What Is LocalOverflow?
LocalOverflow is a local web-app that downloads any stack-exchange site, for example Stack Overflow or Ask Ubuntu, and makes it available to instantly search, explore, all while offline (including images).
Why LocalOverflow?
Living in remote regions has long been a goal of mine, and with projects like StarLink on the horizon it is more possible then ever. However we are still years away from a global deployment and more critically being dependent on a single piece of hardware to solve some silly js bug is not ideal. So I built a tool where I can take all the data I need with me where ever I go.
There have been a few previous attempts which helped inspire this work, listed below. However for my purposes they fall short in speed, usability, or resource usage.
Getting Started
If you already have Docker installed, you can quickly spin up LocalOverflow. All data will be stored on your local machine, the default location is data.lo
in your user home directory.
To install docker you can follow the guide on their site.
$ docker run -p 3030:3030 -v "$(pwd)/data.lo:/data.lo" diit/local-overflow
You should now be able to access your own LocalOverflow instance at http://localhost:3030
Configuration
-p 3030:3030 | Port to display LocalOverflow on |
-v "$(pwd)/data.lo:/data.lo" | Location to store LocalOverflow Data |
Considerations
Depending on the number & size of stacks you download you will need to have ample storage. Currently you need ~2.5x the raw uncompressed stack exchange dump file. For example Stack Overflow would require ~75gb of disk space. In future releases we expect to lower this to 1.5x or ~45gb for the previous example.
Using LocalOverflow
The home page shows you a feed of the highest-voted questions for each stack, as well as your most recent bookmarks. You can search across title, questions, and answers using the search bar on any page.
Selecting a question or answer will bring you to the question page were you can read through comments, answers, and explore related questions.