User talk:Discott: Difference between revisions

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Did you know?

VisualEditor's toolbar has a new drop-down menu that contains all character formatting: bold, italics, subscript, superscript, strikethrough, computer code, underline, and the ability to remove all formatting from text.

For more information about how to use VisualEditor, read the user guide.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some toolbar improvements, fixing bugs, and improving support for Indic languages as well as other languages with complex characters. The current focus is on improving the reference dialog and expanding the new character inserter tool.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

• Rich copying and pasting is now available. If you copy text from another website, then character formatting and some other HTML attributes are preserved. This means, for example, that if you copy a pre-formatted suggested citation from a source like this, then VisualEditor will preserve the formatting of the title in the citation. Keep in mind that copying the formatting may include formatting that you don't want (like section headings). If you want to paste plain, unformatted text onto a page, then use Control+⇧ Shift+V or ⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+V (Mac).
• Auto-numbered external links like [1] can now be edited just like any other link. However, they cannot be created in VisualEditor easily.
• Several changes to the toolbar and dialogs have been made, and more are on the way. The toolbar has been simplified with a new drop-down text styles menu and an "insert" menu. Your feedback on the toolbar is wanted here. The transclusion/template dialog has been simplified. If you have enabled mathematical formula editing, then the menu item is now called the formula editor instead of LaTeX.
• There is a new character inserter, which you can find in the new "insert" menu, with a capital Omega ("Ω"). It's a very basic set of characters. Your feedback on the character inserter is wanted here.
• Saving the page should seem faster by several seconds now.
• It is now possible to access VisualEditor by manually editing the URL, even if you are not logged in or have not opted in to VisualEditor normally.  To do so, append ?veaction=edit to the end of the page name.  For example, change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random?veaction=edit to open a random page in VisualEditor.  This is intended to support bug testing across multiple browsers, without requiring editors to login repeatedly.

Looking ahead: The transclusion dialog will see further changes in the coming weeks, with a simple mode for single templates and an advanced mode for more complex transclusions. The new character formatting menu on the toolbar will get an arrow to show that it is a drop-down menu. The reference dialog will be improved, and the Reference item will become a button in the main toolbar, rather than an item in the Insert menu.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations for making the Commons main page today! HelenOnline 07:32, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Helen, it was quite by accident. I did not mean for the Xmas day featured media to be my clip of a protest but I guess that's just how it panned out. Good to see that it made it though.--Discott (talk) 06:57, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Douglas. FYI I have added some categories for these images including a new one for the Right2Know Campaign. I removed the TAC category from the video as I could not find any evidence of them in the photos or video. I categorised those with Zackie Achmat under a new category for him (he is no longer with TAC and was wearing an Ndifuna Ukwazi T-shirt and not displaying any TAC logos). BTW your Commons user page redirects new messages here so I am assuming this is where you want it posted. Please let me know if you have any questions. HelenOnline 10:52, 27 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Helen, thanks for doing all of that. I think it is much needed. I believe Zachie is still, some what, associated with the TAC but you are right in pointing out that he is more deeply involved in the Right2Know campaign and particularly in the Khayelitsha policing inquiry and Social Justice Coalition generally. Thanks for directing all enquiries here. I am trying to centralise my Wiki correspondence to this page as much as possible these days.--Discott (talk) 11:10, 27 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I was going insane until I realized I was being redirected here. I would love to sort out all the SA Commons categories but I fear it may be a black hole from which I never return. :) HelenOnline 11:36, 27 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2015_bids/Cape_Town Idyllic press (talk) 14:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On 12 January 2014, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Death and state funeral of Nelson Mandela, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the sign language interpreter for the state memorial service of Nelson Mandela made meaningless hand gestures that did not reflect established signs? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for uploading File:Queens 21st bday in Ottery 1947.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the page from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of the website's terms of use of its content. If the original copyright holder is a party unaffiliated with the website, that author should also be credited. Please add this information by editing the image description page.

If the necessary information is not added within the next days, the image will be deleted. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem.

Please refer to the image use policy to learn what images you can or cannot upload on Wikipedia. Please also check any other files you have uploaded to make sure they are correctly tagged. Here is a list of your uploads. If you have any questions or are in need of assistance please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 00:08, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for uploading or contributing to File:Div Hottentots Victory.jpg. I notice the file page specifies that the file is being used under non-free content criteria, but there is not a suitable explanation or rationale as to why each specific use in Wikipedia is acceptable. Please go to the file description page, and edit it to include a non-free rationale.

