7 ms·

Wikipedia's new look

24 points by kuahyeow 16y ago

pmjordan 16y ago
My biggest wish for Wikipedia UI: enable the "languages" feature in the mobile version. Having to switch to the standard layout on the iPhone really sucks.
- Entlin 16y ago
  I agree. This and access to categories are my 2 biggest wishes for the mobile version.
pmichaud 16y ago
It's a minor improvement--it's cleaner, it probably loads a little faster. Nothing drastic.
- frou_dh 16y ago
  Could it be an elusive big-site redesign without a user backlash?
ErrantX 16y ago
The only drawback for me is the navigation across the tops of pages. Fade effects might be a current fad but it doesn't quite work (I feel quite strained reading the nav)
aw3c2 16y ago
While I really like the look of the sidebar I find it weird that the Discussion page is deemed more important than the History.
ugh 16y ago
Looks good. Line lengths can still get way too long when surfing full screen on a high res monitor. My browser window is at the moment only 970px wide and one line already has more than 100 characters – that’s nearly too much. Yeah, it sucks when you get wide empty margins but running away from the problem won’t help.
lionhearted 16y ago
It's clean, but losing left-side navigation hurts a bit, since that's my default on almost every website. I'm not going to need to change languages or contact Wikipedia very often.
- maw 16y ago
  For the people who do switch languages often it's very handy to be able to do so quickly. Wikipedia is in its way an excellent translation tool when you're looking for relatively specialized terms.
shrikant 16y ago
Also, mouse-hover on an internal link brings up a snippet view of the resulting page. What is really cool is, this works for links in the snippet view as well, so you can open nested snippet after snippet. These had been available to logged in users as a Beta for quite a while now (~3 months? Can't remember when it started..)
- bmunro 16y ago
  This doesn't work for me. (Chrome/Linux) Sound quite cool though.
- ugh 16y ago
  Doesn’t work for me, neither in Firefox nor Safari. Strange.
- shrikant 16y ago
  Woops, looks like they moved only the appearance over. The hover-snippet thing is is still visible only to logged in users. Sorry, hadn't tested it out first!
- pclark 16y ago
  It has to be enabled from the Gadgets preferneces for a logged in user: > Navigation popups, article previews and editing functions popup when hovering over links for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popu...
tomstuart 16y ago
Looks better, but the new autosuggest search has a horrible race condition: type fast, hit enter quickly, and you end up with a truncated or blank search string. Not an improvement!
gregwebs 16y ago
I stoppped editing Wikipedia when I realized the majority of my time was taken up by doing things that should have been automated by software. I was using the beta version at the time. I don't think this update will change things that much, although a good toolbar will help.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  I stopped editing Wikipedia when I realized the majority of my time was taken up by doing things that should have been automated by software. What are some examples?
  - gregwebs 16y ago
    I think the automation is not the traditional kind of automation, but instead software that supports getting the same thing done in a fraction of the time. Just the act of beginning an edit in WP is painful. I see where the article text is, then I have to click the edit button and wade through the editing text (this can be very difficult sometimes) to find it. The workflow that involves collaborating with other people is completely tedious- the talk pages are awful because this is not what wiki's were designed for. I would suggest moving to a model similar to version controlled software where changes can be staged and reviewed before committing, and discussions can be made around those changesets.
- bhiggins 16y ago
  A lot of other people have had the same thought and you know some of them did? They wrote some software to automate it.
pohl 16y ago
I was hoping that this would fix my only issue, but alas I think my issue is with Chrome. When I was a Safari user, I could call up Wikipedia and I knew that I just had to hit the TAB key once to get to the search field. Now that I've been lured away by Chrome, I go to Wikipedia and hit tab about half a dozen times before I give up and use the mouse pointer to put focus in the search field. It's a frustrating detail that I think Safari got right.
- rw 16y ago
  With Vimium, press f-S-E and you're there. Not as good as one keystroke, but better than using the mouse!
- bhiggins 16y ago
  Alt+Shift+F works for me on Chrome. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Keyboard_shortcuts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Keyboard_shortcuts -- I had to include Shift since Alt+F is used by Chrome to bring up the tools menu.

