CREDIT showcase (Community, Reading, Editing, Discovery, Infrastructure and Technology) is a monthly live-streamed meeting that demonstrations developers' recent work, such as new gadgets, experiments and independent projects. It is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, with presentations from Wikimedia Engineering teams or individuals. The following highlights have been taken from the February's CREDIT showcase, which is available in full on Commons (WebM video) or on YouTube.
Derk-Jan Hartman ( User:TheDJ) has written some CSS styling rules that makes Vector, the default desktop skin, adapt the display of content for both narrow and wide displays. These changes include limiting the width of content, adjusting the font size, and for wide screens, moving images and infoboxes into sidebars. The responsive content CSS is available on-wiki for users to install and test. [1]
Sage Ross has developed a framework for presenting community built training modules. The modules are designed to present "bite-sized" bits of information in a way that is easy to learn - a slideshow to navigate through, without lots of distracting links that on-wiki content usually has. The slide contents are pulled from wiki pages, which makes them editable and translatable.
Stephen Niedzielski demonstrated a small change in the developmental version of the Wikipedia Android app – a randomised locale is chosen when the first time the app launched after installation. This ensures single-lingual or even bilingual developers experience "a little bit of what the rest of the world sees" in one of the almost 300 languages other than English (or their preferred language). This makes developers less likely to be completely unaware of issues in other locales.
Newly approved bot tasks
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2017 #6, #7, & #8. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.
#wpSummary { padding: 0.2em !important; }
to
your CSS (the number can be adjusted until it looks right for you).type
and peers
. The type
option solves this problem. You can use peers
to create gadgets with more than one style module. Read more about
type and
peers. (
Phabricator task T42284)mw.loader.load( '/?title=User:TheDJ/responsiveContent.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css', 'text/css' ); // Backlink: [[User:TheDJ/responsiveContent.css]]
CREDIT showcase (Community, Reading, Editing, Discovery, Infrastructure and Technology) is a monthly live-streamed meeting that demonstrations developers' recent work, such as new gadgets, experiments and independent projects. It is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, with presentations from Wikimedia Engineering teams or individuals. The following highlights have been taken from the February's CREDIT showcase, which is available in full on Commons (WebM video) or on YouTube.
Derk-Jan Hartman ( User:TheDJ) has written some CSS styling rules that makes Vector, the default desktop skin, adapt the display of content for both narrow and wide displays. These changes include limiting the width of content, adjusting the font size, and for wide screens, moving images and infoboxes into sidebars. The responsive content CSS is available on-wiki for users to install and test. [1]
Sage Ross has developed a framework for presenting community built training modules. The modules are designed to present "bite-sized" bits of information in a way that is easy to learn - a slideshow to navigate through, without lots of distracting links that on-wiki content usually has. The slide contents are pulled from wiki pages, which makes them editable and translatable.
Stephen Niedzielski demonstrated a small change in the developmental version of the Wikipedia Android app – a randomised locale is chosen when the first time the app launched after installation. This ensures single-lingual or even bilingual developers experience "a little bit of what the rest of the world sees" in one of the almost 300 languages other than English (or their preferred language). This makes developers less likely to be completely unaware of issues in other locales.
Newly approved bot tasks
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2017 #6, #7, & #8. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.
#wpSummary { padding: 0.2em !important; }
to
your CSS (the number can be adjusted until it looks right for you).type
and peers
. The type
option solves this problem. You can use peers
to create gadgets with more than one style module. Read more about
type and
peers. (
Phabricator task T42284)mw.loader.load( '/?title=User:TheDJ/responsiveContent.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css', 'text/css' ); // Backlink: [[User:TheDJ/responsiveContent.css]]
Discuss this story
Regarding this "Android" business, I have been complaining at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/App lately. There was no intrinsic reason why Android logos should have been banner ads on the Type II diabetes article (they did respond by changing that to a phone), nor was I ready to put up with direct links to the Google Play Store in their proposed sidebar version (which they seem to be responding to). But this article is still continuing an idea that they have, that because they somehow have a version that works "all in one" in some kind of Google format, they should be pushing that company. I say no. It is entirely possible to download Kiwix (which is actually a Firefox knockoff) and view their ZIM archive files, or any ZIM archive from Wikipedia, without reference to Google hardware or software of any kind! There are even said to be other ZIM readers in development, and I see all such options as opportunities that should be pursued to ensure platform independence long term.
Yeah, yeah, they tell me they have 100,000 Google/Android downloads, of which 60,000 are still running (Google keeps track...). They tell me they get rave reviews. They know that Google owns the eyeballs of the captives of its phone, and with a simple sacrifice of earth and water we can have that power behind us. But -- this is Wikipedia! With them and now even with you, whether accidental or well-meaning, I'm getting a strong feeling of encroaching commercialization and control and the loss of the independence we should treasure. I want our site and our content, online or offline, to be a free and independent resource and not an ad or feature for any company. Wnt ( talk) 02:18, 28 February 2017 (UTC) reply
Our goal is not perfection, it is good enough. If we required perfection before doing anything Wikipedia would not exist. This app is not perfect either. We would love to see app versions for all systems. We; however, have limited numbers of volunteers and programmers (we would love more people to join us). We have thus prioritizing the biggest bang for the effort with the priority being those who need this content most (ie those in the developing world). This is why iOS was less of a priority.
Our work was also a proof of concept. The two step solution has existed for a much longer time than the one step solution; however, uptake of the two step solution was much lower. A one step solution has resulted in much greater up take which provides evidence that a one step solution is important. You say you "can't see any reason why anyone should care", I have evidence that they do.
By the way a number of offline medical apps based on Wikipedia content existed on the google play store before we created ours. People who wanted the app had to either pay for it or the app was full of adverting. The apps had very old versions of WP and did not contain pictures. Our apps are completely free, do not contain advertising, and are open source. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC) reply