Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Miscellaneous/Show syntax highlighting on View Source/protected pages
Show syntax highlighting on View Source/protected pages
- Problem: When I go to template pages that I am not allowed to edit and can only see the source, the source text has no syntax highlighting and is hard to understand.
- Proposed solution: Add a button to enable syntax highlighting on protected pages.
- Who would benefit: Template editors
- More comments:
- Phabricator tickets: phab:T301615
- Proposer: Lectrician1 (talk) 06:24, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
- I had a similar idea on WP's idea lab a few years ago: Allow previewing protected pages. SD0001 suggested that it had already been declined by devs on the grounds that it would be confusing to newcomers, but I don't buy that because we can show sufficient warning before they can preview it. Nardog (talk) 07:35, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Newcomers are a very important user group for us, that we are trying to accommodate as much as possible, so it might very well be that we decide in their favour. I do understand the thought of the wish though, it can be helpful to understand the template code. KSiebert (WMF) (talk) 10:54, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Note WikiEditor is already loaded on protected pages where CodeEditor is loaded (example). I imagine it would be a relatively simple flip of a switch. The absence of the "Publish changes" button already communicates the situation quite clearly, and, more to the point, I fail to see how loading of WikiEditor could affect newcomers' ability to understand it. Nardog (talk) 06:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- Not sure why syntax-highlighted wikitext would be more confusing to new editors than non-syntax-highlighted wikitext. I'd worry about performance implications though - CodeMirror can be quite slow for large pages. --Tgr (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's a good proposal. It's probably too late for that, but I'd put it in the Editing section and not in Miscellaneous. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:58, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
Voting
- Support Syntax highlighting is such a key part of learning to do something (even if it's just looking), that we should enable it for beginners. I do not think it signals that a page is editable. Femke (talk) 19:07, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support — DaxServer (t · m · c) 20:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support but better to allow previewing changes to a protected page. Use case: check whether my proposed fix to an article or template actually works before submitting an edit request. Certes (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- agreed DemonDays64 (talk) 00:26, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Rtfroot (talk) 21:33, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 21:55, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support PureTuber (talk) 22:07, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 23:00, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Lectrician1 (talk) 23:01, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support NMaia (talk) 23:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Magnoliasouth (talk) 00:05, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support DemonDays64 (talk) 00:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Poslovitch (talk) 00:33, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I thought of it from time to time. --NGC 54 (talk|contribs) 01:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Yeeno (talk) 02:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support * Pppery * it has begun 03:53, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Lt2818 (talk) 04:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Franz.wohlkoenig (talk) 06:22, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Doktor Züm (talk) 07:44, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Martin-78 (discutailler) 08:17, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Kekavigi (talk) 08:33, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Arado Ar 196 (talk) 08:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support SD0001 (talk) 10:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support CaféBuzz (talk) 10:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Nw520 (talk) 12:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Alhadis (talk) 13:03, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Shizhao (talk) 13:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:00, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Cepice (talk) 14:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Golmote (talk) 14:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Doctor Duh (talk) 15:42, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Nehaoua (talk) 15:59, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Rots61 (talk) 16:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Terasail[✉️] 17:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support De nue pw (talk) 22:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Thomas Kinz (talk) 22:33, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Syntax highlighting is a basis for learning from template sources. Thingofme (talk) 03:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Betseg (talk) 04:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Libcub (talk) 05:56, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support HLFan (talk) 07:37, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support P12062545 (talk) 21:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Izno (talk) 07:32, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Titore (talk) 14:22, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Often the most complicated templates are the ones that are protected. One can use syntax highlight for simple, not protected templates, but can’t for complicated, protected ones? Doesn’t make much sense from a user viewpoint. Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:50, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support JAn Dudík (talk) 21:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:21, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Wargo (talk) 22:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Matma Rex (talk) 22:24, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 23:48, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Aishik Rehman (talk) 07:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support cyrfaw (talk) 11:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support β16 - (talk) 16:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 07:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Geraki TL 11:26, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support —CX Zoom (A/अ/অ) (let's talk|contribs) 19:48, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 23:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 11:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 15:39, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Hans5958 (talk) 05:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support — Draceane talkcontrib. 11:19, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Lukas Raich (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:57, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support Morten Haan (talk) 18:22, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support hgzh 07:16, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support --Tchoř (talk) 10:18, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
- Support TheDragonFire300 (talk) 13:53, 24 February 2023 (UTC)