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Topic: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated (Read 293 times) |
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rtr2
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #16 on: Sep 21st, 2014, 10:19am » |
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on Sep 21st, 2014, 12:01am, Richey wrote:
The PDF export appears to be broken anyway. I initiated one several hours ago and received the 'export complete' notification, but it still appears as 'pending' in the exports list and any attempt to download it causes Wikispaces to end up at a non-existent page!
The Wikitext export works, but since (as far as I know) no other wiki host uses the same variety of wikitext - and I'm not aware they they support a bulk import feature either - this is of limited value.
That leaves the HTML export, which works and results in a usable facsimile of the Wiki which could be hosted elsewhere, but it doesn't allow user editing or the addition of new pages.
At the Wikispaces blog the comment "Can you direct me to some other hosting service for wikitext that won’t cause extensive re-writing and reorganization?" received the reply "If you email us we’ll do what we can to help you migrate". I suppose I could try that but I'm not hopeful of a satisfactory response.
Richard.
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KenDown
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #17 on: Sep 22nd, 2014, 4:30pm » |
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Can anyone tell me how to download the wiki pages, please? Personally I think this is a disaster of the first magnitude, as the wiki is soooo helpful!
Ken Down
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rtr2
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #18 on: Sep 22nd, 2014, 5:43pm » |
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on Sep 22nd, 2014, 4:30pm, KenDown wrote:| Can anyone tell me how to download the wiki pages, please? |
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My understanding is that this facility is now only available to organisers, although there does seem to be some lack of clarity on this point.
As stated earlier, I have put a more up-to-date backup (in wikitext format) in the Files area of the Yahoo! group. However I remain unsure what value this actually has, if other wiki hosts don't provide a bulk import facility. 
Quote:| Personally I think this is a disaster of the first magnitude |
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I suspect there are thousands of wiki owners who feel the same way about their own Wikispaces wikis. Personally I think it's highly unlikely that only 8 comments have been made in response to the announcement on their blog. It's more probable that there has been an angry reaction but they are not approving comments (one I left - quite polite in my opinion - still says 'awaiting moderation').
One thing I'm considering is amalgamating my wikis (BBC BASIC, BB4W, LBBooster and lb4help) into one - not very elegant but expedient - thus making the $50 subscription per wiki better value for money! But I still worry that once they've got fee-paying users they will increase the subscription every year, knowing that people are locked in. I hesitate to call it blackmail but that's what it amounts to.
Altogether not a satisfactory situation. I've already manually moved my Colour Recovery Wiki over to Wikia (which is supported by advertisements) but that was only feasible because of its small size (15 pages). It's not practical to attempt the same for our wiki, and anyway it makes use of facilities unique to Wikispaces (for example the BB4W syntax colouring).
Richard.
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Richey
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #19 on: Sep 22nd, 2014, 9:15pm » |
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on Sep 22nd, 2014, 5:43pm, g4bau wrote:My understanding is that this facility is now only available to organisers, although there does seem to be some lack of clarity on this point.
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This is how I managed to export to a PDF.
At the top right of the Wiki page there are 4 buttons: Edit, View # Discussion Posts, View # Revisions; if you click on the next button, a series of options are presented, one of which is to export to PDF. The downside is that it appears as though you can only export one section at a time rather than being able to opt for a bulk export...
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Richey
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #20 on: Sep 22nd, 2014, 9:24pm » |
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on Sep 22nd, 2014, 5:43pm, g4bau wrote:One thing I'm considering is amalgamating my wikis (BBC BASIC, BB4W, LBBooster and lb4help) into one - not very elegant but expedient - thus making the $50 subscription per wiki better value for money! But I still worry that once they've got fee-paying users they will increase the subscription every year, knowing that people are locked in. I hesitate to call it blackmail but that's what it amounts to.
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Richard, this seems a sensible and pragmatic response to what can only be described as 'pay up or you will lose all your hard work'!
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rtr2
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #21 on: Sep 25th, 2014, 09:28am » |
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on Sep 22nd, 2014, 5:43pm, g4bau wrote:| However I remain unsure what value this actually has, if other wiki hosts don't provide a bulk import facility. |
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I have done a little more research into the possibilities of 'bulk importing' into another wiki host, and as far as I can discover none provide the capability to accept a wikitext export of the sort that Wikispaces creates.
Therefore of the three export formats supported, only HTML seems to be 'useful' (the PDF export failed entirely - it is still listed as 'pending' after several days). It can be browsed locally, and it ought to be possible to upload it to a regular website and by that means recreate a searchable 'read only' image of the wiki.
Accordingly, I've replaced the wikitext backup in the Yahoo! group's Files area with an up-to-date HTML backup. I would not suggest that you download it at this stage: the existing wiki will be available until at least November 14th.
Richard.
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Matt
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #22 on: Sep 25th, 2014, 2:17pm » |
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I've been investigating other WEB to PDF export facilities and HTTrack is supposed to be good according to various reports (albeit, most of which are from related sites). It's the only one that seems to want to convert the entire website rather than just the single page. However, I can't get it to work without erroring on the Wiki site. If anyone with a little more knowledge than me can take a look at it, I was wondering if it might be worth using that, even if it was just to produce a simple capture of the pages.
If it sound like a daft idea, let me know.
Matt
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KenDown
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #23 on: Sep 28th, 2014, 2:04pm » |
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Well, I am hard at work copying and pasting the text of each page into Notepad and saving them. (The HTML is horrible!)
Once I have done that I will than have all the wiki pages as my personal reference resource.
I may then try to back-convert them to a decent standard of HTML. If successful, I'll let you know, Richard, and you can do with them what you will. As they will be in HTML, you may be able to put them on some other wiki site without having to worry whether that site does colouring for the BASIC.
