Wikifunctions:Design/About widget improvements
During this quarter (Q4FY24) we’ve been working on improving the experience of use of the About widget for multilingual readers and editors.
Problem statement
Wikifunctions currently provides a set of features that let translators and multilingual editors contribute in their own language. Despite being possible to add content in multiple languages, the process is not as efficient as it could be. Moreover, sometimes Wikifunctions displays content in a language that readers don’t know or can’t speak (T359772).
High level approach
The goals of this design proposal are:
- for readers, to confidently display content in languages that people are familiar with, and make it clear when content in their UI language is not available to provide a potential entry point for contribution.
- for editors, streamline the translation process, making it possible to add multiple translations in one unique publishing flow.
Key features
Accordion
Labels will be displayed inside an accordion that you can collapse, or expand.
Editing in-page
When creating a new object (e.g. test), it will be possible to add labels to an object without the need to open a separate dialog.
The same approach applies when you enter “quick-edit” or “edit source” mode. Content will be editable in-page, instead of in a separate dialog.
Content language
When reading, content will always be displayed in same language as your UI language.
Fallback language
If content is not available in your UI language, Wikifunctions will display a placeholder texts (e.g. Untitled) in the same language, and separately the same content in a fallback language, if available.
As a first step, the fallback language(s) will follow the MediaWiki "fallback sequence" API. We have a separate task (T340624) to possibly display content following a fallback-language-chain known to you, e.g. Arabic → French → English.
Helper text
When providing missing content, Wikifunctions will display a fallback language as a helper text below the text field.
Key flows
Quick-edit
“Quick-edit” will still be possible, but instead of displaying content in a dialog, it will be possible to edit existing or missing labels in-page.
Add a language
Adding a new language is still possible, but Wikifunctions will display your UI language as a suggested language, and then display all the other languages in which labels are available in alphabetical order. This is also part of some preliminary work needed for when Wikifunctions will be able to display a bespoke fallback-language-chain, so that suggested languages could reflect your known languages, in a specific order, e.g. Arabic → French → English.
Edit source
Edit source mode will stay the same, with the only difference that now you can edit labels in-page.
Feedback
We're looking for your feedback! What do you think of our current designs? What are the aspects that work, and what could be improved upon? Let us know in the discussion page.