2010 Wikimedia design and feature change/Feedback/Archive 1

Beta

No lo quiero nada. Yo no pude ir al Wikipedia en el PS3. Alguien necesito trabajar mejor. 71.108.27.148 00:40, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

How can I provide translations ?

I don't find how I could translate Centralnotice-VectorNewLook_phase3-link/eo. I have no user rights here and I don't find it in TranslateWiki (where I have needed user rights). The translations should be as follows:

en: Help us find bugs and complete user interface translations.

eo: Helpu nin trovi cimojn kaj fintraduki la uzantointerfacon.

Arno Lagrange ✉ 06:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The translations are currently managed here. Thanks for your translation - we should be able to deploy it by tomorrow.--Eloquence 06:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Published. But please remember to add it to our chart on Usability Wiki. --Az1568 (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Please do the same for Ukrainian. I didn't find uk raw here. The translations should be as follows:

en: Help us find bugs and complete user interface translations.

uk: Допоможіть нам знайти помилки і завершити переклад інтерфейсу.

--A1 09:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I've just added fr (I'm surprised it took so long). Urhixidur 20:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Customising the edit toolbars special characters

How can the special characters section of the new toolbar be customized? The Hungarian quotation marks „” and the m-dash are very difficult to find and for example the quotation marks aren't in a logical order (the Hungarian opening mark is followed by about two dozen unrelated characters before the closing mark in the symbols section) and they aren't paired (this latter wouldn't be a huge problem if the marks were easily findable next to each other).

The use of these characters is more common in Hungarian than in English, as the typewriter quotes "" are considered ugly and wrong in Hungarian and there is a marked orthographical difference between the n-dash and the m-dash.

There are some other elements that a power user might lack without the possibility to customize the toolbar (commonly used html tags and templates), however the above is more unfortunate for all users. --Dami 12:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The best example that I've seen so far of heavy toolbar customization is the Greek Wiktionary, see wikt:el:MediaWiki:Common.js. Our own documentation can be found at usability:Toolbar customization, but it's not very good. You'll also find examples in the WikiEditor tests in the codebase. Improving the documentation for customization is high on the priority list and any help is welcome.--Eloquence 21:55, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The Vietnamese wikis customized their palettes in a different way: since Vietnamese characters are scattered across three of the standard palettes, we added a unified "Việt" palette to the top of the list. See the Vietnamese Wiktionary's implementation and try editing the sandbox there. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 05:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Collapsible sidebar

I think the "Enable collapsible left navigation menu" function is unnecessary and annoying. In my opinion it would be better not to set it as the default option. --VittGam 16:52, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

It make some gadget in Chinese Wikipedia cannot work. -Waihorace 13:16, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Usability Initiative opt-in forgets old skin

After clicking on "Try Beta", then "leave beta", you get the monobook skin, no matter what skin you actually used befor opting in. (reported on hu.wikipedia by someone using Cologne skin) --Tgr 11:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Search box without javascript

When javascript is disabled, it is impossible to do a full-text search for a word which is the title of a page. Not sure how much of a problem this is - pretty much every browser supports javascript these days, but some people like to use plugins like NoScript for privacy/security reasons. --Tgr 11:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You can access the full-text search without JavaScript by submitting an empty search result. I agree that's not a very intuitive solution.--Eloquence 17:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Usability problems with search suggestions

There are a couple things I don't like with the search suggestions. (Not all of them are new to Vector.)

• they use onclick handlers instead of real links, which makes a lot of intelligent browser behavior unavailable. This is particularly painful for middle-click; there was an old search suggestion user script before MediaWiki itself learned to show suggestions, which got this right, and it was very helpful to be able to type a couple characters and middle-click on the right article to open it in a new tab without leaving the current one, when I was editing an article and needed to look up related information. I suppose the behavior of the current suggestion could be manipulated by another userscript, but this seems to be a useful enough feature to include in the default script.
• in the suggestions used by monobook, when I select one with the cursor keys it is placed into the input box; the vector version does not do this. The old behavior was superior for several reasons:
  • I could save a lot of typing by selecting a suggestion with a similar name and continue typing from there;
  • whenever I needed to copy the name of some page (which you need a lot when editing an article), I could just type the first few characters, select the right title from the suggestions, and copy it from the input box. While the link dialog is a replacement for this in some situations, there are people who want to use Vector but not the enhanced edit toolbar (it makes page load slooow, amongst other things).
  • it is closer to how Windows comboboxes (including browser address bars and search bars) behave (with the slight difference that comboboxes hide the dropdown when you press a horizontal cursor key), so it is probably closer to user expectations.

