Mediawiki collection extension installation

Definition

The Mediawiki [collection] extension allows a user to organize personal selections of pages in a collection. Collections can be

• edited and structured using chapters
• persisted, loaded and shared
• rendered as PDF (see Extension:PDF_Writer)
• exported as ODF Text Document (see Extension:OpenDocument_Export)
• exported as DocBook XML (see Extension:XML_Bridge)
• ordered as a printed book at http://pediapress.com/

This page includes some centralized help links and installation tips made for our own use - Daniel K. Schneider 16:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC).

See also:

• Wiki book
• Help:Books

Help pages

Bugs and feature requests:

• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Book_tool/Feedback
• http://code.pediapress.com/wiki/report/1 (Issue tracker for technical people)

Information about the collection extension and related server-side software

• http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection
• http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PDF_Writer
• http://code.pediapress.com/wiki/wiki (PediaPress Open Source Repository, Wiki and Bug Tracking System)
• http://code.pediapress.com/hg/mwlib/raw-file/tip/docs/commands.txt (command line options, important!)
• http://code.pediapress.com/wiki/wiki/Examples
• http://groups.google.com/group/mwlib/topics (Google forums)

Installing the whole suite requires some installation skills, but should go fairly smoothly on any Unix system and should be easy on a Debian-based Linux.

Collection extension installation

The collection extension installs like any other Mediawiki extensions. Really easy with Mediawiki=> 1.14 (Spring 2009).

• You then can just leave all the defaults and the PDF will be generated by PediaPress. However, if you have a slow server like this one, you also should install a local render server (read the whole rest of this page, the pediapress server will likely loose pages due to server overload ....)

I suggest changing file Collection.i18n.php and change the string.

'coll-rendering_text' => "<p><strong>Please wait while the document is being generated.
Depending on the size of book you may have to wait 5, 10, 15 minutes or longer.
</strong></p> 
 ......"

'coll-save_collection_text'       => 'Choose a storage location for your book and enter a name:',

mwlib installation

Not needed if you have a fast server and want to use the pediapress server. Installation notes made for Solaris.

Prerequisites

Install these if don't have them (usually you do)

• Python => 2.5
• Perl => 5
• g++
• Latex

Install Blahtexml

• (not done so far)

Install setuptools-0.6c9-py2.5.egg

• http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools
• http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools

sh setuptools-0.6c9-py2.5.egg

Install python imaging library (PIL)

• http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/
• Get Python Imaging Library 1.1.6 Source Kit
• Unzip and cd Imaging-1.1.6

 python setup.py install

Install odfpy 0.7.0 (not 0.8.0)

• http://opendocumentfellowship.com/projects/odfpy
• Get it from http://odfpy.forge.osor.eu/
  • I.E. as tar ball froom http://forge.osor.eu/frs/?group_id=33

python setup.py build
python setup.py install

Install rec2c

• http://re2c.org/
• Get it from http://www.sunfreeware.com/

pkgadd -d re2c-0.13.5-sol10-sparc-local 

Install ocaml

• http://caml.inria.fr/
• Get if from http://www.sunfreeware.com/

pkgadd -d ocaml-3.10.2-sol10-sparc-local

Mwlib

Mwlib can be installed from a tar ball, alternatively through mercurial with easy_install.

I had to install manually, since I wanted to make some light patches to the code.

• Get if from http://code.pediapress.com/hg/mwlib/ (click on gz)
• Dezip gtar zxf mwlib-db30ecca003a.tar.gz (or whatever file name)

Slowing down the page pulling

Problem: One ought to able to slow down the server. mw-render has an option for reducing threads. But no parameter can be set in the mw extension or the mwserver itself. Therefore, one has to build mwlib from source. Changes made:

mwlib/options.py

In about line 60, change the default, e.g. from 10 to 3 if your server can't cope.

Not suported (unimportant) tags

• Added in mwlib/tagtext.py around line 100 a tag to exclude:

'pageby'

Then go:

 python setup.py install

Alternative if you don't plan any changes

easy_install mwlib && rehash

Other libraries needed by mwlib

pygments

• http://pygments.org/

easy_install Pygments

Fribidi - both a library and the Python bindings

• http://fribidi.org/

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install

• http://pyfribidi.sourceforge.net/index.html

(this is difficult to install)

 setenv fribidi_CFLAGS "-L/usr/local/lib -I/usr/local/include"
 setenv fribidi_LIBS -lfribidi
./configure
make
make install

Ploticus

• http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/doc/welcome.html

(not installed)

mwlib.rl

• http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PDF_Writer

easy_install mwlib.rl

Alternatively from a tarball:

• http://code.pediapress.com/hg/mwlib.rl/

texvc

• Is in your mediawiki installation
• Compile with gmake it if not already done (needs ocaml, see above)

cd /XXX/mediawiki/math
gmake
./texvc_test

• Add the directory to the system path

Testing

• mw-render --config=http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/mediawiki/ --writer=odf --output=./edutech.odt Educational_technology
  • OK - Daniel K. Schneider 16:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC) (using version mwlib-41c207e76b28/)

mw-render --config=http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/mediawiki/ --writer=rl --output=./flash-cs3.pdf Flash_CS3_desktop_tutorial

• • OK - Daniel K. Schneider 16:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC) (using version mwlib-41c207e76b28/)

• mw-zip --config=http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/mediawiki/ --output=./edutech.zip Educational_technology
  • OK

mw-serv

MW Serv provides a server interface for the mw-render engine and mw-zip.

Run the server

• http://code.pediapress.com/hg/mwlib/raw-file/tip/docs/commands.txt
• By default this service runs on port 8899

mw-serve --cache-dir=/data/mwcache/mwlibcache/ &

Tweaking the collection extension

• http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/Collection/README.txt

Add in Localsettings.php (if not already done) the rendering engines you will support. Typing mw-render --list-writers will list the ones you installed. E.g.

$wgCollectionFormats = array(
          'rl' => 'PDF',
          'odf' => 'ODT',
      );

Add in Localsettings.php if not already done the name and port of the server (altenatively you also could install a cgi script).

$wgCollectionMWServeURL = "http://xxx.yyy:8899";

Extra stuff:

$wgLicenseURL = "http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/fr/EduTech_Wiki:Copyrights";
$wgCollectionMaxArticles = 100;