If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified the non-free rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem. If you have any questions, please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 01:10, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

To add templates, go to the "Insert" menu and choose the "Transclusion" (puzzle piece) item. Enter the name of the template and click "Add template". If TemplateData exists for the template, then a list of possible parameters will appear. If not, you can add parameters yourself by typing the parameter name under "Add parameter". For unnamed parameters, use numbers ("1" for the first unnamed parameter).

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked mostly minor features and fixing bugs. A few significant bugs include working around a bug in CSSJanus that was wrongly flipping images used in some templates in right-to-left (RTL) environments (bug 50910) a major bug that meant inserting any template or other transclusion failed (bug 59002), a major but quickly resolved problem due to an unannounced change in MediaWiki core, which caused VisualEditor to crash on trying to save (bug 59867). This last bugs did not appear on any Wikipedia. Additionally, significant work has been done in the background to make VisualEditor work as an independent editing system.

As of today, VisualEditor is now available as an opt-out feature to all users at 149 active Wikipedias.

• The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu has a very basic set of characters. The character inserter is especially important for languages that use Latin and Cyrillic alphabets with unusual characters or frequent diacritics. Your feedback on the character inserter is requested. In addition to feedback from any interested editor, the developers would particularly like to hear from anyone who speaks any of the 50+ languages listed under Phase 5 at mw:VisualEditor/Rollouts, including Breton, Mongolian, Icelandic, Welsh, Afrikaans, Macedonian, and Azerbaijani.
• meta:Office hours on IRC have been heavily attended recently. The next one will be held this coming Wednesday, 22 January at 23:00 UTC.
• You can now edit some of the page settings in the "options" dialog – __NOTOC__ and __FORCETOC__ as selection (forced on, forced off, or default setting; bugs 56866 and 56867) and __NOEDITSECTION__ as a checkbox (bug 57166).
• The automated browser tests were adjusted to speed them up and bind more correctly to list items in lists, and updated to a newer version of their ruby dependencies. You can monitor the automated browser tests' results (triggered every twelve hours) live on the server.
• Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide was updated recently to show some new and upcoming features.

Looking ahead: The character formatting menu on the toolbar will get a drop-down indicator next Thursday. The reference and media items will be the first two listed in the Insert menu. The help menu will get a page listing the keyboard shortcuts. Looking further out, image handling will be improved, including support for alignment (left, right, and center) and better control over image size (including default and upright sizes). The developers are also working on support for editing redirects and image galleries.

Subscriptions to this newsletter are managed at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Please add or remove your name to change your subscription settings. If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:04, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You going to make it? Wizzy…☎ 09:35, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Now 11:45. At Truth Cafe since 11. You still coming? Zingi (talk) 09:52, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Guys, I have been here since 10:30am and am still here now. I have put up a small sign on the main table.--Discott (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Quick question, are you at the Truth Coffee on Buitenkant St.?--Discott (talk) 11:21, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep a lookout for this sign on the main table. We are still here. --Discott (talk) 11:46, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Zingi, it seems like we missed each other some how today. Sorry about that. In the future I will inform everyone to lookout for the Wikimeetup sign which will be on the table we are using. I will also seek to keep it at the same place at Truth Coffee on Buitenkant Street to avoid confusion. Last time we had it at the other Truth coffee at Preswitch so I think that caused some confusion.--Discott (talk) 12:28, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. Apology acccepted. Note that the Prestwich Truth Cafe is on Buitengacht Street - not too dissimilar to Buitenkant Street. So it is best to take care to avoid this type of confusion in future - as you say. I certainly will try to attend the next meet. Having your phone number will certily help! Zingi (talk) 13:09, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the welcome. I build and edit tax information documents on certain tax jurisdictions worldwide as freelance. The documents I edit are professional quality and are produced for very large accounting firms to onsell to their clients. I used to edit three different S. African ones on a monthly basis for changes in tax legislation. They tend to be around 20,000 to 50,000 words, so are highly detailed. South Africa is not one of my jurisdictions any more, but I was doing a short piece for a new project. I have never edited anything on Wikipedia before and I was not sure about etiquette. The information on the S. African page is fairly sparse compared to others I have looked at. I noticed the out-of-date entries and just thought I would dip my toe in. When I get a chance I will have another look at the page and see if I can help some more. The tax year changes in at the end of next month, so it will need updating after that anyway.Taxtaxtax (talk) 20:16, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know and thank you again, it was a good addition to the article. I don't know if I would have spotted it as I am no tax expert. --Discott (talk) 06:49, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Discott,

I want to grab and use your Tsinghua University userbox. It has the right color scheme but without the emblem. Do you have plans to add the emblem to the userbox? If not, would you mind I to grab your code and make my own version? Ahyangyi (talk) 06:29, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ahyangyi, you are welcome to grab it but I must tell you that the reason way it does not have the Tsinghua emblem is because of copyright issues. A few years ago a banner using the emblem was made but the emblem was deleted for copyright reasons. So before you do create it I suggest you find a way around the copyright issue. I think the Beijing University userbox has found a way around this. Good luck--Discott (talk) 09:09, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

You can easily re-use references by going to the Insert menu, choosing "Reference", and clicking on "Use an existing reference" in the lower left corner. A list of all references, their numbers, and their ref names (if any) will be shown. You can search the list for any author, title, date, or other keyword. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some small changes to the user interface, such as moving the reference item to the top of the Insert menu, as well as some minor features and fixing bugs, especially for rich copying and pasting of references.

