For now there is no solution to export (part of) the ZIM library served by a kiwix-serve instance in a human readable fashion. For computers, we have the OPDS feed, but for humans there is nothing. If this is need, for the moment, there is only two solutions:

• build an OPDS parser
• maintain manually via a third party tool links to the content (but most of ZIM files are renewed monthly)
• Just provide a simple link to the homepage of kiwix-serve (so no integrated experience)

This is not realistic to expect this to satsify all use cases like:

• Our own library https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages (currently updated via a dedicated script)
• Our own Web Site which should advert the most proeminent ZIM files
• Tools like Rachel, IIAB, OLIPS which might be interested to have a simpler solution to integrate the content
• Any Web site which for example has its content scraped and would be interested to advert it
• Basically any Web site which want to put an emphasis on a ZIM file or a set of ZIM files.

This is why, all these use-cases, would benefit of kiwix-serve providing a new-endpoint exporting a widget on the kiwix-serve home page.

Here a few ideas/properties of this new feature:

• Widget should be laded in an iframe on client side
• It should be possible to make a filter to select which ZIM files we want to display (reuse same system like already working on kiwix-serve)
• It should be possible to decide if the widget content has the search filters or no (maybe just through CSS tweaking?)
• Tiles should allow (but should be possible to disable) - if available at all - to view the content via a simple click on the tile. Then probably the content should open in a new tab (to be discussed).
• Tiles should allow (but should be possible to disable) - if available at all - to download a ZIM file
• Solution to integrate the widget should be easy, ie. the end-point should provide the HTML code via a simple click.
• Documentation about all the options of this new feature should be written in the kiwix-tools documentation
• It should be able to change the stylesheet via a custom CSS within the iframe
• It should be possible to run a custom javascript to custom the DOM within the ifram

Copied from original issue: kiwix/kiwix-xulrunner#245