OpenWetWare:Software/Mobile/Mediawiki/WAP

=Intro= OpenWetWare.org is developed on top of MediaWiki, the same software used by Wikipedia. These are notes on a few applications that allow remote access to MediaWiki. They may have relevance to OWW.

=Applications=

GSM Gateway Software
There's an interesting note referenced below that shows a few interesting approaches to allowing mobile access to MediaWiki via a combination of a GSM/WAP/SMS gateway and a server-based application.


 * Floss-Posse-Blog-Article

=Services=

Wapedia
There's already a free service provided by Florian Amrhein in Germany that allows for access to Wikipedia content via WAP.

Access
You can access it via any web browser but you'll probably appreciate it a LOT more via mobile device:

Wapedia

Description
This isn't the same as looking at Wikipedia on a tiny screen. Florian's software, per his website, is described below:

URL: Wapedia-Description

Having started in August 2004, Wapedia brings the contents of Wikipedia to mobile devices like mobile phones and PDAs. It offers the recent version of every article, which is done by using a combination of a proxy-like behavior and a local article database. This combination provides fast speed and up-to-date articles on the one hand, and a low load and low traffic for the Wikipedia servers on the other hand.

Features:


 * long pages are divided into smaller chunks to fit into the small displays of mobile phones.
 * images are scaled down to the resolution of the mobile device.
 * own fast search engine, independent from Wikipedia servers
 * supports WML and modern XHTML Mobile formats, with an autodetection of the best format for each device
 * more than 100 languages
 * delivery of recent versions of articles
 * a local article database provides full service and high speed, even if the Wikipedia servers don't respond or aren't fast enough
 * users can configure the size of images and other options like the size of the start page.