User talk:Mistbreeze/Archive 21

Tech News: 2017-16
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You can add  to the end of the URL on Wikimedia wikis to disable your personal CSS and JavaScript. Example:  . This means you can test if a problem is because of your user scripts or gadgets without uninstalling them.
 * You can now see a list of all autoblocks on Special:AutoblockList.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The Wikiversity and Wikinews logos are now shown directly from the configuration and not from . If you want to change logo or have an anniversary logo, see how to request a configuration change. This is how it already works for other projects. They can request logo changes the same way.

Problems
 * Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 19 April. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this. This will also happen on 3 May.

Changes this week
 * There is no new Mediawiki version this week. This is because of the data centre test.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * stats.wikimedia.org will be replaced. You can see the new prototype. You can leave feedback on this change.
 * Page Previews will be turned on for logged-out users on a large number of wikis in May. It could be postponed and happen later. Page Previews shows readers a short part of a linked article when they rest their mouse pointer on the link. This is to help them understand what it is about without leaving the article they are reading. Page Previews used to be called Hovercards. Users who have tested the feature can give feedback.
 * Octicons-tools.svg From next week, user scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions will show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  19:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-17
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * New filters for recent changes are now available as a beta feature on most wikis. You can turn it on in your preferences. Remaining wikis will have the new filters on 9 May.
 * When administrators, bureaucrats and stewards make a user a member of a user group they can now set an expiry date. A user group is for example "administrators" or "bots". This means that they can give someone user rights for a limited time. This is similar to how blocks and page protections can be limited in time. Special:UserRights will have new options for this. You can read more about user groups.

Problems
 * Since the data centre test last week the content translation tool has been disabled. This is because of a database problem. It will be back as soon as the problem has been solved.

Changes this week
 * The GuidedTour extension will be enabled on all wikis. This is a tool to explain to new users how to edit.
 * Wiktionary will handle interlanguage links in a new way. The Cognate extension will automatically link pages with the same title between Wiktionaries. For this to work all old interlanguage links have to be removed. You can read more about this.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 April. It will be on all wikis from 27 April (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 25 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-18
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The content translation tool works again. It was turned off because of a database problem.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts. This is the same thing as Tech News wrote about in issue 2017/16. You need to add  block for your scripts also, or add   dependency in gadget ResourceLoader section in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition.

Problems
 * Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 3 May. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this.

Changes this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week. This is because of the data centre test.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * All Wikimedia wikis will have cookie blocks from May 8. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again.
 * The,   and   buttons will look slightly different. This is to fit with the OOUI look. Users can test scripts, gadgets and so on to see if they work with the new interface by adding   to the URL.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  19:50, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-19
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * Some users have a problem with the watchlist. Some changes in categories make the watchlist a blank page. The developers are working on this. Until this is fixed you can try some things that have helped other editors if you have this problem. You can turn on  in your watchlist preferences. You can turn off   in your watchlist preferences. You can remove problematic categories from Special:EditWatchlist/raw.
 * There was a problem with the visual editor for several days. You could not save edits that triggered a CAPTCHA. This would for example be when a new user added external links in references. This was fixed on 2 May.

Changes this week
 * When you edit you can switch between the visual editor and the wikitext editor. This works if the wiki you edit has the visual editor. The menu will now say  and   instead of   and  . This is because it was confusing when the menu said you could switch to the editor you were already using.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 May. It will be on all wikis from 11 May (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * You will be able to get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. This will come to Wikivoyage on 9 May. If there are no problems it will come to most Wikipedias on 30 May. It will come to other projects and English, French and German Wikipedia later in the summer. It will be opt-in for existing users and opt-out for new users.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. If  is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use   for transclusions and   in web addresses. A transclusion could for example be when you use   in a template:  . This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  02:25, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Editing News #1—2017
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

 Did you know?

Did you know that you can review your changes visually?

When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "". 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.



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



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 to enable the.

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. 

The team have added multi-column support for lists of footnotes. The  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. 

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.
 * 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.
 * The item has been moved to the top of the  menu (from clicking on the  VisualEditor - Icon - Menu.svg icon) for quicker access.  There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there.
 * You can now create   tags (sometimes used as  ) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor.
 * Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed.
 * The menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) .  The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt.
 * 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.
 * There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations:  + +  on a PC, or  + +  on a Mac.  It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is  +  on a PC or  +  on a Mac.

Future changes

 * The VisualEditor team is working with the Community Tech team on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of   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.
 * The kind of button used to, , 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   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.
 * 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.

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. User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-20
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You can now use ISBNs to automatically generate citations in the visual editor. This works on wikis that have enabled Citoid.
 * The Two Column Edit Conflict View is available as a beta feature on all wikis. It is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page.

Problems
 * The  library does not load automatically any more. Your Special:MyPage/common.js may use it. If you have technical problems that started a couple of weeks ago you can try adding   as the first line in the file and   as a last one. Tech News wrote about this in the 2017/18 issue.

Changes this week
 * The RevisionSlider extension will be a default feature on all wikis. RevisionSlider is an easier way to move between changes in the page history. It has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia and a beta feature on all wikis. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences.
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes
 * Administrators will soon be able to search through deleted pages.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. Tech News wrote about this last week. If   is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use   for transclusions and   in web addresses. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. You can now see the full list of wikis with this problem and help fix them to avoid that things break later this month. You might find false positives. You can read more about what to fix.

Older unreported changes
 * Your Meta user page is shown on all wikis where you don't have a local user page. You can now add the magic word  to your Meta user page to stop this.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  21:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Sunday May 21: Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon + global online challenge
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

May 24: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
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Tech News: 2017-21
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 May. It will be on all wikis from 25 May (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg There will be a  tag around HTML from the MediaWiki wikitext parser. Gadgets with code that does not follow recommendations could have problems with this. You can report new problems you think are related to this.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  22:14, 22 May 2017 (UTC)