--Tgr 11:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Another small annoyance is that the search bar doesn't remember its contents when I navigate away (e.g. type something and press enter) then click the back button. This is obviously browser-dependent, but Firefox for example tends to remember the contents of the input field if it has no initial value (i.e. you omit the value="" part). --Tgr 13:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

We're currently testing several improvements to the search box. This includes inserting the text of the selected field into the search box, which you can test in sandbox 3.--Eloquence 17:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Curious colouring

Hi, I have no idea why people keep using those weird colouring schemes where you start with one colour at the top, and end up with a different one at the bottom. I do know why I don't: Going from a light colour to a dark colour behind your text is a sure way to reduce contrast. It's also a way to reduce the certainty of location: If I look at a white top, is that really the same as a blue bottom? But the thing that bothers me at the moment is that I'm not using such a colour scheme, yet the news bar at the top (that was going to be used for really important messages) keeps showing in the multicolour style, which looks really ugly here. If that's intentional, to scare people to a different interface or wiki, than please reconsider or give us a way to permanently hide really important messages. If it's unintentional: tell me and I'll repeat it on the bug page. (I don't know about stagnation; I didn't notice it at fy:, but I'd expect it to be related to the state of the project, which is different for en:, rather than related to the styling of the interface.) Mysha

Ever got into something you couldn't get out of?

Well, if you had, you would tell us beforehand whether "Try Beta" was permanent, or whether it would disappear on logout or has a "stop trying" link. More of us might "try" if we knew. Mysha

Fair enough. You can always leave, and I'll add a note to that effect.--Eloquence 01:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Now we cannot leave - we just can switch back to the better Skin. You have covered some improvements under a heap of rubbish. (Where ist the signature botton here??) --Eingangskontrolle 20:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Featured articles in other languages

In monobook we had stars by FA and GA in other langages by fr:Modèle:Lien_AdQ eo:Ŝablono:LigoElstara. With Vector no more stars (I am using eo & fr:WP and check them) Arno Lagrange ✉ 10:53, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

In frwiki ask admins to change #panel for AdQ and BA with #mw-panel. Wizardist 15:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Correct, see en:MediaWiki talk:Vector.css#Interwiki stars are not shown for some details. -AlexSm 15:26, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Show redirects in link dialog

It would be nice if the link dialog would show whether the page is a redirect or not (and maybe where it redirects too). A warning when linking to a disambiguation page would also be nice. --Tgr 07:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Various

Sections

Apparently we don't have an Add Section option on normal pages, as I don't have one here. I guess, that means, especially on Meta, an override should be available for a page like this which is section-oriented.

Header

• Right-heavy to the point where I tried to tip my monitor, thinking it was no longer horizontal.
• The colourisation op the alternative option, like "Read" while I'm Edit-ing, gives the impression these options don't apply to this page, rather than merely not being active.
• "View history" is the only two word option; it sort of gives an "This is from a different set; don't pay attention to it" impression (especially since it's also coloured to not apply).
• The Watch star and the Other options arrow both being narrow, and together with a narrow gap after that for the search field, these make that part of the header quite weak; also the arrow does not have the styling of the other buttons, but does have the fading at the top, and the next element over, the search field, has a different colour border, and has the colourisation dark at the top, rather than at the bottom. It's all a bit of a jumble, there.
• The other option "Move" may well be the longest surviving misnomer in Wikipedia, even predating the MediaWiki software. The (beginning) editor doesn't want to clip this page from the book and glue it somewhere else; all the editor wants is to rename the page / change the title.

Search

If I can't recall the title of this page, I'll search for it, recalling that the word "Wikimedia" was in the title.
Please try before continuing reading.
So, how do I find this page using the search function?

