[Wp-mirror-list] WP-MIRROR 0.7 Released

[wp mirror]

Dear list members,

I am pleased to announce the release of WP-MIRROR 0.7.

0) SUMMARY

The main design objective was this:  RENDERING.

A page rendered by the mirror is now very similar to the same page
rendered by the WMF server. Indeed, not only do pages look almost the
same, they now *behave* almost the same (e.g. editting, searching,
user account creation, beta features).

Most of this improvement was accomplished by packaging `mediawiki
1.23' and dozens of its extensions including: EasyTimeline, Math,
Mobile Frontend, Score, Scribunto, Timed Media Handler, Titlekey,
Universal Language Selector, Visual Editor, and Wikidata.

A mirror of the `wikidata wiki' is now built `out-of-the-box', and
provides data to the other wikis (e.g. for populating infoboxes).
Mirrors of `simplewiki' and `simplewiktionary' are also build
`out-of-the-box' as before.

1) PACKAGING

Dependencies: Four new DEB packages were prepared as dependencies for
WP-MIRROR 0.7:

o mediawiki-mwxml2sql_0.0.2-2_amd64.deb: contains an upgrade of
`mwxml2sql' suitable for processing XML dumps for mediawiki 1.23.
o wp-mirror-mediawiki_1.23-1_all.deb: contains git branch wmf/1.23wmf14.
o wp-mirror-mediawiki-extensions_1.23-1_all.deb: contains 47
extensions from git branch wmf/1.23wmf14 (except for the `Wikidata'
extension which is from git branch mw1.23-wmf11)
o wp-mirror-mediawiki-extensions-math-texvc_1.23-1_amd64.deb: contains
programs needed to render MathJax.

Testing:  The DEB package for WP-MIRROR 0.7 works `out-of-the-box'
with no user configuration for the following distributions:

o Debian GNU/Linux 7.4 (wheezy) with backports.  This has been tested
on both a host machine, and on a virtual machine.

2) INSTALLATION

WP-MIRROR 0.7 is now available in the form of a Debian package repository.

3) USE

Virtual Hosts:  Browsing of mirrored wikis is done via virtual hosts
with names like <http://simple.wikipedia.site/>,
<http://simple.wiktionary.site/>, and <http://www.wikidata.site/>.
Simply take the URL that WMF offers, and replace `.org' with `.site'.

3) FURTHER INFO

Project Home Page:  <http://www.nongnu.org/wp-mirror/> has been
updated. Please browse there if you are interested in trying
WP-MIRROR.

Documentation has been updated.  There is a new section on virtual
machines; and there is a new section on the `mediawiki' extensions
that were packaged for this release.

Feedback is welcome.

4) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank several people for providing valuable assistance.

o Jason Cooper - for recommendations on DEB packaging, repository
design, and hosting; and for getting me interested in virtual
machines, which are now part of my tool chain (this is how I test that
WP-MIRROR 0.7 works `out-of-the-box' on a clean install of Debian
7.4).
o Kevin Day - for providing IPv6 support at <ftpmirror.your.org>,
which is highly appreciated by those of us on IPv6 only networks.
o Frederico Leva (Nemo) - for advice that helped track down a bug with
XML dump importation.
o Gnosygnu - for many pointers on Wikidata, Scribunto, database schema
changes, and XOWA thumb dumps.
o Guy Castagnoli - for performing a code review of WP-MIRROR 0.6,
which led to numerous improvements in WP-MIRROR 0.7; and for spending
an evening with me discussing a wide range of topics including: news
of other offline projects, showing me how pages are rendered on his
mobile devices, and starting a list of feature requests for a future
WP-MIRROR 0.8 (requests for features including parsoid, importation of
daily dumps, generation of thumb dumps and ZIM files).

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Kent L. Miller