Talk:Book tool

Deploying this extension in other wikis

Is there somewhere I could request for the book tool to be activated in the Afrikaans Wikipedia, or at least ask when it is intended to be activated (if at all)? Anrie 19:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You can add it as a request (new section?) on Book tool/Schedule. --he!ko 08:29, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice to try, if it were working

I tried printing my PediaPress book, and even tried getting my PediaPress PDF file... but in both cases, I got this instead:

POST request failed

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

The POST request to http://pdf1.wikimedia.org:8080/mw-serve/ failed (couldn't connect to host).

Return to Main Page.

Oh, well. Somebody call Sue Gardner. I think she issued a press release at one time, extolling the virtues of this cooperative venture. -- Thekohser 03:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I, a different user from the author above, tried saving my book. When I am not logged in, Special:Book tells me to log in. When I am logged in, the "Save or share your book" box disappears. -- Kpengboy

Add new system messages

from the README.txt

Customization via System Messages
=================================

There are several system messages, which can be adjusted for a MediaWiki
installation. They can be changed by editing the wiki page
[[MediaWiki:SYSTEMMESSAGENAME]], where SYSTEMMESSAGENAME is the name of the
system message.

* Coll-helppage: The name of the help page (see above).
 The default for English language is "Help:Books", and there exist translations
	for lots of different languages.

* Coll-savedbook_template: The name of the template (w/out the Template: prefix)
 included at the top of saved book pages (see above).
	The default is: 'saved_book', and there exist translations for lots of
	different languages.

* Coll-book_creator_text_article: The name of  a wiki page which is transcluded
 on the "Start book creator" page (the page which is shown when a user clicks
	on "Create a book").
	The default is: {{MediaWiki:Coll-helppage}}/Book creator text
	i.e. a subpage of the configured help page named "Book creator text"

* Coll-suggest_enabled: If set to 1, the suggestion tool is enabled. Any other
 value will disable the suggestion tool.
	The default is: '1', i.e. the suggestion tool is enabled.

* Coll-order_info_article: The name of a wiki page which is included on the
 Special:Book page to show order information for printed books.
	The default value is: {{MediaWiki:Coll-helppage}}/PediaPress order information
	i.e. a subpage of the configured help page named "PediaPress order information".

PDF Doesn't work

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Reading_Gaol

Export that as PDF, all you'll get is the license

Activation on eu:wp

Hello! We've seen that many wikipedias have the Book tool activated, but we don't have it in the Basque Wikipedia. What have we got to do in order to have it activated? -Theklan 14:19, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

ePub and other output formats

Having just got an ebook reader, I'd like to download some books, but I'd prefer ePub format to PDF as it's more flexible. I'm surprised not to find a choice of output formats for books. Doing a bit of googling I see there is a Wikimedia extension called ePubExport so it can't be a huge job to provide it.

Are there plans, or is there a policy not to include it? Chris55 06:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I also think that epub support is important. Netol 10:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Some tempates are not printed to PDF even when there's nothing in "Exclude from print" category

I'm using Ambox template to highlight some important information on my wiki. By default Ambox resided in "Exclude from print" category but after removing it from there, it still doesn't get printed. My Exclude from print category is empty, so it should be not the reason.

Could someone take a look here and see what could be the reason of missing template in PDF (the missing template is the electricity warning box at end of the page): http://granitedevices.com/wiki/Argon_braking_resistor

You might get a faster response on the "Support desk". PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:55, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Bug day: Book tool/Collection/PDF, 2014-10-08, 14–22 UTC

Printed books

Hello! Please join us on the next Wikimedia bug day: 2014-10-08, 14:00–22:00 UTC[1] in #wikimedia-tech on IRC.

We will be triaging bug reports for the Collection extension (Book tool) in general and PDF export in particular, which were just switched to a new backend (OCG). We have two immediate goals:

• recover 100 % of the relevant reports from the defunct PediaPress tracker;
• get a clean list of known PDF issues that the new backend didn't fix.

Everyone is welcome to join any time these weeks, and no technical knowledge is needed! It's an easy way to get involved or to give something back. We encourage you to record your activity on the etherpad. See also:

• this information, participants list and more (please sign!);
• more information on triaging in general.

I look forward to seeing you there. Please distribute further by email, talk pages etc. (Collection is used on almost 2 thousands wikis!)

Nemo 18:14, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Wordpress

Interestingly, the PediaPress output is also used by some Wordpress embedding plugin (GPL). --Nemo 13:00, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

The nature my knowlegde Choisie (talk) 12:05, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Pull this crippled embarrassment

Development of this tool has stalled for over a year and a half, crippling bugs remain unfixed and Wikipedia's feedback page is collecting an ongoing flow of complaints, in addition to those reported on Wikimedia's feedback page. The various information pages scattered about are woefully farcical, with many of the facilities described simply not being available any more, they bear no relation to the reality of the last eighteen months. Frankly, it would be better for everybody if this whole book creator tool were pulled than to leave it hanging in this grotesque limbo in the vain hope that some magic demon will turn up soon and fix it. — Cheers, Steelpillow (talk) 09:07, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

The book tool was decently stable until the Wikimedia Foundation decided to kill the stable solution and replace it with a beta (mw:OCG), only to stop development immediately afterwards. The Collection extension itself is not abandoned and has many satisfied users. Nemo 07:08, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

@Nemo Is it possible to get the previously stable solution from somewhere? --Jeffmcneill (talk) 14:52, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

It's technically possible, in fact I believe PediaPress is still running the stable code on their servers (mainly for low-traffic wikis). However it's not "politically" possible on Wikimedia wikis: certain Wikimedia Foundation staffers are very fond of the newer version; some new languages got used to having OCG rather than nothing and may be unhappy to lose it altogether. --Nemo 15:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Return to PediaPress

Good news, especially for Wikisource and Wikibooks: mw:Reading/Web/PDF Functionality#Update on books, April 2018. We have lost many years by "forking" the efforts on book creation, but finally we're joining forces again, it seems. The solution by PediaPress is the only one which has worked consistently for several years, after all. Hopefully, ZIM and ODT will come back too, and we might have a chance with EPUB too! --Nemo 08:20, 25 May 2018 (UTC)