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Cover image for ๐Ÿง  WikiSnap โ€” I Reimagined Wikipedia as TikTok. Hereโ€™s How (and Why)
Nishkarsh Pandey
Nishkarsh Pandey

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๐Ÿง  WikiSnap โ€” I Reimagined Wikipedia as TikTok. Hereโ€™s How (and Why)

Yes, I made Wikipedia vertical, swipeable, and Gen-Z approved.

๐Ÿ’ก What Is WikiSnap?
WikiSnap is Wikipedia, but designed for how we actually consume content in 2025.

Instead of long static pages, you get:

Swipeable, vertical knowledge snaps

Article content broken into 30-second chunks

Dark mode, overlay text, animated images

Interactive citations, hashtags, related articles

"Random Article" becomes Knowledge Roulette

Itโ€™s like reading a story from a history book... except it feels like youโ€™re using TikTok.

๐Ÿง  Why I Built This::

I love learning. But letโ€™s face it:

Wikipedia feels outdated

Gen-Z needs snackable knowledge

Most apps still treat reading like a desktop-first experience

So I thought:

What if learning felt like scrolling Reels or Stories?
What if Wikipedia looked and behaved like Snapchat?

And just like that โ€” WikiSnap was born.

โš™๏ธ The Tech Stack::

Layer Tool
๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ Frontend Lovable (no-code builder{React,Typescript}) + custom code
๐ŸŒ API Wikipedia REST API
๐ŸŽจ Styling CSS, animations, overlays
๐Ÿ’ฌ AI/Helper Tools Used for ideation and chunking strategies
๐Ÿ”Œ Optional Extensibility Can be turned into a Chrome extension, mobile PWA, etc.

๐Ÿ”Œ Using the Wikipedia API:
WikiSnap runs on the official Wikipedia REST API, which gives you:

๐Ÿ“ Clean article summaries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/summary/{title}

๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ Image/media info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/media/{title}

๐ŸŽฒ Random articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/random/summary

๐Ÿ” Search results:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/rest.php/v1/search/title?q=elon+musk

This means you can build a real-time, interactive encyclopedia experience โ€” no scraping required.

๐Ÿงฉ Feature Highlights::

Feature Description
๐Ÿ“œ Article Snaps Swipeable, readable article sections
๐ŸŒ‘ Dark Mode Because light mode is a crime
๐Ÿ”„ Edit History Swipe Swipe right to see "creator profile" of article versions
๐ŸŽฒ Knowledge Roulette Swipe up for random articles
๐Ÿ”— Floating Link Bubbles Tap to explore without leaving the snap
๐Ÿ“š Citations & Sources Displayed like Snapchat/TikTok-style overlays
๐Ÿ“… โ€œToday in Historyโ€ Trending historical moments, swipeable
๐Ÿง  Hashtag Categories Shown as Wiki categories

๐Ÿ› ๏ธ What I Learned (and What You Should Know)
I built WikiSnap using a mix of no-code tools, AI, and my own coding skills. And hereโ€™s the important truth I want to share:

๐Ÿค– AI and no-code tools are amazing โ€” but they wonโ€™t build your whole product.
๐Ÿ’ป They give you the base, but real coding makes it functional and beautiful.

I had to:

Write logic to break articles into readable โ€œsnapsโ€

Customize transitions, effects, and gestures

Fix weird layout bugs no visual tool could solve

Write manual code to make the app feel polished

So hereโ€™s my advice:

๐Ÿ‘‡ Real Talk to Devs
Use AI. Use no-code. Use every tool available.
But never forget:

๐Ÿ’ก AI gives you the bones โ€” your code is what brings it to life.

๐Ÿ“ธ Screenshots :

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๐Ÿš€ Try It Yourself::

Live Demo

Source Code on Github

๐Ÿ™Œ How You Can Support::

If this project inspired you or made you say โ€œwhoaโ€:

โœ… Star the repo โ†’Wikisnap on Github

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Follow me โ†’Follow me on Github

๐Ÿ’ฌ Final Thought
Weโ€™re entering a new era of development โ€” where knowledge meets design, AI meets creativity, and code meets the modern web.

HAPPY CODING DEV'S

GIF

WikiSnap is my little experiment to prove that.

Whatโ€™s yours?

Top comments (3)

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alex-rivera88 profile image
Alex Rivera

Dude... Wikipedia but vertical and swipeable? Why hasnโ€™t anyone done this already?! Mad respect for actually pulling it off.

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dotallio profile image
Dotallio

Swipeable Wikipedia is honestly genius for how we learn now.
I'm reinventing AI apps to feel more like chats+workflows at Dotallio - curious, what's the stickiest feature people loved most on WikiSnap?

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nish2005karsh profile image
Nishkarsh Pandey

Thanks so much! ๐Ÿ™Œ
People seem to love the swipeable card layout โ€” makes Wikipedia feel way more readable.
A few even asked for an app or offered to pay, which surprised me ๐Ÿ˜„
Dotallio sounds awesome too โ€” love the chat + workflow approach!