The biggest change was the addition of more features to the image dialog, including the ability to set alignment (left, right, center), framing options (thumbnail, frame, frameless, and none), adding alt text, and defining the size manually. There is still some work to be done here, including a quick way to set the default size.

• The main priority is redesigning the reference dialog, with the goal of providing autofill features for ISBNs and URLs and streamlining the process. Current concept drawings are available at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. Please share your ideas about making referencing quick and easy with the designers.
• A few bugs in the existing reference dialog were fixed. The toolbar was simplified to remove galleries and lists from the reference dialog. When you re-use references, it now correctly displays the references again, rather than just the number and name. If you paste content into a dialog that can't fit there (e.g. ==section headings== in references), it now strips out the inappropriate HTML.
• You can now edit image galleries inside VisualEditor. At this time, the gallery tool is a very limited option that gives you access to the wikitext. It will see significant improvements at a later date.
• The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu is being redesigned. Your feedback on the special character inserter is still wanted, especially if you depend on Wikipedia's character inserters for your normal editing rather than using the ones built into your computer.
• You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu (three bars next to the Cancel button) (Template:Bug).
• If you edit categories, your changes will now display correctly after saving the page (Template:Bug).
• Saving the page should be faster now (Template:Bug).
• Any community can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData by leaving a note at Template:Bug.

Looking ahead: The link tool will tell you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. The warning about wikitext will hide itself after you remove the wikitext markup in that paragraph. Support for creating and editing redirects is in the pipeline. Looking further out, image handling will be improved, including default and upright sizes. The developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments, some behavioral magic words like DISPLAYTITLE, and in-line language setting (dir="rtl").

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

The template dialog has been simplified to make it faster and easier to add parameter data. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has mostly worked on changes to the template and image dialogs.

The biggest change in the last few weeks was the redesign of the template dialog. The template dialog now opens in a simplified mode that lists parameters and their descriptions. (The complex multi-item transclusion mode can be reached by clicking on "Show options" from inside the simplified template dialog.) Template parameters now have a bigger, auto-sizing input box for easier editing.  With today's update, searching for template parameters will become case-insensitive, and required template parameters will display an asterisk (*) next to their edit boxes. In addition to making it quicker and easier to see everything when you edit typical templates, this work was necessary to prepare for the forthcoming simplified citation dialog. The main priority in the coming weeks is building this new citation dialog, with the ultimate goal of providing autofill features for ISBNs, URLs, DOIs and other quick-fills. This will add a new button on the toolbar, with the citation templates available picked by each wiki's community. Concept drawings can be seen at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. Please share your ideas about making referencing quick and easy with the designers.

• The link tool now tells you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. Pages that exist, but are not indexed by the search engine, are treated like non-existent pages (Template:Bug).
• Wikitext warnings will now hide when you remove wikitext from the paragraph you are editing.
• The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu has been slightly redesigned, to introduce larger buttons. Your suggestions for more significant changes to the special character inserter are still wanted.
• The page options menu (three bars, next to the Cancel button) has expanded. You can create and edit redirect pages, set page options like __STATICREDIRECT__, __[NO]INDEX__ and __[NO]NEWEDITSECTION__, and more.  New keyboard shortcuts are listed there, and include undoing the last action, clearing formatting, and showing the shortcut help window. If you switch from VisualEditor to wikitext editing, your edit will now be tagged.
• It is easier to edit images. There are more options and they are explained better. If you add new images to pages, they will also be default size.  You can now set image sizes to the default, if another size was previously specified. Full support for upright sizing systems, which more readily adapt image sizes to the reader's screen size, is planned.
• VisualEditor adds fake blank lines so you can put your cursor there. These "slugs" are now smaller than normal blank lines, and are animated to be different from actual blank lines.
• You can use the Ctrl+Alt+S or ⌘ Command+⌥ Option+S shortcuts to open the save window, and you can preview your edit summary when checking your changes in the save window.
• After community requests, VisualEditor has been deployed to the Interlingual Occidental Wikipedia, the Portuguese Wikibooks, and the French Wikiversity.
• Any community can ask for custom icons for their language in the character formatting menu (bold, italic, etc.) by making a request on Bugzilla or by contacting Product Manager James Forrester.