Well, that's what I see from trying beta. No, wait:

• Does anyone know what the sentence "Beta feedback Leave Beta [icon] Mysha My talk My preferences My watchlist My contributions Log out" means? Having a larger font, these options now flow together into a single sentence.

Mysha

Sections: There is such an override: if you place __NEWSECTIONLINK__ on its own line at the top of any page, that page gains an "Add section" tab.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 05:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Text placement of the word "Search" in search box

The blurry text "Search" is draw close to the down line. It's not a problem, but In my thought it will look better, if we put it in the middle. Maybe this example will help you to understand. There, first one have taken from facebook, and second one from enwiki search panel. My browser is Firefox 3.6. Good luck. — Tanvir 11:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

This should also be fixed in sandbox 3 and we'll hopefully be able to deploy that change soon.--Eloquence 04:33, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Request for the change of name

In Tamil Wikipedia, it is named as விக்கிப்பீடியா (wikippedia). I would like it to be changed as விக்கீபீடியா (wikeepedia).

Search & replace

A few usability issues with the replace function:

• if you have not used such functionality before (and most users didn't), it isn't obvious that it replaces strings, not words. A "whole words only" option would help to make that clear and it would also be a useful function for the 99.9% of users who don't know what \b is for.
• it would be a nice addition to limit the search to the selection if there is any (imagine someone wanting to replace all | with {{!}} in a table, for example).
• select next/replace next is not very useful, with the dialog obscuring most of the textarea. Sure, it is draggable, but it is also huge, and the possibility may not be obvious, as real dialogs are't draggable. Maybe a denser interface, snapped to the top of the editbox would be easier to use?

--Tgr 23:30, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

File/category links

The link dialog doesn't add the starting colon to file/category links. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but it should be handled more intelligently by showing the user a warning explaining the difference between linking to an image/category and including it (or an option to choose which should be done). --Tgr 18:25, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

REDIRECT button

The Advanced toolbar has a button to insert a REDIRECT.

The word REDIRECT is not translated, which is not a problem for ltr languages, but causes a jumbled layout of brackets for rtl languages.

Would it be possible to to have #REDIRECT translatable? --12:41, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Workaround:

if ( typeof $j != 'undefined' && window.wgWikiEditorEnabledModules && wgWikiEditorEnabledModules.toolbar ) {
  addOnloadHook( function() {
    $j( '#wpTextbox1' ).bind( 'wikiEditor-toolbar-buildSection-advanced', function( event, section ) {
      section.groups.insert.tools.redirect.action.options.pre = '#WHATEVER [[';
    });
  });
}

--Tgr 20:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

This is reported as Bug 24114. --Amir E. Aharoni 07:13, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Button to insert braces

Quite a few people have reported that they miss the option to insert braces ({{}}), there is a possibilty to insert square brackets and double square brackets if one disables the new link dialogue, but the toolbar is missing the "template button". -Dami 23:29, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Possibillity to edit the first section

It might be worthwhile to explore the possibilities of having an edit link for the lead section of the pages as well, by default. This function is enabled via custom JS on a number of wikis, but I think it might be useful from a usability perspective as well. -Dami 23:31, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Signature button on talk-like pages

The presence of __NEWSECTIONLINK__ is a good heuristic that a non-talk page is used in a talkpage-like manner and consequently the signature button should be shown. --Tgr 20:55, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The signature button is currently shown in all namespaces other than the article namespace, which for Wikipedia tends to work quite well, although for a project like Meta and other wikis it may indeed be nice to check for the presence of this magic word.--Eloquence 23:37, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Disappeared buttons from the toolbar

Hello,

One of the most common complaints in the Hebrew Wikipedia is the disappeared buttons from the toolbar: insert formula (<math> </math>), strikeout (<s></s>), comment (<!-- -->) and others.

It is possible to restore them using JS tricks, but for most people it is too complicated.

