[Wikitech-l] Talk to the Search Platform / Query Service Team—May 4th, 2022

[Trey Jones]

The Search Platform Team
 usually holds an
open meeting on the first Wednesday of each month. Come talk to us about
anything related to Wikimedia search, Wikidata Query Service (WDQS),
Wikimedia Commons Query Service (WCQS), etc.!


Feel free to add your items to the Etherpad Agenda for the next meeting.


Details for our next meeting:

Date: Wednesday, May 4th, 2022

Time: 15:00-16:00 GMT / 08:00-09:00 PDT / 11:00-12:00 EDT / 16:00-17:00 WAT
/ 17:00-18:00 CEST

Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Search_Platform_Office_Hours

Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/vgj-bbeb-uyi

Join by phone: https://tel.meet/vgj-bbeb-uyi?pin=8118110806927


Hope to talk to you next week!

—Trey


Trey Jones
Staff Computational Linguist, Search Platform
Wikimedia Foundation
UTC–4 / EDT
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[Wikitech-l] Re: Make working with templates easier: Several improvements coming to all wikis soon.

[Johanna Strodt]

Hi everyone,

The last set of improvements from our Templates project will be deployed to
all wikis soon:

1) Most wikis will receive a *fundamentally improved template dialog* in
VisualEditor and New Wikitext mode. This will make it easier to understand
what is expected from a template, how to navigate the template dialog, and
how to add parameters. These improvements have been active on a few wikis
for some months already. [1] All other wikis will get them now. We made a
little video summary of the changes. [2]  More information can be found on
the project page. [3]

2) In all wikis that are using the CodeMirror extension for *syntax
highlighting* (most left-to-right wikis), a *colorblind-friendly color
scheme* will be added. You’ll be able to activate it with a user setting.
Project page: [4]

Both of these changes are planned to be rolled out on all wikis on May 10,
except for English Wikipedia and those wikis that already have them.
The planned deployment on English Wikipedia is May 17. On this date,
English Wikipedia will also receive another improvement that is already
available on all other wikis: Making it easier to find and insert a
template on a page. [5]

These were the last out of seven projects in the Templates focus area.
Apart from these bigger projects, the Technical Wishes team improved a few
other user-facing issues and fixed some bugs related to working with
templates. You can learn more about it here: [6]

A big thank you to everyone who gave feedback already! Feedback on all the
projects is still much appreciated on their respective talk pages.

Many greetings from the Technical Wishes team,
Johanna

+++
Links and notes:
[1] Wikis that have already received the improved template dialog are:
German, Greek, Malay, Twi, French, Hungarian, Turkish, Hebrew, Finnish and
Dagbani Wikipedia; English Wikivoyage; Nauruan Wiktionary.
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Overview_of_changes_in_the_VisualEditor_template_dialog_by_WMDE_Technical_Wishes.webm
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/VisualEditor_template_dialog_improvements
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Improved_Color_Scheme_of_Syntax_Highlighting#Color-blind_mode
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Finding_and_inserting_templates
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Templates#Additional_improvements

Am Mo., 28. Feb. 2022 um 14:37 Uhr schrieb Johanna Strodt <
johanna.str...@wikimedia.de>:

> Hi everyone,
>
> In 2019, the German-speaking wikis selected “Make working with templates
> easier” as the focus area of Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes
> project. Since then, our team has made improvements in different areas, to
> help template creators as well as users of the wikitext editor and
> VisualEditor. Our work on this focus area is coming to an end, so I’d like
> to summarize what happened and lay out the next steps:
>
> Two changes from our Templates project have been available on all* wikis
> for a while already:
>
>-
>
>A new attribute “suggested values” was introduced to help you clarify
>what values a parameter may expect. [1]
>-
>
>Line numbers are shown in the “Template” namespace when syntax
>highlighting (CodeMirror extension) is turned on. [2] A few wikis have
>these line numbers in _all_ namespaces. If you want this for your wiki as
>well, please reach out to us.
>
> Several other changes were deployed to a small group in the past months. A
> big thanks to Catalan, Turkish, Greek, Malay, Twi, French, Hungarian,
> Hebrew, Finnish, Dagbani and German Wikipedia, to English Wikivoyage and
> Nauruan Wiktionary as well as Wikitech wiki for testing these changes and
> giving feedback to help us improve these projects. These changes are now
> coming to more wikis:
>
>-
>
>Finding and inserting templates will become easier with an improved
>search (in the TemplateWizard & in the template dialog of VisualEditor and
>New Wikitext mode). [3]
>-
>
>In VisualEditor, you’ll be able to remove a template from a page via
>the context menu, just like removing a table or an image. [4]
>-
>
>In VisualEditor, the template dialog will become bigger and
>descriptions will be more visible. [5]
>-
>
>When using syntax highlighting (CodeMirror extension)*, matching
>brackets will be highlighted [6] and the color scheme will be updated
>for better readability [7].
>
> The planned deployment date for all of these changes is March 9 (and March
> 16 on English Wikipedia).
>
> A few weeks later, we’ll be deploying the last improvements from our
> Templates project:
>
>-
>
>For syntax highlighting (CodeMirror extension), a colorblind-friendly
>color scheme will be added. You’ll be able to activate it via a user
>setting.
>-
>
>A range of fundamental changes to the VisualEditor template dialog
>will be deployed. They will make it easier to