The developers apologize for a regression bug with the deployment on 6 March 2014, which caused the incorrect removal of |upright size definitions on a handful of pages on the English Wikipedia, among others. The root cause was fixed, and the broken pages were fixed soon after.

Looking ahead:  Several template dialogs will become more compact. Looking further out, the developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments. You will be able to see the Table of Contents change live as you edit the page, rather than it being hidden. In-line language setting (dir="rtl") may be offered to a few Wikipedias soon.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback or by joining the office hours on 19 April 2014 at 2000 UTC. Thank you! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, regarding your addition of the information on the South African Burger King expansion I did not delete it, I moved it to the Burger King franchises article. It is because the main Burger King article is in summary style, and does not focus on specifics. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 16:51, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jeremy , thanks for the clarification. Sorry for the confusion. --Discott (talk) 12:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved the draft to article-space at Khayelitsha Commission, FYI. There's still plenty of scope to add more info, especially on what's been revealed during the hearings. - htonl (talk) 00:13, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks htonl for adding, editing, and moving the article. I agree, there is still plenty to add particularly as the commission concludes. I will continue to add to it. --Discott (talk) 08:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for coordinating the Cape Town bid. Sometimes I worry about the burden of work put on volunteers to organize these things in such uncertain settings. I thought that Cape Town made as good of a bid as could be expected and had anticipated selection for the location. If not now, Africa has to happen eventually, and your bid seemed well-formed. I hope that if Cape Town can make another bid then the information you collected does not go too stale or out of date. Open Society Foundations has been good to me as well. Might you be able to go to Wikimania in London? If so, message me around the time of the conference and let's talk about OSF and like organizations together. I wish that the Wikipedia community had better partnerships with other organizations. Also, if in the future you need proposal comments from the chapter in New York then message me. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:19, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the coffee. I will indeed be at Wikimania London this year and would be happy to talk about OSF stuff. I am even helping Ed out on a few things in preparation for it.--Discott (talk) 18:12, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Bluerasberry, I thought you might like to know that I a proposed presentation on funding at London where I will talk about our experiences in getting funding from OSF amongst other things.--Discott (talk) 09:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

You can use VisualEditor to make redirects. First, remove any unwanted content from the page. Then go to the "Page options" menu (next to "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cancel⧽") and choose the "Page settings" item. Click the box to "Redirect this page to". In the box, type in the name of the page that you want to redirect this page to.

You can also set or remove categories for the redirect in the "Page options" menu. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has mostly worked on performance improvements, image settings, and preparation for a simplified citation template tool in its own menu.

• In an oft-requested improvement, VisualEditor now displays red links (links to non-existent pages) in the proper color. Links to sister projects and external URLs are still the same blue as local links.
• You can now open templates by double-clicking them or by selecting them and pressing  Return.  This also works for references, images, galleries, mathematical equations, and other "nodes".
• VisualEditor has been disabled for pages that were created as translations of other pages using the Translate extension (common at Meta and MediaWiki.org). If a page has been marked for translation, you will see a warning if you try to edit it using VisualEditor.
• When you try to edit protected pages with VisualEditor, the full protection notice and most recent log entry are displayed. Blocked users see the standard message for blocked users.
• The developers fixed a bug that caused links on sub-pages to point to the wrong location.
• The size-changing controls in the advanced settings section of the media or image dialog were simplified further. VisualEditor's media dialog supports more image display styles, like borderless images.
• If there is not enough space on your screen to display all of the tabs (for instance, if your browser window is too narrow), the second edit tab will now fold into the drop-down menu (where the "Move" item is currently housed). On the English Wikipedia, this moves the "Edit beta" tab into the menu; on most projects, it moves the "Edit source" tab. This is only enabled in the default Vector skin, not for Monobook users. See this image for an example showing the "Edit source" and "View history" tabs after they moved into the drop-down menu.
• After community requests, VisualEditor has been deployed as an opt-in feature at Meta and on the French Wikinews.

Looking ahead:  A new, locally controlled menu of citation templates will put citations immediately in front of users. You will soon be able to see the Table of Contents while editing. Support for upright image sizes (preferred for accessibility) is being developed. In-line language setting (dir="rtl") will be offered as a Beta Feature soon. Looking further out, the developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments. It will be possible to upload images to Commons from inside VisualEditor.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback or by joining the office hours on Monday, 19 May 2014 at 18:00 UTC. If you'd like to get this on your own page, subscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor#Newsletter for English Wikipedia only or at meta:VisualEditor/Newsletter for any project. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]