Links for 2008-03-18
- Not the Wikipedia Weekly has arrived at Episode 3., in four parts. The first three parts are mostly talking to Sue Gardner, the WMF Executive Director. The last part contains some excellent discussion with Mark Pellegrini about scientists, journals, copyright, Wikipedia, free science and free culture.
- MediaWiki Easter egg hunt: There’s a SUL pilot coming up! (I confess I stumbled across something SUL-like in my Commons prefs last week, and now it is gone.)
This is a preview of what the Commons upload form may look like one of these days… if I have anything to do with it :)
Things to note:
- separate fields for separate pieces of info
- pop-up tooltips (one pointed at), providing extra information about what info is expected, without crowding out the form
- categories are added via HotCat, which means you don’t have to know the name of the category before you start uploading (!)
- the license preview is also provided via a tooltip, so you don’t get the annoying “jump” of the default form (licenses also tend to take up rather a lot of space, and a tooltip can be dismissed, unlike a preview)
- there’s now a preview button for the whole page (unfortunately not the actual image — that will require MediaWiki hacking directly — but all the text)
I love this form :) Try it yourself, if you’re logged in at Commons.
Comment
That’s a really beautiful upload form. I look forward to seeing something like it in general use on commons.
— Tracy Poff · 19. March 2008, 03:45
Presumably need developer assistance or javascript or something but ya, love it.
— Lar · 19. March 2008, 07:31
Very cool, especially the error messages. A few comments though:
* if the special charater list only inserts into the original source field, there is little point in having it at the bottom. Either move it up below that field, or rewrite insertTags() so that it inserts into wherever the cursor is.
* I use the english interface, but I would still like to give descriptions in my own language. It would be nice to have a setting for that, maybe through some monobook.js variable.
* changing the license still makes the form jump, because of the spinner thing (though it never really annoyed me).
* why not show localized licenses? Technically that should be simple, just load Template:Whatever/langcode instead of Template:Whatever.
* HotCat would be much more useful if one could also browse categories hierarchically, not only alphabetically. I wrote such a tool for the Hungarian Wikipedia (there is no withJS option there, but you can try by registering and enabling the third gadget from the top, then clicking on the last icon above an edit box), which is pre-API, and uses a rather ugly hack, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to write something similar using the API.
— Tgr · 19. March 2008, 22:33
@ Tgr,
* special characters insert – noted, thanks
* descriptions – you can totally describe in your language!!! that’s what the language drop-down list on the left of the “description” box is for! And the “+” button adds another such box below it, for multiple descriptions. Do you find the interface un-obvious? Any suggestions on that?
* Localised licenses – there is a bit of an established tradition that only the main page of a license template “counts” as that “real” license. It would be easy to do (in fact the translated templates could be added to drop down lists right now), but it would deserve some consideration first.
* Hierarchical hotcat – can you copy the code to a page on Commons? I will try it out.
For further detailed comments, I suggest to write a note on my Commons talk page.
— pfctdayelise · 19. March 2008, 22:58
Commenting is closed for this article.
The Wikipedia of metaphors Some interesting recent Featured Pictures
