Geo based access to Wikipedia

[michaelbechtold]

Hi Menion, I am on Sicily and face on gap in the information flow chain:

Locus shows a map section, all offline, I select search, then the Wikipedia of interest (language)   and then access to the Internet is needed. Once the list of nearby matches is presented, you can continue offline by using aard 2 app and SD card DBs. 
I saw you are using an older DB from Ben D.
Could this DB be downloaded and evaluated by the Locus app itself ?

TXs and cheers
Michael


Gesendet von meinem LG-H850 mit Tapatalk

[Menion]

Hello Michael,

I was looking on this "wikipedia" search deeper a few weeks ago, when all "search screens" were rewrote. With current system, there isn't much space for improvements. Anyway it's possible to use Wikipedia API or some other existing tools, to search and download whole articles to offline ( currently Locus just downloads links to articles ).

Anyway because it should take some time to implement and mainly because there seems to be no interest in this feature ( http://help.locusmap.eu/search/wikipedia ), I left it as is now. So sorry, no plans for improvements now.

[michaelbechtold]

aard2 gives you offline access to the full Wikipedias. Millions of articles at your finger tip, in the middle of nowhere. So download  of articles is not the topic. It is all about getting to the links of objects that are nearby ... And you refer to Ben D. He discontinued his service in 2014. How is Locus finding those links today ?

Gesendet von meinem SM-N9005 mit Tapatalk

[Menion]

Hi, you are talking about this project http://aarddict.org/ ? Seems to be quite complex application.

This app seems to use downloaded files with Dictionaries. And you can imagine that Locus will use these offline data files for searching? Not sure if this is possible, but even if so, it's quite a lot of work.

I'm also not sure how old are data that Locus use, but it really so bad? On source pages http://www.geonames.org/ , I'm unable to find some useful information about this.

[michaelbechtold]

Indeed aard2 is using a special SLOB format and Igor's app handles that side of the medal. And I would not expect Locus to do that. In particular as there is one piece missing in aard2. It cannot yet search for geo coordinates and ranges. Hence I have approached Igor in parallel to lobby an api similar in nature to what you use now. Input: a coordinate, Output a list of n nearest Wikipedia objects. (Not sure where you get the short summary from.) Once Locus has this list, the mechanics can work like today. I have associated aard2 to Wikipedia links. So when I  click on the link at the bottom,  aard2 immediately displays the full article. No pictures though. Those would blow any SD card.

Gesendet von meinem SM-N9005 mit Tapatalk

[Menion]

Understand. Such feature - search for articles based on coordinates - may be quite simply added directly into his app without need to do something on my side. His app may appear in search options in Locus in a way like for example "Search for caches". So user simply tap on this button and registered application receive this information (user tapped on "this"), together with current coordinates of map center. I may help with this task if there will be an interest.

[michaelbechtold]

Understand. Such feature - search for articles based on coordinates - may be quite simply added directly into his app without need to do something on my side. His app may appear in search options in Locus in a way like for example "Search for caches". So user simply tap on this button and registered application receive this information (user tapped on "this"), together with current coordinates of map center. I may help with this task if there will be an interest.

OK, thanks, Menion. Will come back if Igor found a way to massage that feature into his data model and app.

Gesendet von meinem LG-H850 mit Tapatalk