I would like to export a whole wiki into a format which does not require a working Internet connection to use, does not require a web browser to view, and provides navigation and search facilities. CHM is an example of such format (CHM is a little evil, but it is good as an example nevertheless). What such formats does mediawiki export to, including tools to convert dumps to external formats?
Topic on Project:Support desk
I think there is no solution for that.
MediaWiki content can be exported to XML format. Apart from that you can use the according external tools to create an export, e.g. if you are using MySQL, you can create a MySQL dump. Anyway,all this is targeted at an import into (possibly another) MediaWiki instance.
What you however can do is this:
- Run the wiki on a local machine. This requires Apache, PHP and MySQL to be running. However, this machine can then be offline, meaning it does not have to be connected to the internet.
- The tool to view a wiki is a browser. Maybe you can build an exe file or so out of some of the pages - I know there were tools, which could do that, but anyway: You then will have to run that exe file in order to use the wiki, which technically is not different from running your webbrowser's exe file.
I am trying to avoid using a web browser. A web browser is not a good tool for viewing help files, because then the task of searching and navigating the help files becomes delegated to the web browser (and hence whoever wrote the html). I do not want to know html or javascript. I want to use a standard help file format for which a viewer exists for my desktop and I can control the viewer using a language my desktop environment is written in.
Control the browser with C, C++ and XML - nothing easier than that!
Web browser, to my mind, is an application for browsing the web. Where I browse something different from the web (i.e. an exported wiki), I would rather use an offline format in a different program.
In the event of using a local HTML version, ability to control the browser does not empower me with control over the navigation facilities that HTML version provides.
You should export the wiki as a XML-file and then create out of this export one or more pdf files. You may need a script that cuts the wiki entries in parts and re-arranges them in such a way as to create separate xml files; or however you want to see the things displayed/converted.
A bunch of PDF files is not a help file format, unless combined with a metadata file which helps to organize them. There has to be a standard way to do this.
To clarify, I am looking for means to export to one of these formats, or an equivalent:
- chm
- texinfo
- html (local, without running a wiki instance)
- xml
- docbook
- man pages
- ...
The viewer should have a search box. (As a last resort, this could be a file manager search box to find a file with an appropriate name by hand.)
Try using zim (kiwiki project)
try httrack to download any website http://www.httrack.com