Mapframe maps now work on English Wikipedia

English Wikipedians can now use the mapframe function to embed maps right on a page. The map shown here (which indicates the location of this year’s Wikimania conference) demonstrates the functionality. Mapframe was requested by the English community via RfC last year and the request was reconfirmed this spring. If you’re new to mapframe, this Kartographer help page shows how to use it.

Expect more significant new features in the coming weeks, with the implementation of the long-awaited map internationalization features. After internationalization, maps will display in the content language of the wiki they’re published on. Until then, they will continue to display in the language of the territory mapped. (You can experiment with internationalized maps on testwiki now—here’s a page of examples.)

These features are brought to you as part of the Map Improvements 2018 project. Let developers know what you think on the project talk page. — JMatazzoni (WMF) (adapted from VPT post)

AdvancedSearch

Since May 8, AdvancedSearch has been available as a beta feature in your wiki. The feature enhances the search page through an advanced parameters form and aims to make existing search options more visible and accessible for everyone. AdvancedSearch is a project by WMDE Technical Wishes.

AdvancedSearch serves as an interface for some of the special search options that are already provided in CirrusSearch, but are difficult to find or to remember – especially when you want to combine several of them. E.g. you would get the same results if you manually type intitle:foo into the search field or use advancedSearch for that. The advantages of AdvancedSearch include visibility of existing options, syntax discoverability and easier combination of search parameters. – Birgit Müller (WMDE) (adapted from VPT post)

TemplateStyles

TemplateStyles allow custom CSS pages to be used to style content without an administrator having to edit sitewide CSS. This will make it more convenient for editors to style templates; for example, those templates for which the sitewide CSS for the mobile skin or another skin (e.g. Timeless) currently negatively affects the display of the template.

TemplateStyles is currently enabled on MediaWiki.org, German Wikipedia, and Swedish Wikipedia. Discussion for its deployment is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#RfC: Enabling TemplateStyles, and usage guidelines are being developed at Wikipedia:TemplateStyles.

Further information is available on MediaWiki.org, including a help page and examples.

A new way to reference different sections of the same work

Referencing multiple sections of the same work in an article is currently cumbersome. Editors have asked for an easier way to do this for more than ten years. In 2013 and 2015 a wish to change this made it into Wikimedia Germany’s Technical Wishlist and it was wish #24 in the international Community Wishlist survey 2015.

WMDE's Technical Wishes team conceptualized an idea how the problem could be solved: A generic solution that can be used for any refinement, such as pages, chapters, verses etc., and that could be used as a voluntary option, not forcing the users who don’t want to change their working mode to use it.

In order to find out if they can start working on this solution, the team is inviting editors from all wikis to have a look at it and tell us what they think in a feedback round from May 14th to May 27th. – Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (adapted from VPT post)

In brief

New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience

• Subpages ^[1] ( source) by User:Bellezzasolo – add a "Subpages" link to the toolbox, which shows subpages of the current page
• Vote Symbols Plus ^[2] ( source) by User:Pythoncoder — modified version of Vote Symbols with new keywords and icons, plus a few bugfixes from the original Vote Symbols.
• KmlToJson ^[3] ( source) by User:Evad37 – converts KML files into GeoJSON, for use in mapframe maps.
• Metadata-timeless ^[4] ( source) by User:Evad37 – hack to load the Metadata gadget when using the Timeless skin

Bot tasks

Latest tech news

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2018 #18, #19, & #20. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

Recent changes

• The Wikimedia Commons mobile app has a new version, funded by a WMF individual engagement grant. It is now easier to find nearby places that need pictures. It helps you with direct uploads and title and category suggestions. The app only works on Android phones. [1]
• The parameter for unpatrolled edits in recent changes filters changed name. You might need to update saved filters and links. [2]
• You will be able use CodeMirror in the 2017 wikitext editor on all wikis. CodeMirror helps with syntax highlighting. It has previously been a beta feature and only available on wikis with scripts that are written from left to right. [3]
• When an administrator blocks someone they will have a calendar they can use to choose when the block ends. This is to make it easier to pick a specific date. [4]
• You can soon turn on the Performance Inspector in the Editing section in your preferences. It shows information about the performance of pages. This could be the size of modules in the page, how many CSS selectors are defined on the page and how many are used, or the size of the images on the page. This tool is intended to help editors fix pages that load slowly. [5]
• There is a new abuse filter function called equals_to_any. You can use it to check if its first argument is equal (===) to any of the following ones. For example you can use it to check if the page's namespace is amongst a given set of values in a more compact way than you could earlier. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
• The advanced search function beta feature will be on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. [6]
• Dynamic maps are now available on most Wikipedias. Labels on maps can also be in different languages.
• The new Advanced Search interface is now available as a Beta Feature on all wikis. This makes it easier to learn about and to use many of the powerful options in our search. Feedback is appreciated. [7]

Problems

• Tech team are migrating wikis from Tidy to Remex. Because of a bug the 250 wikis which do not yet use Remex were switched on 23 April. This is two months early. This meant that pages with broken wikitext showed wrongly to readers. The bug was undone the next day. You can help fix broken wikitext to avoid this problem when your wiki switches. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. You can follow the process on Phabricator. [8]
• The abuse filters had a problem with blocks where you had changed how long they last. It used the default length everywhere. This was in late April. Abuse filter users should make sure the right block length is used and change them if needed. This is only for filters where how long blocks last had been changed. [9]

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Cloud Services team is working on a new project called Toolhub. The goal is to make it easier for Wikimedians to discover software tools they can use. You can leave feedback on the talk page or email jharewikimedia.org to leave private feedback.
• All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in all namespaces will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 16 May. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Wikibooks wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch on 9 May. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [10] [11] [12]
• In the mobile view, warnings for when something is wrong with a page are not as clear as they should be. The developers are working on this. You can give feedback and suggestions.
• The developers are working on making the Wikipedia Android app available in more languages. You can give feedback, suggestions and help test it. Read more on mediawiki.org [13]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting takes place every Wednesday from 3 to 4 pm UTC. See how to join.