Wikipedia:Dazzle!/News

__NEWSECTIONLINK__

2009-08-28: Dazzle! Beta released

 * August 28, 2009, Drilnoth

Dazzle! Beta has been officially released. It has only one built-in tool, for proposed deletion-related edits, but more are expected to be coming soon. Initial documentation has been written.

2009-08-29: Deletable images tool in Alpha

 * August 29, 2009, Drilnoth

I have begun work on a "deletable images" tool, which allows you to add templates like di-no source and di-no permission to images. This is still in Alpha and not ready for general use. Current to-do list: Tag article pages with deletable image-caption; allow for handling of more templates. I hope to have the Beta available in one-two weeks.

2009-09-05: Bug fixes, new features, and other news

 * September 5, 2009, Drilnoth

Deletable images: The public alpha of the "deletable images" tool is now available as a part of Dazzle! Beta. This alpha version only allows you to tag images and notify their uploader; it does not yet allow for nominations to be contested the way that the proposed deletion module can.

Bug fixes: Dazzle! now functions correctly in both the monobook and vector (Beta) skins. Other skins remain untested.

Current project: A "report" tool is planned as the next module. It will allow you to report users to locations such as WP:AIV, WP:AN3, and WP:UAA.

2009-09-08: PROD module sped up

 * September 8, 2009, Drilnoth

I have drastically reworked the way that the proposed deletion module makes its edits; see this diff if you want all the gory details. In short, editing should now be done faster because multiple pages will be edited simultaneously, instead of each edit waiting until the previous one has been completed, and the page shouldn't be blocked while Dazzle! is editing (in other words, you'll be able to open links and the like in new tabs normally). I hope to implement similar functionality for the deletable images module in the near future.

2009-09-10: Downtime (and improvements!) anticipated

 * September 10, 2009, Drilnoth

Dazzle! will not be functioning for a little while... probably anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours... shortly due to code updates. This is primarily to cleanup the code, and there will be very few user-visible changes after this time. However, I hope to improve the deletable images module to make it faster and to have some more options within another day or so.

2009-09-21: Edit summary, speed, and deleted pages

 * September 21, 2009, Drilnoth

A number of minor changes have been made to Dazzle!:
 * The default edit summary is now separated into two "sections". The first section is the actual summary of the edit, and the second section (which is in its own set of parentheses) provides the link back to Dazzle!
 * Editing should be slightly faster, as the script no longer makes as many requests from the Wikipedia API.
 * The PROD tab no longer shows up on nonexistent pages.

2009-09-25: First toolbox function in Beta

 * September 25, 2009, Drilnoth

I've been reworking Dazzle!'s code recently (again; I think I'm getting close to having a finalized code base for the script), and I developed a new function, called SiteInfo, while I was testing out the new code. Originally it was meant to just be a quick thing that would never really be used, existing only for testing, but then I came up with the idea of Dazzle!/Toolbox. The toolbox stores links to Dazzle! functions that you don't usually need to access on every page, but may want to use occasionally. SiteInfo, which displays general information about the status of Wikipedia, is the first of these functions.

2009-10-19: More code reworking, future modules, and delays

 * October 19, 2009, Drilnoth

Work on Dazzle! has been delayed more than I had anticipated due to Real Life&trade;; I hope to get back on a "new module every 2 or 3 weeks" schedule soon. The next module, a "report" tool, should be available in Alpha within a week or two barring any bugs (Alpha meaning that it only reports to WP:AIV, but doesn't allow for other report locations, which will come in the Beta). This particular function may be trickier to code because it has to handle edit conflicts... most modules don't need to worry about conflicts to much, but AIV is so high-traffic that not handling conflicts would be unacceptable. This may cause additional delays, but I'm hoping that it shouldn't take too much longer than it would without conflict handling.

I've also started (another) code redesign, hopefully the last real one. This redesign makes the code easier to maintain and reuse... creating new modules and non-Dazzle! scripts using the same basic toolkit should be easier and more flexible. Most importantly, however, this redesign gives Dazzle! a major speed increase. It used to be that Dazzle! had to make multiple HTTP requests, each time waiting for the previous request to complete before starting another one; now, it makes multiple requests at the same time when possible. Right now this new set of code is only "live" in the PROD module, but I hope to extend it to DI and SiteInfo soon. Please report any new bugs at Wikipedia talk:Dazzle! as normal.

2009-10-20: Faster version live in all modules

 * October 20, 2009, Drilnoth

The code improvements described in the October 19 news are now live in all Dazzle! modules.

2009-10-22: New vector tab functionality

 * October 22, 2009, Drilnoth

Those of you who have tried the Wikimedia Usability Initiative's "Beta" Wikipedia probably know that many of monobook's "tabs" are collapsed into a single dropdown menu in the Beta version, which uses the "Vector" skin. If you have a lot of scripts installed, the sheer number of links in that menu can get rather out of hand! But not to worry... I've just added some code to Dazzle! which adds a second dropdown menu specifically for the various Dazzle! modules. This functionality can be deactivated (putting the links in the normal dropdown instead) by configuring your installation of Dazzle!, as described at WP:DZ!.

2009-10-29: Report tool in alpha

 * October 29, 2009, Drilnoth

The alpha version of Dazzle!'s report tool is now included in the script. Currently, it's only function is to report users to WP:AIV. I also hope to release a beta version of the tool soon, which will also include the ability to report to places like WP:UAA and WP:AIV; I also hope to add a link to the tool when viewing Special:Contributions, not only user pages.

Warning: This truly is an "alpha" script. I do not personally do much anti-vandalism work and, therefore, cannot extensively test it at WP:AIV. Whenever you use this tool while it is in alpha or early beta, please check AIV and make sure that the notice was posted correctly and that the script didn't overwrite any edits at the same time (I tried to implement edit conflict detection, but I really haven't been able to truly test it yet). If there are any issues with the script, please notify me at Wikipedia talk:Dazzle!.

2009-11-03: Reporter special page support

 * November 2, 2009, Drilnoth

Dazzle!'s report tool now functions on Special:Contributions and Special:Log pages.