Zim (Desktop Wiki)

[Midas]

Since Zim now has a PAF portable for Windows, is OSS and multi-plataform and has some nifty Markdown features, it's about time it made an appearance here at TPFC.

Zim is a graphical text editor used to maintain a collection of wiki pages. Each page can contain links to other pages, simple formatting and images. Pages are stored in a folder structure, like in an outliner, and can have attachments. Creating a new page is as easy as linking to a nonexistent page. All data is stored in plain text files with wiki formatting. [...] Zim handles several types of markup, like headings, bullet lists and of course bold, italic and highlighted. This markup is saved as wiki text so you can easily edit it with other editors.

Current Zim version is v0.56; download PAF portable from http://www.glump.net/software/zim

EDIT (2013-04-02): Current Zim Windows version is v0.59, updated 2013-01-25; download at link above...

Changelog @ http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~jaap.karss ... NGELOG.txt

=== 0.59 - Wed 23 Jan 2012 ===
* Critical bug fix in pageview serialization
* Fix for inheritance of tags in tasklist - Epinull
* Fix for customtools dialog - Epinull
* Fix for week number in Journal plugin page template

=== 0.58 - Sat 15 Dec 2012 ===
* Added new plugin for distraction free fullscreen mode
* Added options to limit tasklist plugin to certain namespaces -
Pierre-Antoine Champin
* Added option to tasklist plugin to flag non-actionable tasks by a special tag
* Added prompt for filename for Insert New File action
* Added template option to list attachments in export
* Added class attributes to links in HTML output
* Added two more commandline options to quicknote plugin
* Made sidepanes more compact by embedding close buttons in widgets
* Critical fix for restarting zim after a crash (cleaning up socket)
* Bug fix for search queries with quoted arguments
* Bug fix for use of tags in the tasklist plugin
* Bug fix for wiki format to be more robust for bad links
* Bug fix for latex format to not use file URIs in \includegraphics{}
* Bug fix for including latex equations in latex export
* Bug fix list behavior checkboxes and numbered lists
* Fix first day of week locale for calendar plugin - based on patch by
Leopold Schabel
* Fix for handling "file:/" and "file://" URIs in links - see manual for details
* Fix for windows to not open consoles for each external application - klo uo
* Fix for windows to put config files under %APPDATA% - klo uo
* Fix to have "update heading" toggle in rename dialog more
intelligent - Virgil Dupras
* Fix to make template errors report relevant error dialogs
* Fix for search and replace whitespace in pageview
* Various small fixes

=== 0.57 - Mon 8 Oct 2012 ===
* Ported zim background process to use the multiprocessing module
- this fixes app-indicator issues under Ubuntu Unity
- adds support for quicknote and other plugins on Windows
* Reworked application framework and "open with" dialog, now also
allows to set applications per URL scheme
* New plugin for using GNU Lilypond to render music scores - Shoban Preeth
* New Zeitgeist plugin - Marcel Stimberg
* Added template method to iterate days of the week for a calendar page
* Added pythonic syntax to access dicts to template modules
* Added tasklist option to take into account a Mon-Fri work week
* Fixed start of week and week number first week of the year for calendar plugin
* Added "untagged" category to task list
* Fixed strike out TODO label showing up in task list
* Added template editor dialog
* Added support for "forward" and "back" mouse buttons
* Added support for exporting to ReST - Yao-Po Wang
* Added new option to create and insert new attachments based on file template
* Added an argument to the quicknote plugin to import attachments
* Added icons per mimetype to the attachmentbrowser
* Added statusbar button for attachment browser
* Added monitors to watch attachment folder for updates
* Fix drag&drop on non-existing folder in attachment browser
* Fix drag&drop for attachment folder on windows
* Made location of plugin widgets in side panes configurable
and reworked key bindings for accessing side panes and toggling them
* Made tags plugin to revert to standard index if no tag is selected
* Page completion now matches anywhere in the basename -- patch by Mat
* Patch to use sourceview in imagegenerator dialog - Kevin Chabowski
* Fix for insert symbol dialog to insert without typing a space
* Made image data pasted as bmp convert to png to make it more compact
* Critical bug fix for version control plugin
* Critical bug fix for xml.etree.TreeBuilder API for python 2.7.3
* Bug fix for exceptions in index - Fabian Moser
* Bug fix for interwiki links
* On windows fix for bug when home folder or user name contain non-ascii characters
* Fixed help manual opens in compiled windows version
* Fixed locale support on windows
* Added translations for Brazilian Portuguese and Romanian

[Midas]

Zim for Windows v0.60 was released last May 7; here's the changelog:

=== 0.60 - Tue 30 Apr 2013 ===
* In this release the required python version is changed from 2.5 to 2.6 !
* Added a Recent Changes dialog and a Recent Changes pathbar option
* Added search entry to toolbar
* Added function to attachment browser plugin to zoom icon size
* Added new template by Robert Welch
* Critical bug fix for using templates that have a resources folder
* Fix for week number in Journal plugin page template (again)
* Fix for focus switching with distraction free editing plugin
* Fix for handling BOM character at start of file
* Fixed quicknote dialog to ask for confirmation on discard
* Fix to allow calling executables that do not end in .exe on windows
* Fix for various typos in the manual by Stéphane Aulery
* Removed custom zim.www.Server class in favor of standard library version
* New translations for Korean and Norwegian Bokmal

[Napiophelios]

ah man I thought this was gonna be something entirely different

[I am Baas]

@Napiophelios
l0l. There are tons of cool Invader Zim wallpapers and icons around the Web, but I am sure you knew that already.

