Android/Setup
Contents
Installing the XOWA Android App
Choose one of the following:
- (Android) Open Google Play and search for "xowa"
- (Browser) Go to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.xowa and press Install
- (Offline) Go to https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/releases and grab the latest xowa_app_android_v*.apk
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.
-
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
menubutton in the top left-hand corner -
Press the
XOWAbutton -
Press the
downloadbutton 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
XOWApage. You will be navigated tosimple.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
htmllinks below for English Wikipedia -
For images, you will be downloading another 82 GB. See the
filelinks 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]
- ^ 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