: Re: Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

You can get the file here: [5].

Basically it contains a single folder called 'w' with the PHP script and some other files. Extract it to: C:\progra~1\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs

OK now you simply run BzReader, find the port number and leave it on.

Then, open your web browser and use the following link: http://localhost/w/r.php?p=PORT_NUMBER&t=ARTICLE_TITLE

e.g.: http://localhost/w/r.php?p=50970&t=Hello

That should display the article as it generally appears on Wikipedia (in the Monobook skin).

Notes:
1. You cannot use the search box to search for an article (yet).
2. You can click through to other articles (i.e. click the links from one article to get to another)
3. I've noticed that the article you use to find the port number cannot be viewed through the browser (no idea why). That is to say, if you open the article "Hello!" on BzReader, you can't open the same article in the browser.

I hope this helps. If you have any queries, feel free to ask (please post them on my talk page).

Mun206 (talk) 15:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Re: Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

I have spent the whole of my hour at the library trying to download the files, including opening a MediaFire account which I don't need.

Please just send them to evewebber@yahoo.co.uk so that I can work on them over the weekend.

Thanks.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

OK, I've sent the files.

(Please respond here rather than replying to my e-mail, I don't check that address regularly)

Mun206 (talk) 16:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Joseph Webber - Problem with MzReader 5, 6 and 8 March 2010

Many thanks.

I'll be in touch on Monday.

PHP script

I got there after a few false starts. It looks great.

A question

Apart from clicking on internal links, do I have to provide port and title for every new search? That is, search on BzSearch, select the particular entry I’m interested in, collect port number and plug it and title into the address bar? If I just enter a new search into the address bar (after the first BzReader-initiated search) I get “Server not found Firefox can’t find the server at www.google.com”.

Some comments to check that I have the correct format.

Each page has “Please Read: A Personal Appeal From Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales” at the top.

The navigation bar (the one with the search box in it) follows the text and is not to the left of it.

MainPage, Portals and Infobox are not formatted.

Sometimes there is no content. For instance, List Of Dinosaurs and List of Mathematics Articles give the complete list in BzReader but only the title when formatted.

I would be interested to see your todo list.

Is there a way to be automatically notified of new versions?

By the way, what do you call this? A BxReader script, a plugin,…?

Thanks for your help.

Re: PHP script

Hi,

First of all, to answer your question: you do have to know the exact title of the article you want, BUT you have to use a special URL to access it. When you simply type the article (like "Hello World!") into the address bar, your browser will try to search for that term on the Internet - just as it normally would. So yes, you would have to write something like this: World!

Remember: if you know the exact title of the article, and don't want to do a search, you can simply plug it in straight away.

Thanks for your feedback about the pages. It seems as though something isn't right. There's two pictures to the right which show what "Hello World!" and "List Of Dinasours" look like on my computer. thumb|Hello World! page

The personal appeal from Jimmy Wales should not be there, and navigation should be on the left, not at the bottom (just as in the pictures).

It seems as if the associated files aren't working properly on your computer. I will look into it and propose a solution, if I find one. I reckon that, in my PHP script, the file links aren't relative (they might be absolute), so I'll try and fix it.

As for the todo list, I don't really have one any more. This is because I don't work much on this script as I don't read Wikipedia offline much any more. However, your suggestions are much appreciated and if I release a new version, I will try and take them into account.

Finally, I initially called this script Offline WikiPHPedia (I had no other good name!), and I'll probably stick with that (although you can refer to it as a Web-based MzReader). As for the TYPE of thing that it is, it's simply a script running alongside BzReader. To sort of see what I mean, try this:

http://localhost:PORT_NUMBER/YOUR_ARTICLE_NAME

You should see an unformatted article. This is how the script "gets" the article, and then it messes about and formats it.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Mun206 (talk) 18:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Update: I just realised! I completely forgot to ask: what browser are you using? I just checked the link paths, they're fine, everything's relative. I reckon it's the browser.

Mun206 (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

(Another) update: The pages render fine in Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, but Mozilla Firefox is causing issues (which seem easily fixable). However, the "list of dinasours" page DOES show full content in Firefox, even though the page is not formatted correctly. i.e., the script is not fully compatible with all browsers.

Mun206 (talk) 18:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Re: PHP script

Thanks for your comments.

I have been using Firefox, but I'll try again with Internet Explorer and get back to you.

I found one other formatting issue (which may go away with Internet Explorer):

"Main article" shows as a link to a reference called ^main¦subject which looks like a link but is not clickable.

Re: PHP Script - "Main article"

Hmm, I can't seem to reproduce that on any of the browsers I've tried (Chrome, IE, FF). (Note: I have Firefox 3.0, not 3.5)

The "Main article" page DOES appear, but it just appears weird (all the elements are all over the place, it's not correctly formatted). It's probably the specific version of Firefox that these pages don't really work with.

