Over the last month, we’ve been hard at work building a Wikipedia Android app for our users and partners that prefer apps over the mobile web. It’s built with the PhoneGap framework and makes use of HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript to power all of its features. Many thanks to our partners at Nitobi for getting us here.
Right now the code is sitting in GitHub but the plan is to move it into our own git repo, alongside MediaWiki.
How can you help?
- Fork the code and help us with open bug requests
- Critique the code and suggest cleanup
- Port the app to iOS, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, WebOS, & Bada
- first get it running, then customize to each platform’s look and feel
- Hack on new features like image uploads, starting a new article, openZIM support, etc. …
- Localization for the user interface
- … and whatever else you can come up with!
Don’t worry if you don’t know Objective C, Java, etc. All you need to know is HTML5, CSS3, and JS. It’s really simple to write these apps.
If you’re not sure where to start, then come join our bug triage on 10/26 @ 09-10 AM PDT where we’ll be discussing easy open issues for volunteers to pick up. If you can’t make it, then send us a message at mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org (public mailing list) or leave us a tweet @WikimediaMobile. And if you really like working on this type of development work, send us your resume as we are actively hiring.
Fork the code and join us on IRC in the #wikimedia-mobile channel on the freenode network to help us get this to the market by November.
Tomasz Finc
Director of Mobile and Special Projects
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