4 ms·

Why not just use the Wikipedia website?

by rocky1138 11y ago

EazyC 11y ago
Ya I thought almost everyone used the mobile site to the point that the Wiki app is almost unspoken of.
- cooper12 11y ago
  The app actually has a bunch of neat features: really nice typography, material design, offline articles, article preview cards. Just try it out, I found it to be a good experience. Also, the Android version has half a million ratings so you can't really say it's unheard of. See also: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Why_apps https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Why_apps
dredmorbius 11y ago
That's a fair question and the next-best option. 1. Wikipedia is of itself a highly useful online resource, and one of a few that stands almost on its own. 2. Chrome browsers universally suck. They suck in different ways, but they all suck. For the purposes of reading Wikipedia, the Wikipedia app sucks considerably less. 3. Specifically, it's fast and responsive, doesn't keel over, offers a number of features (the next-article preview feature especially) which are useful, and allows me to maintain a tabset that's specific to Wikipedia research rather than The Web At Large. I can download/bookmark specific articles for offline viewing. 4. It is lacking bits. Not being able to access article history, talk pages, and other Wikipedia infrastructure among others. I need to see if it can be Tor routed as well.
petepete 11y ago
Last time I used the app it didn't support 'Find in page' or pinching to zoom. The web site is great and just works for what I want to use it for. The only thing that's annoying is that when sections of the article are collapsed 'Find in page' doesn't work (which is obvious, but annoying).
- p1mrx 11y ago
  Wikipedia's mobile site really is a usability disaster, with low-density tables and most of the content hidden by default. I've always had to scroll down and switch to Desktop to do any serious reading. It's as if the interface was designed for the first-gen iPhone, and subsequently abandoned. At one point, pages had a "Permanently disable mobile site" link at the bottom, but they scrapped that back in 2012.

Why not just use the Wikipedia website?

EazyC 11y ago

Ya I thought almost everyone used the mobile site to the point that the Wiki app is almost unspoken of.

cooper12 11y ago
The app actually has a bunch of neat features: really nice typography, material design, offline articles, article preview cards. Just try it out, I found it to be a good experience. Also, the Android version has half a million ratings so you can't really say it's unheard of. See also: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Why_apps https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Why_apps

dredmorbius 11y ago

That's a fair question and the next-best option. 1. Wikipedia is of itself a highly useful online resource, and one of a few that stands almost on its own. 2. Chrome browsers universally suck. They suck in different ways, but they all suck. For the purposes of reading Wikipedia, the Wikipedia app sucks considerably less. 3. Specifically, it's fast and responsive, doesn't keel over, offers a number of features (the next-article preview feature especially) which are useful, and allows me to maintain a tabset that's specific to Wikipedia research rather than The Web At Large. I can download/bookmark specific articles for offline viewing. 4. It is lacking bits. Not being able to access article history, talk pages, and other Wikipedia infrastructure among others. I need to see if it can be Tor routed as well.

petepete 11y ago

Last time I used the app it didn't support 'Find in page' or pinching to zoom. The web site is great and just works for what I want to use it for. The only thing that's annoying is that when sections of the article are collapsed 'Find in page' doesn't work (which is obvious, but annoying).

p1mrx 11y ago
Wikipedia's mobile site really is a usability disaster, with low-density tables and most of the content hidden by default. I've always had to scroll down and switch to Desktop to do any serious reading. It's as if the interface was designed for the first-gen iPhone, and subsequently abandoned. At one point, pages had a "Permanently disable mobile site" link at the bottom, but they scrapped that back in 2012.