Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements

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Discussions: Desktop Improvements • Accessibility for reading.

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You can comment in any language. We are especially interested in:

• Feedback on the functionalities we have already deployed. (Please see Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Known issues before reporting bugs.)

• Expanding the list of existing gadgets and user scripts that are related to providing a better desktop experience.

We are discussing with many volunteers and communities at the same time. It may take some time for us to reply here. We apologize for that.

Thank you!

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Toggle the search field

Is there any way to toggle the search field in the new vector so that one doesn't have to click on the search icon everytime? I'm finding the additional key strokes necessary to open the search field rather annoying! Otherwise, new vector is largely ok for me. Keevtyne (talk) 21:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Looks like you're using a very narrow screen, otherwise there should be no additional steps. Maybe on a mobile. You can try the landscape position, it could possibly help. IKhitron (talk) 13:50, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

No, I'm using my MacBook Air. The field only appears after clicking on the looking glass icon. That's the time-wasting additional step I mean. I'm back on vector 2010 now, where the search box is always available. Keevtyne (talk) 16:44, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Weird. Maybe I'm wrong, but as far as I know it should not happen. IKhitron (talk) 23:42, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

The current default state of Wikipedia pages

I find it difficult to comment here, because I understand people invested a lot of their time into improving the default desktop theme. I thank them for their work and good intentions.

Having said that, the current default look of WP:EN articles in my browser (Safari), with my default window size, does not work for me, at all. It used to be fine.

When reading an article on WP, I see no announcement of these changes, link to an explanation, or invitation to supply feedback. I spent 20 minutes searching, and I am still not sure this is the right place to discuss.

For instance, when reading [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Bompiani]:

• The Contents sidebar (left) takes almost 1/4 of the page width, and is virtually empty.
• The Appearance sidebar (right) consumes another 1/4 of the page width.
• As a result, page content looks cramped, on a page that is almost half empty.
• The default font is weirdly large; the small font is too small for my eyes. My browser can zoom already, anyway.
• Switching Width (Standard/Wide) does nothing.
• Repositioning the sidebars is lost when cookies are flushed (which is done multiple times a day).
• One of the most important elements (for me), the Wikidata ID, is hidden in a popup menu. This has been the case for a while.
• Three sidebars (Contents/Appearance/Tools) each move to a different region when "hidden". I find this confusing.
• When doing research, I visit Wikipedia in multiple languages (EN, DE, IT, FR, NL, etc) every day. Increasingly those WP instances look and function differently.
• I know I can influence the look of WP through my profile, when I log in. But I do not want to log in unless I plan to edit WP.

This is what I think. Thank you for your time. Superp (talk) 13:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Superp:

• The font size options are based on the readability research and the community-proposed designs. Do you have any suggestions for these options?
• "Switching Width (Standard/Wide) does nothing." This may be due to the narrow screen (see phab:T366216). Could you please describe the problem you are experiencing in more detail?
• "Increasingly those WP instances look and function differently." Could you explain this issue in more detail?

Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 11:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I understand what you are trying to do is tough, I appreciate your effort.

To sum up, the design is good but suffers from Microsoft Office syndrome: too much space taken by tools, navigation, etc., too little space for content. The larger font for content causes further content vs tools imbalance.

To address your points:

• But this very page does not reflect those options. The font here is a bit smaller than it is on a default WP page, and the page more usable (for me) because of it. Suggestion: can we make the default font for body text a tad smaller?
• Yes, apparently it is due to my browser being "narrow". When I click the tool, a message appears to that effect. Why show the tool when we know it does not work? Suggestion: remove the "width" tool unless it actually works.
• Suggestion: redesign the appearance tool. Compact "text" to 1 line, 3 buttons, and "width" to 1 line, 2 buttons. Move it elsewhere. OR collapse the whole tool and move it elsewhere. 2 columns for tools etc. is too much (for me).
• I'll try. Compare [1] with [2].

Best. Superp (talk) 19:23, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Superp: Hello, thanks for your response! I am not the developer of Wikimedia Foundation:) I believe your suggestion can let them know more about your need and take it into consideration.

Regarding the font size, the research and testing showed that increasing the default font size can improve readability, and that users prefer a slightly larger font size. You can choose "small" option (which is the previous default font size), if you prefer smaller size. SCP-2000 (talk) 03:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

cc @SGrabarczuk (WMF) SCP-2000 (talk) 03:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

retest content separation wen

@SGrabarczuk (WMF) In the last update, you mention As we reported previously, the A/B test didn't prove that the color-based separation was an improvement.. However, that's not what the previous update really concludes. The previous update concluded that the prototype was flawed for small screen sizes and recommended Introducing improvements to Zebra, optimizing for narrower screens, and repeating the tests.. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Aaron Liu - thanks for the question! So we tested this idea in two contexts. The first was the prototype testing in a user testing context (testing with a small group of readers who give us feedback). The results of this test are available on this page. Here we found that, while there wasn't a noticeable different in readability that we could measure between the two versions, users did say they have a slight personal preference towards the newer version. Based on this, we decided to proceed testing this version on a larger scale. The second test, which was the A/B test on the feature is the one that showed us issues that showed us that, were we to proceed with this, we would need to go back to the drawing board. While this is still a possibility for the future, we haven't prioritized it yet as, based on the user testing, we don't have a strong proof that it would be significantly helpful to readers and editors. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 09:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @OVasileva (WMF), the A/B test on the feature seems to be the same one reported in the previous update. See my last sentence. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:38, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

