Wikipedia app

Posted on 10/29/2009 04:05 PM GMT , Last Modified on 08/07/2010 09:00 AM BST

I think we had/have one as example code (Ivan wrote it for a demo a while ago). It needs some brushing up, but as an example of an open source app, it could be a great thing to come with our SQL book (out soon) http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Wikipedia_SQL_Demo

Doesn't that one link to a local copy of the wikipedia database rather than the online version though?

The existing app was written as a demo of the wonderful SQLite database in Symbian 9.3 and so the normal demo did use a local cache; but I believe it does go to the website if it doesn't find the entry locally.

I agree this would be a good app to have. Implementation idea: In his talk "Introducing Qt to Symbian Developers" on day 2 of SEE09, http://www.see2009.org/page.cfm/action=Seminars/SeminarID=117, Espen Riskedal showed how a good looking mobile interface to Wikipedia can be created in Qt in less than 30 minutes programming time.

there are a lot of wikipedia articles about locations, and most symbian phones these days have the ability to geotag photos. so i would add to this idea that installing the app might add a feature to Share Online to upload geotagged photos of locations to a relevant wikipedia article. The use case would be something like this:

1. After installing Wikipedia App, the user opts-in for automatic image location parsing.
2. User takes a photo, geotag is saved into EXIF data
3. Wikipedia App sends a location query to wikipedia, checks if an interesting landmark is in the area and perhaps in the same direction as phone was facing (compass data in exif as well?)
4. Title of related wikipedia article, if any, is added to a Share Online queued upload along with the relevant image
5. User must manually select to send the upload if they think it is relevant. (auto upload might send images not fit for public consumption)


In this manner, wikipedia gets new content (updated pics of stonehenge, etc) and the user publishes this content to the proper article without fussing about with searching for it, selecting the image, etc. I envision only the most recent 5 or so images being queued up in Share Online. This way, after taking a vacation I open Share Online and see "hey wow, i took 3 snaps of famous places" - and have the opportunity to upload them easily if they seem fit for public viewing.

IvanL has created an alpha version of a Wikipedia app. The intention is to develop this further, but we'd very much appreciate some feedback on the alpha.

It should work on all Symbian^1 devices and a selection of earlier devices. Please give the app a try and post any feedback as comments.

 

In addition to the current feature set, the following are proposed:

• autocomplete on article search
• article edit
• store favourite articles (ideally, local to the device so that they can be viewed offline)
• forward and back buttons
• an easy means to return to 'home'
  

 

My initial comments:

• it might be helpful to make the initial information box (the facts and figures that are usually right-aligned) collapsible so that the reader can go straight into the article
• I'd make the Wikipedia icon a "home" button
• It would be good to have a more obvious way to navigate back and forwards
• On my e71 I have to scroll down to click search on the home page. It would be good to have this visible and clickable without scrolling

It's unfortunately broken on 5th edition (or at least on the 5800). I can't get the virtual keyboard up for the search box.

I tried the app on N97 and here are my comments:

- I liked the Wikipedia icon as it appears in my Applications grid menu; it is important as this will first attract the user to open and use the app, a boring/bad resolution icon might put them off.

- The search view that appears as soon as you open the app is fine on portrait mode, but on landscape mode the "Search" button was half out of screen on my N97. Still usable without having to scroll down, but there is plenty of unused space in this view anyway and fitting it all properly shouldn't be a problem. Also, graphics on search view are clean and as simple as possible which is not a bad thing at all, but I think it would look more interesting if the put some "depth", like shadow on the "Wikipedia" fonts etc.

- I liked that a dialogue pops up to ask if I allow internet data to be used. Obvious to most people that such an app will use data, but probably useful for when you're roaming, if you haven't switched off internet data.

- When you try to go through the list of search results, kinetic scrolling doesn't work very well; it was difficult scrolling down the list without accidentally selecting and loading a page. I had to use the up-down hard buttons on my N97, but on a touch-only device this would seriously put me off.

- However, when I actually got to the desired wikipedia page, kinetic scrolling worked fine. I was also pleased with the way the text and pictures were displayed, good navigation and readability. Also the reference links in the articles work well.

- I was impressed by the speed in all levels: the app launches fast, the search is super-fast, navigation to articles also very prompt. 10/10 for this aspect of usability!

So nice to see a Idea Comes reality :) Good App ;) Happy with the Beta

Cheers Siraj aka Apache
 http://www.lovemynokia.com

Great app :)

However, don't forget to add a localization settings (I would like to use French database instead of English one), this can be easy to change since the wikipedia url is always the same : http://fr.wikipedia.org for French (and others languages), http://en.wikipedia.org in English.

By the way, search results should be a little bigger in order to become easily touchable. The same suggestion for the radio buttons on the home.

Hi all,

 

New version (1.0rc1) is available here.  New features:

• History, Bookmarks
• Auto-update
• New stylesheets - most pages should be rendered better
• Beta support for reading in non-english languages
• Bugfixes
• ...

Please give it a spin and comment!

 

Thanks,

Ivan