24 points by kuahyeow 16y ago

My biggest wish for Wikipedia UI: enable the "languages" feature in the mobile version. Having to switch to the standard layout on the iPhone really sucks.

Entlin 16y ago
I agree. This and access to categories are my 2 biggest wishes for the mobile version.

pmichaud 16y ago

It's a minor improvement--it's cleaner, it probably loads a little faster. Nothing drastic.

frou_dh 16y ago
Could it be an elusive big-site redesign without a user backlash?

ErrantX 16y ago

The only drawback for me is the navigation across the tops of pages. Fade effects might be a current fad but it doesn't quite work (I feel quite strained reading the nav)

aw3c2 16y ago

While I really like the look of the sidebar I find it weird that the Discussion page is deemed more important than the History.

ugh 16y ago

Looks good. Line lengths can still get way too long when surfing full screen on a high res monitor. My browser window is at the moment only 970px wide and one line already has more than 100 characters – that’s nearly too much. Yeah, it sucks when you get wide empty margins but running away from the problem won’t help.

lionhearted 16y ago

It's clean, but losing left-side navigation hurts a bit, since that's my default on almost every website. I'm not going to need to change languages or contact Wikipedia very often.

maw 16y ago
For the people who do switch languages often it's very handy to be able to do so quickly. Wikipedia is in its way an excellent translation tool when you're looking for relatively specialized terms.

shrikant 16y ago

Also, mouse-hover on an internal link brings up a snippet view of the resulting page. What is really cool is, this works for links in the snippet view as well, so you can open nested snippet after snippet. These had been available to logged in users as a Beta for quite a while now (~3 months? Can't remember when it started..)

bmunro 16y ago
This doesn't work for me. (Chrome/Linux) Sound quite cool though.
ugh 16y ago
Doesn’t work for me, neither in Firefox nor Safari. Strange.
shrikant 16y ago
Woops, looks like they moved only the appearance over. The hover-snippet thing is is still visible only to logged in users. Sorry, hadn't tested it out first!
pclark 16y ago
It has to be enabled from the Gadgets preferneces for a logged in user: > Navigation popups, article previews and editing functions popup when hovering over links for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popu...

tomstuart 16y ago

Looks better, but the new autosuggest search has a horrible race condition: type fast, hit enter quickly, and you end up with a truncated or blank search string. Not an improvement!

gregwebs 16y ago

I stoppped editing Wikipedia when I realized the majority of my time was taken up by doing things that should have been automated by software. I was using the beta version at the time. I don't think this update will change things that much, although a good toolbar will help.

tokenadult 16y ago
I stopped editing Wikipedia when I realized the majority of my time was taken up by doing things that should have been automated by software. What are some examples?
- gregwebs 16y ago
  I think the automation is not the traditional kind of automation, but instead software that supports getting the same thing done in a fraction of the time. Just the act of beginning an edit in WP is painful. I see where the article text is, then I have to click the edit button and wade through the editing text (this can be very difficult sometimes) to find it. The workflow that involves collaborating with other people is completely tedious- the talk pages are awful because this is not what wiki's were designed for. I would suggest moving to a model similar to version controlled software where changes can be staged and reviewed before committing, and discussions can be made around those changesets.
bhiggins 16y ago
A lot of other people have had the same thought and you know some of them did? They wrote some software to automate it.

pohl 16y ago

I was hoping that this would fix my only issue, but alas I think my issue is with Chrome. When I was a Safari user, I could call up Wikipedia and I knew that I just had to hit the TAB key once to get to the search field. Now that I've been lured away by Chrome, I go to Wikipedia and hit tab about half a dozen times before I give up and use the mouse pointer to put focus in the search field. It's a frustrating detail that I think Safari got right.

rw 16y ago
With Vimium, press f-S-E and you're there. Not as good as one keystroke, but better than using the mouse!
bhiggins 16y ago
Alt+Shift+F works for me on Chrome. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Keyboard_shortcuts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Keyboard_shortcuts -- I had to include Shift since Alt+F is used by Chrome to bring up the tools menu.