CSS issue with category infoboxes

Screenshot of a category infobox in dark mode using the Vector skin

Using the Vector skin in dark mode makes the title link in category infoboxes completely invisible. The infobox in the screenshot has the title "Organised labour" but the color of this title is black against a black background Other links are perfectly readable. Etothepi16 (talk) 16:18, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Etothepi16: Thanks for flagging this. I have reported this issue on the Reading/Web/Accessibility_for_reading/Reporting/en.wikipedia.org#Labour_movement_dark_mode_error. SCP-2000 (talk) 04:38, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Vector 2022 kollidiert neuerdings mit "tabelle-kopf-fixiert"

In der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia mit Vector 2022 funktionieren sticky Tabellenköpfe nicht mehr; sie rutschen in die erste Datenzeile, verdecken dort Inhalte und scrollen in dieser Position mit, Beispiel: d:Liste der Kulturdenkmäler in Blumenthal (Bremen). Die Ursache vermute ich in einer jüngeren Änderung im JavaScript, Grund: Wenn ich im Browser JavaScript blockiere, funktioniert "tabelle-kopf-fixiert" einwandfrei. Quarz (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Quarz: Es ist nicht direkt JavaScript, sondern die CSS-Klasse noresize, die anscheinend durch JavaScript hinzugefügt wird. Siehe phab:T330527. – Tacsipacsi (talk) 10:09, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Das Beispiel ist de:Liste der Kulturdenkmäler in Blumenthal (Bremen) – Wikipedia (de:), nicht Wikidata (d:). – Tacsipacsi (talk) 10:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi: Danke! Die Disk. auf phab macht mir keine Hoffnung auf eine schnelle Lösung. Daher habe ich durch den Eintrag

.noresize{overflow-x: unset !important;}

in meiner common.css für mich Abhilfe geschaffen und hoffe, dass auch die Allgemeinheit bald die Tabellen in voller Funktion sieht. Quarz (talk) 11:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Changing the minimum width for showing the left sidebar

Is there a way to change the minimum width required to keep the left sidebar? I want it remain even when the browser window is narrower than 1120px, which looks like it's the threshold.

I tried copying all the CSS rules I could find mentioning that as min-width to my user CSS and changing to a lower min-width. That didn't quite work, though I may have missed something. You can see my attempt here. Sebastian Berlin (WMSE) (talk) 12:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Expand table of contents

Is there a way for the table of contents to always be expanded? Some articles have the table of contents expanded but others don't. Thanks. Along517 (talk) 00:24, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@Along517: Hello, generally your preference would be remembered, and thus the table of contents should always be either expanded or collapsed. Which pages have this issue? Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 04:21, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for responding. Sorry if this is the wrong place but I meant for the normal Wikipedia. This happens whether I'm logged in or not. An example is if I go to Lionel Messi's page, all the contents on the left are expanded while Cristiano Ronaldo's table of contents is not expanded. Along517 (talk) 21:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Along517: Hello, thanks for the information. Did you see the ToC like this screenshot https://ibb.co/frqJkDP or this one https://ibb.co/VmJYCKd? If it's the second one, it may be due to the narrow screen. If it's the first one, have you tried using another browser or device to visit that page? SCP-2000 (talk) 04:43, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the first one more. (https://ibb.co/nzYSTF6). Here's what it looks like not expanded (https://ibb.co/CPXcxwR). I've tried other browsers (Firefox and Safari) and it has the same results. Along517 (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Along517: Thanks for your reply. I apologize for my misunderstanding, and I thought you meant the entire part of the ToC was not expanded. Nevertheless, it seems that sections are not expanded by default if there are 28 (or another value) or more sections regardless of level. You may use the userscript listed in this post on Special:MyPage/vector-2022.js to expand all section on ToC. SCP-2000 (talk) 16:26, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Zur Seite in anderer Sprache verlinken | Link to a site in another language

In Vector 2010 ist es einfach möglich im unteren linken Bereich auf „Links hinzufügen“ zu gehen, dann kam so ein Popup-Fenster, man trug das Ziel ein und fertig. Falls es schon mindestens ein Eintrag gibt, steht da stattdessen „Links bearbeiten“ und man wird auf Wikidata weitergeleitet, was ja in Ordnung ist.

Bei Vector 2022 habe ich die erste Möglichkeit nicht. Entweder ein Fehler oder es ist woanders... Sven792 (talk) 22:23, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sven792: Hello, it is not the bug. Here is the previous discussion and the relevant phab ticket for your reference. Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 04:06, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. It is just somewhere else. You need to make a new Wikidata item yourself though, it seems? Sven792 (talk) 12:19, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

@Sven792: Yes, if there is no Wikidata item, then you have to create a item on Wikidata manually or by the gadget (if any). SCP-2000 (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

You've made it harder to add interwiki links

As an unregistered user, I used to be able to easily link articles on two wikis. I could do this from the Wikipedia article itself, from the pencil icon on the sidebar, typing in the language code, typing in the article title, then done! Added to Wikidata, whether or not a Wikidata item previously existed! Now, there's a nice looking box that says "Add languages", but if I click it, there's no way to add a link to another Wikipedia page! The only way to do it is by going to Wikidata. You've decreased functionality here! Please fix this; it is very irritating. 2601:644:9083:5730:3875:489:C235:7014 23:16, 2 August 2024 (UTC)