Mun206 (talk) 19:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: PHP Script

OK, using Internet Explorer gets the navigation bar in the correct place and Jimmy Wales’ appeal has disappeared.

Mainpage, Portals and Infoboxes are still unformatted

“Main Article” still does not act as a link to another article; it shows a numbered note; click on that and it takes you to the relevant reference at the end of the article which says ^main¦subject and is not clickable.

Categories do not produce an alphabetical list of sub-categories, but point to another category.

Another question:

BzReader will also handle all the other wikis and I can have them all open at the same time. How do I tell the script to look in, for instance, Wiktionary?

PS It's a pity that I have come late to your script. These comments would have been more useful when you were developing it.

Re: PHP Script

Yes it appears that the files aren't really working. I'll have to do some work on it to fix it. I'll also take a look at the categories lists.

As for Wiktionary, isn't that just another port thing? What I mean is, if you take the port from a Wiktionary entry, you should be able to format Wiktionary articles too (however, the Wikipedia logo, etc, will still be displayed!).

It's unfortunate that I couldn't test the script properly when making it. It's just that there weren't any other quick solutions out there that made the dumps nice-and-pretty and all that, so I made myself a quick-and-dirty script to do the job. However, I'll try and improve it, when I get the time to do so (I've got a lot of study and other programming projects to work on at the moment).

Mun206 (talk) 17:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: PHP Script

Thanks for that.

I know what you mean about the lack of other quick solutions. I think I've tried all the offline readers and I haven't found one yet that does it all. Yours is the closest.

Can you send me an email when you're ready so that I can check your talk page again?

Re: PHP Script

Hi,

I've sent the e-mail to your account. Just do the same as last time - delete your old 'w' folder and extract the content to the same location (htdocs).

Basically I needed to use the reader myself and got inspired to work on it - I've fixed it somewhat, and it worked for me on these browsers: Google Chrome 4.0.249.89 Mozilla Firefox 3.0.17 Internet Explorer 7.0

I haven't tried any other versions of these browsers or any other browsers, so if it fails for you then it's probably the version (e.g. Firefox 3.5). Let me know how you get on with these files.

(Note: I've included changes.txt so that you can see the changes I made. They were relatively simple, but I spent a long time messing about with regexes before finally dumping the idea and doing very simple stuff.)

Mun206 (talk) 21:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: PHP Script

Many thanks. I'll look at it at home.

I wasn't expecting such a quick reply!

Re: PHP Script

I didn't expect to reply as quickly myself - I just needed the reader and got inspired to work on it!

OK, that's fine - when you're done please report which browser(s) you used and what article(s) you went on.

Oh and I think it would be handy to know the date of the dump you have, just in case some articles have broken on that specific dump. That would probably help in understanding specific page issues.

Mun206 (talk) 20:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: PHP Script

I still get the following problems:

Mainpage, Portals and Infoboxes are still unformatted

“Main Article” still does not act as a link to another article; it shows a numbered note; click on that and it takes you to the relevant reference at the end of the article which says ^main¦subject and is not clickable.

Categories do not produce an alphabetical list of sub-categories, but point to another category.

Also some articles which have a lot of content in BzReader have none in the script, eg Kirk Douglas.

However, I realised that after my recent Windows re-install I was back to Internet Explorer 6 (I have been using Firefox 3.5.5 so I hadn’t noticed). I will download Internet Explorer 7 (maybe also Firefox 3.0 and Chrome) and try again over the weekend.

To answer your latest:

I've mentioned the browser versions I'm currently using and what I plan to do about that.

The enwiki dump is 2010-01-30.

I'll get back to you when I've tried the other browsers.

Re: PHP Script

I have tried Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3.0 (not 3.0.17 which I will take a look at) and they both produce the same formatting problems. I have sent you an email with a Star Trek entry from Firefox (Internet Explorer was the same); the navigation bar appears at the bottom in this file but is properly situated at the left when I’m viewing it. As you can see, infoboxes and main article references are not formatted inline, but consist of pointers to a list of unformatted unclickable notes.

I was unable to install Google Chrome because it wanted to connect to the internet which I don’t have.

Can you clarify for me: are mainpage, infoboxes, portals, categories and main articles properly formatted on your system?

Re: PHP Script

Hi,

I can confirm that some portals work for me - but I haven't tested all of them. However, I need some time to test enough of the articles - like categories, etc. (perhaps over the next few days, if I have time, or if not, then over the weekend).

I will take a look at the e-mail and also try the Star Trek entry with the reader.

Mun206 (talk) 20:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: PHP Script

Hi,

I still have not had time to update or try out this stuff. I'll need some more time, perhaps a few weeks.

Mun206 (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)