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January 2016

The Signpost: 06 January 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #191

16:59, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 January 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #192

17:56, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6

Newsletter • January 2016

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

What comes next

Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.

During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.

We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:

  • Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
  • One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
  • Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)

The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.

This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.


Until next time,

Harej (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 January 2016

16:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #193

The Signpost: 27 January 2016

February 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #194

21:02, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Google Doodle task force collaboration for 4 February 2016

Hello, Kharkiv07.

The current collaboration of the Google Doodle task force is:

Fat Thursday

Please be bold and make this a valuable reference for interested readers! Opt-out instructions


Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the task force. This task force is part of Today's articles for improvement. Opt-out instructions[reply]

(Note that this doodle is only targeted to German users of Google.)
18:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #195

The Signpost: 03 February 2016

The Signpost: 10 February 2016

16:16, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #196

Wikidata weekly summary #196

The Signpost: 17 February 2016

18:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #197

Wikidata weekly summary #186

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7

Newsletter • February 2016

This month:

One database for Wikipedia requests

Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.

In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?

Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.

The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 February 2016

VisualEditor News #1—2016

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?
Among experienced editors, the visual editor's table editing is one of the most popular features.
Screenshot showing a pop-up menu for column operations in a table
If you select the top of a column or the end of a row, you can quickly insert and remove columns and rows.

Now, you can also rearrange columns and rows. Click "Move before" or "Move after" to swap the column or row with its neighbor.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.

Recent changes

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.

Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.

The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.

Future changes

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences:

  • Remember my last editor,
  • Always give me the visual editor if possible,
  • Always give me the source editor, and
  • Show me both editor tabs.  (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)

The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers would like to know how well the visual editor works in your language. They particularly want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic and others.

Let's work together

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thanks!

Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:47, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Google Doodle task force collaboration for 29 February 2016

Hello, Kharkiv07.

The current collaboration of the Google Doodle task force is:

February 29

Please be bold and make this a valuable reference for interested readers! Opt-out instructions


Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:21, 29 February 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the task force. This task force is part of Today's articles for improvement. Opt-out instructions[reply]


20:12, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #198

March 2016
20:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #199

The Signpost: 02 March 2016

Google Doodle task force collaboration for 8 March 2016

Hello, Kharkiv07.

The current collaboration of the Google Doodle task force is:

International Women's Day

Please be bold and make this a valuable reference for interested readers! Opt-out instructions


Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:46, 8 March 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the task force. This task force is part of Today's articles for improvement. Opt-out instructions[reply]


The Signpost: 09 March 2016

18:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #200

Wikidata weekly summary #186

The Signpost: 16 March 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #201

16:04, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 March 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #202

19:43, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 April 2016

22:13, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #203

Google Doodle task force collaboration for 6 April 2016

Hello, Kharkiv07.

The current collaboration of the Google Doodle task force is:

1896 Summer Olympics

Please be bold and make this a valuable reference for interested readers! Opt-out instructions


Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:34, 6 April 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the task force. This task force is part of Today's articles for improvement. Opt-out instructions[reply]


Do you want one Edit tab, or two? It's your choice

How to switch between editing environments
Part of the toolbar in the visual editor
Click the [[ ]] to switch to the wikitext editor.
Part of the toolbar in the wikitext editor
Click the pencil icon to switch to the visual editor.

The editing interface will be changed soon. When that happens, editors who currently see two editing tabs – "Edit" and "Edit source" – will start seeing one edit tab instead. The single edit tab has been popular at other Wikipedias. When this is deployed here, you may be offered the opportunity to choose your preferred appearance and behavior the next time you click the Edit button. You will also be able to change your settings in the Editing section of Special:Preferences.

You can choose one or two edit tabs. If you chose one edit tab, then you can switch between the two editing environments by clicking the buttons in the toolbar (shown in the screenshots). See Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Switching between the visual and wikitext editors for more information and screenshots.

