Android/Setup

From XOWA: the free, open-source, offline wiki application

Installing the XOWA Android App

Choose one of the following:

Install a wiki automatically: Simple Wikipedia

  • Select XOWA from the Menu (button in upper left hand corner)
  • On the XOWA Wikis screen, press the Download button
  • Add Simple Wikipedia Articles to the Queue
  • Run the Queue
  • Select XOWA again from the Menu
  • Select simple.wikipedia.org

Install a wiki manually: Simple Wikipedia

Download the files

  • Download the articles. This will not have any images and will be about 300 MB.
https://archive.org/download/Xowa_simplewiki_latest/Xowa_simplewiki_2016-06_core.zip
https://archive.org/download/Xowa_simplewiki_latest/Xowa_simplewiki_2016-06_html.zip
  • Unzip the zip file to C:\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org. When you are done, you will have these files:
C:\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org\simple.wikipedia.org-core.xowa
C:\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org\simple.wikipedia.org-html.xowa
  • Move the files to your micro-SD card with a folder structure of \Android\data\org.xowa\files\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org. Assuming your micro-SD card is attached as the X drive, you will have files like these:
X:\Android\data\org.xowa\files\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org\simple.wikipedia.org-core.xowa
X:\Android\data\org.xowa\files\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org\simple.wikipedia.org-html.xowa
  • Download the images. It will be about 2 GB.
https://archive.org/download/Xowa_simplewiki_latest/Xowa_simplewiki_2016-06_file.zip
  • Unzip the zip file to C:\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org. When you are done, you will have these files:
C:\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org\simple.wikipedia.org-file.xowa
  • Move the files to your micro-SD card with a folder. Following the example above, you will have files like these:
X:\Android\data\org.xowa\files\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org\simple.wikipedia.org-file.xowa

Open the wiki in XOWA Android

  • Insert the micro-SD into your Android device
  • Launch XOWA on your Android device
  • Press the menu button in the top left-hand corner
  • Press the XOWA button
  • Press the download button in the top right-hand corner.
If you're on Marshmallow, you will get a prompt to allow XOWA to read your SD card. Please allow it. For more information on XOWA's privacy policy, see Help/Privacy/Android
  • Navigate to the wiki folder on your SD card
For example, on an LG G4 device, you would navigate to storage -> CARD-CODE -> xowa -> wiki -> simple.wikipedia.org
  • Press the file with the XOWA icon. In this case, it would be simple.wikipedia.org-core.xowa
  • Press the link for simple.wikipedia.org on the XOWA page. You will be navigated to simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Setting up a wiki: English Wikipedia or any other

The process is the same as Simple Wikipedia, except you will be downloading many more files.

  • For the html-only version, you will be downloading 28 GB. See the html links below for English Wikipedia
  • For images, you will be downloading another 82 GB. See the file links below for English Wikipedia

Note that all files are not required. You can download some files and the wiki will still work. For example:

  • You can download the html-only files. You do not need images in order to use the wiki
  • You can download some of the html databases and skip others
For example, if you don't download html.category articles, you won't be able to read categories (articles in the [[Category]] namespace)
  • You can download some of the image databases and skip others
For example, if you don't download images.main articles.part-02, you won't have 500,000 random images.

Finally, the following files are required:

  • If you're running html-only:
    • html.core
  • If you're running html and images:
    • html.core
    • images.core

Android file path

The \Android\data\org.xowa\ folder is strongly recommended.

  • Android Kit-Kat devices and up can only write to an external folder with this hierarchy: \Android\data\org.xowa\
  • XOWA Android currently does not write to any databases, but it will in the coming months. I'm working on an auto-update feature which will split a wiki into pieces and merge them together. The merging will require write permissions.

If you don't ever plan on using the auto-update feature, you can use any other path. For example, X:\xowa\wiki\simple.wikipedia.org\simple.wikipedia.org-text.xowa.

There is one catch: files in \Android\data\org.xowa\ will be deleted when ...

  • "Clear data" is selected from Settings -> XOWA -> Storage.
  • The app is uninstalled

This means that you can copy English Wikipedia to \Android\data\org.xowa\, and have 100 GB of data deleted when pressing "Clear data".

If you want to guard against accidental deletion, you should install instead somewhere else, like X:\xowa\. Note that this means you will not be able to use the auto-update feature within the Android app. You will be able to use it from the desktop app.


Android wikis [1]

wiki wiki date posted date size
(GB)
type download

https://simple.wikipedia.org

2016-03-05

2016-03-28

1.9

.xowa

html
images

https://en.wikipedia.org (Android)

2016-05-01

2016-05-24

28.8

.xowa

html.core
html.main articles.part-1
html.main articles.part-2
html.main articles.part-3
html.project articles
html.category articles
html.portal articles

https://en.wikipedia.org

2016-03-05

2016-04-09

80

.xowa

images.core
images.main articles.part-01
images.main articles.part-02
images.main articles.part-03
images.main articles.part-04
images.main articles.part-05
images.main articles.part-06
images.main articles.part-07
images.main articles.part-08
images.main articles.part-09
images.main articles.part-10
images.other articles

https://en.wikipedia.org

2016-05-01

2016-05-17

6.2

.xowa

images.update.2016-05-01 (.xowa)

https://de.wikipedia.org

2016-04-07

2016-04-21

39

.xowa

core
html
images.core
images.main articles.part-1
images.main articles.part-2
images.main articles.part-3
images.main articles.part-4
images.other articles
images.update: 2016-04

https://de.wiktionary.org
https://de.wikisource.org
https://de.wikivoyage.org
https://de.wikiquote.org
https://de.wikibooks.org
https://de.wikiversity.org
https://de.wikinews.org

2016-04-07

2016-04-21

4.9

.xowa

wikis and images

  1. ^ More wikis will be generated over the coming months. If you want a specific wiki, please make a request at https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues

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