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Hi all, thanks for replying. <br>
<br>
Further details that could add discussion points:<br>
1) on a good internet line (10Mbit/s fiber I have here at my job
place) the whole process take half an hour to complete, download
included. If run locally (or on a LAN) this could take much less. I
can't use wiki markup directly, I still need the wiki to generate
html (but cached static html pages could work...).<br>
<br>
2) a PDF version, I think, could be useful in many ways:<br>
- of course when you're offline (I know of people that needs this:
eg, see
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?290425-Blender-Wiki-Offline-Manual&p=2419755&viewfull=1#post2419755">http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?290425-Blender-Wiki-Offline-Manual&p=2419755&viewfull=1#post2419755</a>
and other threads there)<br>
- It's easier to print, and could look better.<br>
- it has page numbers, so if you're teaching in a classroom, you can
make all students refer to a fixed PDF page, and without the need
for an internet connection<br>
- It's a kind of a "snapshot" (I can see "what's changed" simply
running a diff tool :-) )<br>
- it could be rendered in different formats (archive.org kinda helps
you automatically "deriving" other formats, like an online version,
and many mobile, dejavu, etc but, eg, honestly their epub conversion
really sucks...)<br>
- formats like PDF it can be annotated (someone told me he needs
this)<br>
- once it was hosted also here <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://pdf.letworyinteractive.com/">http://pdf.letworyinteractive.com/</a> a
mini site Nathan Letwory gently provided me for free (before
archive.org), but I've lost the admin credentials to check download
count, but I remember it was huge!<br>
I even created a logo with Inkscape:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://pdf.letworyinteractive.com/templates/ja_purity/images/logo.png">http://pdf.letworyinteractive.com/templates/ja_purity/images/logo.png</a>
to repalce the standard joomla one.<br>
<br>
3) "the process" is actually a php script, but it could be
translated it in other scripting langs if better suited (python?):
the requirements are pretty basic: <br>
=> to get/adapt wiki pages html: remote file downloading, strings
management, local file creation <br>
=> to create the pdf: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf">http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf</a>, which
should run pretty anywhere, should be run by the script with some
(cli) arguments.<br>
<br>
4) @Mirek: in short, the script <br>
=> downloads the "wiki manual" TOC page, and gets all the (640+)
wiki pages links, in the same order, in a list.<br>
=> then it downloads all the links as html, one by one.<br>
=> for each downloaded page html, the script;<br>
- cuts off all the stuff not needed (headers/footers, bars, etc)<br>
- scans html tags for images/files and downloads them locally<br>
- converts the images/files links in html to load locally stored
images/files links<br>
- fixes or strips html that is not useful in "printed" docs (eg:
embedded video are replaced by a visible link to the same video, if
possible)<br>
- appends the resulting html to a big, big html file (which ends up
containing the whole wiki manual...)<br>
=> at the end of the 640+ "download&adapt" cycle, I have one
single html file and a folder full of images/files, and the big, big
html file (~6 MB latest release) has links for local images/fiels,
of course. You could open it in a browser, I think!<br>
=> at last, it calls wkhtmltopdf passing the big html file to the
guy, along with some "formatting" arguments and options. A few
seconds, and you have a (arguably) nice PDF. <br>
<br>
hope this helps you to understand how I did it.<br>
<br>
Ok, enough boring stuff..<br>
let me know what you think, if you wish... any suggestion is
welcome!<br>
<br>
Marco<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:522F13FB.9060908@apiform.to.it" type="cite">
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Hi all,<br>
in the past (2.4x) I already did a Blender wiki > PDF
conversion, ...<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<BR>
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