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Better support for djvu files
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Description

Djvu files are a very interesting open format for full book digitalization, but mediawiki uses them only as "proofreading tools". On the contrary, they could be an interesting output of wikisource work, working about thoroughly editing of text layer and fully using their metadata. Even when they are used simply as "proofreading tools", much work could be done using details of text layer mapping, since it contains interesting suggestions about formatting (text alignment and indentation, text size, paragraphs, blocks...) presently not used at all.

Here a list of ideas:

  • to shift to indirect mode of djvu structure (so allowing a faster access to individual pages with a djvu reader extension of browsers);
  • to add a set of API requests, as an interface to all read-only DjvuLibre routines;
  • to add some API too for editing text layer by djvuxmlparser;
  • to allow minor changes of djvu files (i.e. editing some words into text layer) without the need of re-uploading the whole djvu file (the history of text edits could be saved with something like reviews history).

--Alex brollo (talk) 14:07, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

This card tracks a proposal from the 2015 Community Wishlist Survey: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey

This proposal received 25 support votes, and was ranked #35 out of 107 proposals. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Wikisource#Better_support_for_djvu_files

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DannyH raised the priority of this task from to Needs Triage.
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Could anyone familiar with DjVu, help to split this bundle of requests, into a single task for each item? Then more detailed descriptions can start to be written for each of them.

Note: I'm not sure if any of the 5 other open MediaWiki-DjVu tasks (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/9AGOGV1Y6G_U/#R),
or any of the other (many) tasks that just mention DjVu (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/DaoK4e3cwaTp/#R)
overlap with any of the 4 requests in this one. (e.g. T59351 might cover #2 above?)

Perhaps you'd be able to help, @Alex_brollo ? :-)

I see again now your question - I apologyze for so long a delay.

No, I don't feel myself as a true djvu expert - and I'm extremely confused by now about Phabricator environment.

No, I don't feel myself as a true djvu expert - and I'm extremely confused by now about Phabricator environment.

Hi Alex! Essentially, we want to make it easier for a developer to work on a single specific issue, at a time. This means:

  • Either: Create a new task for each individual bug or feature-request.
  • Or: Find an existing task (using the 2 searches which I linked above) that already describes the problem, and link that in the description at the top of this page. Plus, update the existing task's description, with any new or clearer details.

For both: We can help best, by giving the task-description enough details (context) and links, so that someone who isn't an experienced developer in this area, can get started relatively easily. We don't want them to look at a 1 sentence summary, and be frustrated by missing basic information.

Let me know if you have specific questions about phabricator - I can answer here, or i'm on IRC as Quiddity, or I can best be pinged for this at mediawiki.

Ramsey-WMF moved this task from Untriaged to Desired epics on the Multimedia board.