Questions on ZIM routing and native viewer support

[sj80231]

Hello Jojo2357,

I’ve been exploring the ZIM format as part of a personal project focused on offline-first web storage — especially for use on constrained devices like Raspberry Pi or small local networks. I’m trying to understand how modern .zim archives work under the hood, particularly those that rely on JavaScript routing (like TED).

I’d appreciate it if you'd share your perspective on a few points I haven’t been able to find answers to in the docs:

1. SPA-Style ZIMs (Vue/React):
How can I determine the real entry point (e.g., /page1.html) in ZIMs that use JavaScript frontends?

• Are those routes declared somewhere in metadata?
• Is it just convention or embedded in the JS bundle?
• Is there a reliable way to extract usable paths?

2. Route/Index Extraction Tools:
Has anyone created a parser or CLI tool that can analyze a .zim file and extract route paths or usable article structures (including SPAs)?

3. Native Reader Options:
I’ve been working with python-libzim and can get entry metadata and blobs. But I’m unsure how to:

• Decompress and reconstruct full HTML from .getData() reliably
• Mimic what kiwix-serve does under the hood, but locally or in embedded apps

I’m not trying to fork or replace anything — just exploring the space and hoping to make these tools more transparent and offline-friendly. I'd appreciate any suggestions, examples, or even past issues that touch on this.

Thank you for all the work on ZIM and Kiwix. It's made a massive difference for offline knowledge access. In advance, I appreciate your help!

sj80231

[jojo2357]

sj80231,

I do not know much at all about the workings of zim files themselves, perhaps @Jaifroid could point you in the direction of some more info?