There is more information about this interface change at mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab. If you have questions, suggestions, or problems to report, then please leave a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Whatamidoing (WMF) 19:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

20:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #204

The Signpost: 14 April 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #205

20:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 8

Newsletter • March / April 2016

This month:

Transclude article requests anywhere on Wikipedia

In the last issue of the WikiProject X Newsletter, I discussed the upcoming Wikipedia Requests system: a central database for outstanding work on Wikipedia. I am pleased to announce Wikipedia Requests is live! Its purpose is to supplement automatically generated lists, such as those from SuggestBot, Reports bot, or Wikidata. It is currently being demonstrated on WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health (which I work on as part of my NIOSH duties) and WikiProject Women scientists.

Adding a request is as simple as filling out a form. Just go to the Add form to add your request. Adding sources will help ensure that your request is fulfilled more quickly. And when a request is fulfilled, simply click "mark as complete" and it will be removed from all the lists it's on. All at the click of a button! (If anyone is concerned, all actions are logged.)

With this new service is a template to transclude these requests: {{Wikipedia Requests}}. It's simple to use: add the template to a page, specifying article=, category=, or wikiproject=, and the list will be transcluded. For example, for requests having to do with all living people, just do {{Wikipedia Requests|category=Living people}}. Use these lists on WikiProjects but also for edit-a-thons where you want a convenient list of things to do on hand. Give it a shot!

Help us build our list!

The value of Wikipedia Requests comes from being a centralized database. The long work to migrating individual lists into this combined list is slowly underway. As of writing, we have 883 open tasks logged in Wikipedia Requests. We need your help building this list.

If you know of a list of missing articles, or of outstanding tasks for existing articles, that you would like to migrate to this new system, head on over to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Requests#Transition project and help out. Doing this will help put your list in front of more eyes—more than just your own WikiProject.

An open database means new tools

WikiProject X maintains a database that associates article talk pages (and draft talk pages) with WikiProjects. This database powers many of the reports that Reports bot generates. However, until very recently, this database was not made available to others who might find its data useful. It's only common sense to open up the database and let others build tools with it.

And indeed: Citation Hunt, the game to add citations to Wikipedia, now lets you filter by WikiProject, using the data from our database.

Are you a tool developer interested in using this? Here are some details: the database resides on Tool Labs with the name s52475__wpx_p. The table that associates WikiProjects with articles and drafts is called projectindex. Pages are stored by talk page title but in the future this should change. Have fun!

On the horizon
  • The work on the CollaborationKit extension continues. The extension will initially focus on reducing template and Lua bloat on WikiProjects (especially our WPX UI demonstration projects), and will from there create custom interfaces for creating and maintaining WikiProjects.
  • The WikiCite meeting will be in Berlin in May. The goal of the meeting is to figure out how to build a bibliographic database for use on the Wikimedia projects. This fits in quite nicely with WikiProject X's work: we want to make it easier for people to find things to work on, and with a powerful, open bibliographic database, we can build recommendations for sources. This feature was requested by the Wikipedia Library back in September, and this meeting is a major next step. We look forward to seeing what comes out of this meeting.


Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Google Doodle task force collaboration for 22 April 2016

Hello, Kharkiv07.

The current collaboration of the Google Doodle task force is:

Earth Day

Please be bold and make this a valuable reference for interested readers! Opt-out instructions


Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the task force. This task force is part of Today's articles for improvement. Opt-out instructions[reply]


The Signpost: 24 April 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #206

21:02, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 May 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #207

20:09, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #208

23:22, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

16:01, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #209

The Signpost: 17 May 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #210

18:40, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 May 2016

16:19, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #211

The Signpost: 05 June 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #212

20:51, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #213

18:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 June 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #214

19:14, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 9

Newsletter • May / June 2016

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, featuring the first screenshot of our new CollaborationKit software!

Harej (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

15:42, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #215

Editing News #2—2016

Editing News #2—2016 Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

It's quick and easy to insert a references list.

Screenshot showing a dropdown menu with many items

Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page). Open the "Insert" menu and click the "References list" icon (three books).

If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you will have the opportunity to specify the group. If you do that, then only the references that belong to the specified group will be displayed in this list of references.

Finally, click "Insert" in the dialog to insert the References list. This list will change as you add more footnotes to the page.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.

Recent changes

The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.

The single edit tab feature combines the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "Editing" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.

Future changes

The "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.