Mind you, my personal feeling is that colouring is superfluous. We didn't have it back in the days of the BBC B and we still got on OK.
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Matt
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #24 on: Sep 28th, 2014, 4:20pm » |
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Until another way pokes it's head up, I've found a way of saving the PDF of each page.
Converting routine:
. open Google Chrome (the only browser I've got that saves just the main pane - IE and Firefox saves the whole page.)
. load page to be converted
. right-click on the main pane
. click on 'Print'
. select Destination as 'Save as PDF'
. click 'Save'
This will save the main text to a PDF file.
Note that some of the code windows don't seem to show all the text horizontally; the scroll bar displayed at the bottom doesn't work. Don't panic. If you copy the text by the line, it will copy the entire line not just the visible text.
Incidentally, is there not some copyright issue here, especially when trying to copy the entire website? If there is, have we been given permission due to the circumstances?
Matt
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rtr2
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #25 on: Sep 28th, 2014, 5:05pm » |
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on Sep 28th, 2014, 2:04pm, KenDown wrote:| Well, I am hard at work copying and pasting the text of each page into Notepad and saving them. (The HTML is horrible!) |
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Why does it matter that the HTML is "horrible" so long as it displays correctly in common browsers? I presume (but haven't confirmed) that the exported HTML is identical to what is served when you access the wiki online conventionally; if so it ought surely to be entirely satisfactory as a 'backup'.
Quote:| Once I have done that I will than have all the wiki pages as my personal reference resource. |
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The same thing seems to be happening here as at the Liberty BASIC forum - people are spending time and effort taking their own copies of the wiki when in my opinion it's entirely unnecessary. Whatever the most appropriate long-term solution turns out to be - whether it's to pay for the existing wiki to remain online or to move it elsewhere - taking a personal copy benefits only that individual so isn't something I would encourage.
Richard.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 28th, 2014, 5:18pm by rtr2 » |
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rtr2
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #26 on: Sep 28th, 2014, 5:17pm » |
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on Sep 28th, 2014, 4:20pm, Matt wrote:| Until another way pokes it's head up, I've found a way of saving the PDF of each page. |
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You can't seriously be suggesting that anybody does this for each of the 300+ pages, surely? 
Quote:| If there is, have we been given permission due to the circumstances? |
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The BB4W wiki is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 Licence so you are free to copy and redistribute the material so long as you adhere to the terms. But certainly the 'current circumstances' make not the slightest difference and do not confer any permissions that would not otherwise apply.
Richard.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 28th, 2014, 5:33pm by rtr2 » |
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KenDown
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #27 on: Sep 28th, 2014, 7:11pm » |
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Well, it is quite true that the end results are the important thing, but just the same as I prefer elegant BASIC to a hodgepodge of GOTOs, so I prefer elegant HTML - and what there is at present ain't elegant. It's a horrible mess.
As for benefitting just me, even if that were so, "me" is quite important to me and I *need* the information in the wiki. However I hope it won't be just for me. If I can get it to work and convert into HTML then I hope that the community can get together to find a solution to making it widely available - if nothing else, as a zip file!
The prospect of all that information just disappearing is too awful to contemplate.
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Matt
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #28 on: Sep 28th, 2014, 8:04pm » |
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on Sep 28th, 2014, 5:17pm, g4bau wrote:| You can't seriously be suggesting that anybody does this for each of the 300+ pages, surely? |
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I'm not suggesting that anybody does it. I'm suggesting that that is what I am doing and that, if anyone wants to follow suit, then that's one way of doing it.
My concern, as with Ken, is that, if you decide to drop the Wiki site and we can provide no reasonable way to copy and use it as a group, then this seems as good a way as any. 300+ pages is a pain in the neck, but it's better than loosing it completely. Once it's done, I might be able to combine it into a single PDF file can be accesed through one of the other websites. Not nearly as good as the site, but still accessible.
Matt
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rtr2
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #29 on: Sep 28th, 2014, 8:40pm » |
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on Sep 28th, 2014, 7:11pm, KenDown wrote:| The prospect of all that information just disappearing is too awful to contemplate. |
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on Sep 28th, 2014, 8:04pm, Matt wrote:| if ... we can provide no reasonable way to copy and use it as a group... |
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But we already know that the information is not going to disappear and that it will remain available to copy and use. As you are aware, I have put an HTML export in the files area of the Yahoo! group. Should there be a problem with the wiki continuing to be available online, it can be downloaded from there and browsed locally.
I don't understand why anybody would feel the need to spend time and effort regenerating a version of the wiki when this simple option is available.
Quote:| My concern, as with Ken, is that, if you decide to drop the Wiki site |
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So now I'm to blame rather than Wikispaces. 
Richard.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 28th, 2014, 9:41pm by rtr2 » |
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Matt
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Re: BB4W Wiki to be deactivated
« Reply #30 on: Sep 29th, 2014, 07:04am » |
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on Sep 28th, 2014, 8:40pm, g4bau wrote:| So now I'm to blame rather than Wikispaces. |
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My appologies, Richard. My intension was not to blame you, or anyone. A poor choice of words.
Quote:| But we already know that the information is not going to disappear and that it will remain available to copy and use. As you are aware, I have put an HTML export in the files area of the Yahoo! group. |
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My understanding was that you were investigating the possibility of an HTML version, not that you had done so. If that's the case, then that's fine.
I still have a more personal reason for having a local version, and that is that my internet connection is intermittent, and is occasionally out for some time. Having a local version means that I can view it off line. Although, there are many sites and thousands of pages that I would still not be able to view - so it would be a drop in the ocean.
Again, my appologies for my wording.
Matt
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