# Android/Setup

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

## 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.

  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

### XOWA

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