The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 21:09, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #216

The Signpost: 04 July 2016

19:45, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

15:15, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #217

[m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2016/29|Tech News: 2016-29]]

12:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #218

The Signpost: 21 July 2016

19:54, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #219

Wikidata weekly summary #220

21:48, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 August 2016

15:41, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #221

19:37, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #222

The Signpost: 18 August 2016

21:18, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #223

Wikidata weekly summary #224

16:02, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #225

17:12, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 September 2016

18:04, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #226

Wikidata weekly summary #227

22:09, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

18:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 29 September 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #229

21:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #230

20:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Editing News #3—2016

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletterSubscribe or unsubscribe on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can easily re-arrange columns and rows in the visual editor?

Screenshot showing a dropdown menu with options for editing the table structure

Select a cell in the column or row that you want to move. Click the arrow at the start of that row or column to open the dropdown menu (shown). Choose either "Move before" or "Move after" to move the column, or "Move above" or "Move below" to move the row.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.

Recent changes

  • You can now set text as small or big.[272]
  • Invisible templates have been shown as a puzzle icon. Now, the name of the invisible template is displayed next to the puzzle icon.[273] A similar feature will display the first part of hidden HTML comments.[274]
  • Categories are displayed at the bottom of each page. If you click on the categories, the dialog for editing categories will open.[275]
  • At many wikis, you can now add maps to pages. Go to the Insert menu and choose the "Maps" item. The Discovery department are adding more features to this area, like geoshapes. You can read more on MediaWiki.org.[276]
  • The "Save" button now says "Save page" when you create a page, and "Save changes" when you change an existing page.[277] In the future, the "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.
  • Image galleries now use a visual mode for editing. You can see thumbnails of the images, add new files, remove unwanted images, rearrange the images by dragging and dropping, and add captions for each image. Use the "Options" tab to set the gallery's display mode, image sizes, and add a title for the gallery.[278]

Future changes

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining 10 "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next month. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including Thai, Burmese and Aramaic.

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The 2017 wikitext editor will look like the visual editor and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices in October 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together

Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 October 2016

16:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #231

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17:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

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16:18, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 November 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #234

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The Signpost: 4 November 2016

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The Signpost: 22 December 2016

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The Signpost: 6 February 2017

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19:25, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #249

19:56, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 February 2017

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 10

This month, we discuss the new CollaborationKit extension. Here's an image as a teaser:

23:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #250

23:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

15:26, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #251

Weekly Summary #252

22:03, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #253

14:47, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #254

17:53, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #255

18:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

19:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

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Wikidata weekly summary #257

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19:50, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #258

Wikidata weekly summary #259

02:25, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Editing News #1—2017

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

VisualEditor
Did you know?

Did you know that you can review your changes visually?

Screenshot showing some changes to an article. Most changes are highlighted with text formatting.
When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "Review your changes".

In visual mode, you will see additions, removals, new links, and formatting highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.

Toggle button showing visual and wikitext options; visual option is selected.

Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.

Screenshot showing the same changes, in the two-column wikitext diff display.

The wikitext diff is the same diff tool that is used in the wikitext editors and in the page history.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and adding the new visual diff tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes

A new wikitext editing mode is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. The 2017 wikitext editor has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to enable the ⧼Visualeditor-preference-newwikitexteditor-label⧽.

A new visual diff tool is available in VisualEditor's visual mode. You can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. More features will be added to this later. In the future, this tool may be integrated into other MediaWiki components. [416]

The team have added multi-column support for lists of footnotes. The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. You can request multi-column support for your wiki. [417]

Other changes:

  • You can now use your web browser's function to switch typing direction in the new wikitext mode. This is particularly helpful for RTL language users like Urdu or Hebrew who have to write JavaScript or CSS. You can use Command+Shift+X or Control+Shift+X to trigger this. [418]
  • The way to switch between the visual editing mode and the wikitext editing mode is now consistent. There is a drop-down menu that shows the two options. This is now the same in desktop and mobile web editing, and inside things that embed editing, such as Flow. [419]
  • The Categories item has been moved to the top of the Page options menu (from clicking on the "hamburger" icon) for quicker access. [420] There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there. [421]
  • You can now create <chem> tags (sometimes used as <ce>) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor. [422]
  • Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed. [423]
  • The Special character menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) . The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt. [424]
  • A bug caused some section edit conflicts to blank the rest of the page. This has been fixed. The team are sorry for the disruption. [425]
  • There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations: Control+Shift+K on a PC, or Command+Shift+K on a Mac. It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is Control+K on a PC or Command+K on a Mac. [426]