I already reported this as Bug 23624 and i don't think that it's getting due attention. --Amir E. Aharoni, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Sub-toolbar loading speed

One of the most frequent complaints against Vector is its slowness, and the special characteprs and help sub-toolbars are extra slow, taking half a second or so to load. I don't understand why there is a delay in the first place (there doesn't seem to be any communication with the server), but if there is some slow processing involved, it should be cached somehow, having to endure such delay every time one needs an en dash is very annoying and bad user experience. Maybe using localStorage or cached AJAX calls would help? Tgr 20:52, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Usability issues with the dropdown

The dropdown holding the extra tabs uses the same clumsy behavior as the FlaggedRevs dropdown: the moment the mouse leaves the box with the down arrow, the dropdown box disappears. This is annoying when one tries to move the mouse in a straight line from the middle of the arrow to the middle of the first menu item, and that line is outside both boxes for a few pixels. There should be a small delay in hiding the box. Tgr 19:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Exporting PDF: Vertical layout option for eastern languages

The WIKISOURCE allows people to export articles as PDF files, and I suggest to add an option here which allows people to choose whether to use horizontal or vertical layout for the Chinese languages (and maybe other oriental languages). The HTML format does not allow vertical layout for text and people start to forget this tradition, and so I hope this option is available as least for exporting PDF files. This is a tradition that we've doing for thousands of years, and I wish it still continues in the future.

Some suggestions w.r.t. "What other enhancements would you like to see?"

I am a user from Hindi wikipedia. I hope these suggestions might have repeated many times (but I am not sure). These are simply my suggestions, and I am sure that your worthy programmers/volunteers will be able to do it in much better way. :

1. The user page of a user should be accessible by that user only. Because in current scenario anybody can change userpage of anyone. That this is an undesirable feature is proved by the fact that many administrators (i.e. who have power to lock a page) simply keep their user-page locked. So my view is, for a lay user also this type of provision should be there (though obviously with some provisions to stop vandalism).

2. Also the signature of a person should be able to be done by that person only. Presently anybody can copy signature of anyone, and to verify the authenticity we have to check in History of the page with some labour. There are instances when signatures are copied by another user, and were used to fulfill their desires, without notice of anybody even. This is possible because nobody bothers to check authenticity of the signature because it takes some labour. To avoid this, verifying signatures should be much easier. There can be many ways to implement this change. A possible way is that wikipedia should attach a hidden tag (say, sign_auth_tag) with each instance of signature of a user X. Tag should be unique to that user and should be inserted inline with the concerned text ('what the tag is in its value' should be invisible to all users), and the front view of the signature may remain customizable as it is now.
Now the question remains how will this help to readily check authenticity. This is possible by linking such signature to a user-authentication-page (a small page, its tab would be visible along with user page and user talk page), And so-called user-authentication-page should not be linkable from any page or text other than the signature with sign_auth_tag. A user Y can check authenticity of signature of user X by either clicking on it and thereby reaching his/her user-authentication-page, or there is an easier way which can be implemented alongside the above said method-
Each instance of "tagged" signature of user X should show a tool-tip-text like, user-authentication-page:X and it should not be possible to show such a tool-tip-text by any other means (obviously there would not arise any need to show such a tool-tip-text otherwise, because it is in a different namespace altogether). Now one can verify an instance of signature by simply moving mouse over it.

Thanks. -Hemant wikikosh 10:08, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

MAIN PAGE

I THINK THAT THE NEW MAIN PAGE OF WIKIBOOKS MUST CONTENTS THE MAXIMUM OF LINKS THAT IT IS POSSIBLE, TO TURN THIS MAIN PAGE A MAIN REFERENCE TO GO TO EACH PART/CHAPTER OF WIKIBOOKS SYSTEM. Rhermes Logius - 371018 - July 17, 2010

Old meta

Who here likes old Meta better? :) AboundingHinata 16:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Inserting pictures help!!

I've been trying for 2 days to put one photo up on one article. Your instructions are confusing and ungrounded, to say the very least. Please clarify them giving a simple step by step.

English

I may not have a degree, or follow the rules of grammar, but my language is certainly english, i do not have a particular dialect, i do not use much colloquialism, but my thoughts are accurate, and my perceptions unusually insightful. I have a "feel" for the meanings of words. As language is something that evolves I am actually aiding the process of the worlds languages melding by not learning the rules of my particular language. My definitions are deduced via context, which is how people learn to speak, and so it could be said that my use language is more relevant than the many "specialised" uses of english that are in use. Thankyou.