[Midas]

EDIT: Zim is now (2013.06.02) available in WinPenPack portable format -- see http://www.winpenpack.com/en/?view.1371.

[Midas]

I'm posting here about a persistent problem I have been having while using portable versions of Zim.

The official Zim windows download page points to a version packaged with PA.com format that looks like this when executed:

Problem is, whenever you move its folder, it throws an error totally unbecoming of a portable app:

As Zim is quite a complex beast, I've been trying to substitute the PAF version with the afore-mentioned WinPenPack one, but then it launches with a rather uncompelling aspect:

I know the later problem is related to the underlying Python GTK-2.0 configuration, but after many tries I'm completely at loss in solving it, so I decided to expose myself to public shaming here at TPFC forum.

Needless to say that any help or hints will be sorely appreciated.

[lautrepay]

Download a GTK 2.x theme and overwrite the \Bin\zim\share\themes\MS-Windows\gtk-2.0\gtkrc file if you want something like this:

[Midas]

Download a GTK 2.x theme and overwrite the \Bin\zim\share\themes\MS-Windows\gtk-2.0\gtkrc file ...

Sorry, but that didn't work.

Went looking for those GTK-2.0 themes, found (and tested) several -- there's a comprehensive pack at:
http://gtk-win.sourceforge.net/home/ind ... /Downloads (Custom Packages; GTK+ themes; for versions 2.14 through 2.22)

In X-Zim, 'gtkrc' files were found inside 'bin\share\themes' (inside '{themes name}\gtk-2.0' subfolders) and 'bin\etc\gtk-2.0', but there was no 'bin\zim\share' subfolder -- and moving the existing one there didn't change anything, so I un-moved it...

In 'bin\etc\gtk-2.0' a single line read 'gtk-theme-name = "MS-Windows"' so I tried changing it to 'Raleigh' without any visible result.

I found some info about GTK 2.0 theming on Windows (see below), but it also didn't help with this issue.
http://mindcodeblog.wordpress.com/2011/ ... n-windows/

Finally, I reverted to a freshly extracted X-Zim_0.60_rev2 and the problem was magically gone, so there is definitely something about those paths. I'll report further findings here...

[Midas]

I'm convinced my prior troubles with Zim were due to my going overboard with pruning (although I can't explain exactly why), so here's the list of files and folders I have successfully removed from the fresh X-Zim folder (any line terminated with a '\' denotes a folder, all others refer to files, '*' is the 'any' wildcard...):

Code: Select all

Bin\etc\gtk-2.0\gtk.immodules
Bin\etc\bash_completion.d\
Bin\locale\*\ <- leave only desired ISO 2-letter code locales
Bin\zim\icons\ubuntu-mono-dark\
Bin\zim\icons\ubuntu-mono-light\
Bin\zim\lib\gtk-2.0\include\
Bin\zim\lib\glib-2.0\
Bin\zim\share\applications\zim.desktop
Bin\zim\share\applications\
Bin\zim\share\glib-2.0\gettext\po\Makefile.in.in
Bin\zim\share\glib-2.0\gettext\po\
Bin\zim\share\glib-2.0\gettext\mkinstalldirs
Bin\zim\share\glib-2.0\gettext\
Bin\zim\share\glib-2.0\schemas\gschema.dtd
Bin\zim\share\glib-2.0\schemas\
Bin\zim\share\gtk-2.0\demo\* <- all build files can be deleted
Bin\zim\share\gtk-2.0\demo\
Bin\zim\share\gtk-2.0\
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-dark\apps\22\zim-panel.svg
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-dark\apps\22\
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-dark\apps\
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-dark\
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-light\apps\22\zim-panel.svg
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-light\apps\22\
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-light\apps\
Bin\zim\share\icons\ubuntu-mono-light\
Bin\zim\share\locale\* <- leave only desired ISO 2-letter code locales & locale.alias file

I'm trying to replace my portable wikidPad with Zim, since the later comes with MarkDown support. Unfortunately, X-Zim still takes over 42MB of disk space after this -- I really wish someone would compile this statically...

EDIT: more entries for the list above, although I do have doubts about this two.

Code: Select all

Bin\zim\lib\pkgconfig\*
Bin\zim\lib\pkgconfig\

[Midas]

Zim for Windows Portable (PAF) is currently v0.62 (upstream changelog at http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~jaap.karss ... NGELOG.txt).

Note: Zim v0.60 was the last version with official support for Windows XP.

[webfork]

OT: 1910 post commemoration...

The hell? Are we posting random stuff to our entries now? Is that a thing? Okay, well here's this:



Now you know more about clams for some reason.

[Midas]

The hell? Are we posting random stuff to our entries now? Is that a thing?

• Not entirely random, although the motive might be alien to most -- 1910 was when the monarchy was overthrown here, a significant (at least for me) factoid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Portuguese_Republic. Plus I wanted to test YouTube embedding...
  
  Anyway, I'm indebted to you for whatever I know about clam's anatomy...

[webfork]

the motive might be alien to most -- 1910 was when the monarchy was overthrown here

Ah gotcha

I'm indebted to you for whatever I know about clam's anatomy

lol ... win

[smaragdus]

Zim 0.63 has been released, changes:

=== 0.63 - Sat 13 Jun 2015 ===
* Table plugin - by Tobias Haupenthal
* Support for Fossil version control - by Stas Bushuev
... Many bug fixes

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~jaap.karss ... NGELOG.txt

[Midas]

Despite the promise at Zim Windows site, no update to the upstream latest version yet (currently v0.65; the only changelog I could find is at http://fossies.org/diffs/zim/0.64_vs_0. ... -diff.html).