Future changes

  • The VisualEditor team is working with the Community Tech team on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of <ref> tags and other types of wikitext syntax. You will be able to turn it on and off. It will first become available in VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode, maybe late in 2017. [427]
  • The kind of button used to Show preview, Show changes, and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will use OOjs UI. The buttons will be larger, brighter, and easier to read. The labels will remain the same. You can test the new button by editing a page and adding &ooui=1 to the end of the URL, like this: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Sandbox?action=edit&ooui=1 The old appearance will no longer be possible, even with local CSS changes. [428]
  • The outdated 2006 wikitext editor will be removed later this year. It is used by approximately 0.03% of active editors. See a list of editing tools on mediawiki.org if you are uncertain which one you use. [429]

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 11

Newsletter • February 2018

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, with plans to renew work with a followup grant proposal to support finalising the deployment of CollaborationKit!

-— Isarra 21:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Editing News #1—2018

Read this in another languageSubscription list for the English WikipediaSubscription list for the multilingual edition

Did you know?

Did you know that you can now use the visual diff tool on any page?

Screenshot showing some changes, in the two-column wikitext diff display

Sometimes, it is hard to see important changes in a wikitext diff. This screenshot of a wikitext diff (click to enlarge) shows that the paragraphs have been rearranged, but it does not highlight the removal of a word or the addition of a new sentence.

If you enable the Beta Feature for "⧼visualeditor-preference-visualdiffpage-label⧽", you will have a new option. It will give you a new box at the top of every diff page. This box will let you choose either diff system on any edit.

Toggle button showing visual and wikitext options; visual option is selected

Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.

In the visual diff, additions, removals, new links, and formatting changes will be highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.

Screenshot showing the same changes to an article. Most changes are highlighted with text formatting.

This screenshot shows the same edit as the wikitext diff. The visual diff highlights the removal of one word and the addition of a new sentence. An arrow indicates that the paragraph changed location.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode, which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and improving the visual diff tool. Their work board is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes

  • The 2017 wikitext editor is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. It has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. The team have been comparing the performance of different editing environments. They have studied how long it takes to open the page and start typing. The study uses data for more than one million edits during December and January. Some changes have been made to improve the speed of the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual editor. Recently, the 2017 wikitext editor opened fastest for most edits, and the 2010 WikiEditor was fastest for some edits. More information will be posted at mw:Contributors/Projects/Editing performance.
  • The visual diff tool was developed for the visual editor. It is now available to all users of the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. When you review your changes, you can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. You can also enable the new Beta Feature for "Visual diffs". The Beta Feature lets you use the visual diff tool to view other people's edits on page histories and Special:RecentChanges. [633]
  • Wikitext syntax highlighting is available as a Beta Feature for both the 2017 wikitext editor and the 2010 wikitext editor. [634]
  • The citoid service automatically translates URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, and PubMed id numbers into wikitext citation templates. This tool has been used at the English Wikipedia for a long time. It is very popular and useful to editors, although it can be tricky for admins to set up. Other wikis can have this service, too. Please read the instructions. You can ask the team to help you enable citoid at your wiki.

Let's work together

  • The team is planning a presentation about editing tools for an upcoming Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting.
  • Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and other communities may have the visual editor made available by default to contributors. If your community wants this, then please contact Dan Garry.
  • The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. This has already been enabled at the English Wikipedia. If you want columns for a long list of footnotes on this wiki, you can use either <references /> or the plain (no parameters) {{reflist}} template. If you edit a different wiki, you can request multi-column support for your wiki. [635]
  • If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

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WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 12

Newsletter • August 2018

This month: WikiProject X: The resumption

Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!

-— Isarra 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 13

Newsletter • December 2018

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:

  • Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
  • I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
    • Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
    • If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
  • Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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