Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals/Archive 1

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wikEd as a gadget

Discussion started at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#wikEd as a gadget.

wikEd is a full-featured Wikipedia-integrated text editor that adds enhanced text processing functions to edit pages. Currently it works only for Firefox and other Mozilla browsers. wikEd is already a gadget on the German, French, Hungarian, and Occitan Wikipedia as well as the Polish Wiktionary. I suggest to add it as a gadget on the English Wikipedia. ?????l? 03:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

A localized version of wikEd is now enabled at the Vietnamese Wikipedia and Wiktionary. – Minh Nguy?n (talk, contribs) 10:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Usually I'm against scripts that only work in one browser. Also, I agree with some users that the code is kind of bloated. On the other hand, a lot of users seem to like it, and I guess we cannot expect major improvements right away, so why not? ? AlexSm 22:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with AlexSm. Gadgets should be cross-platform; Mozilla and Internet Explorer are both big browsers. However, I think that the amount of people requesting IE support will boost if this becomes a gadget, prompting Cacycle to add IE support to wikEd, so why not give it a shot? --PostScript 15:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Should I then add the version 0.9.60b of wikEd as a gadget sometimes soon? ?????l? 04:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
As I said in that last VP discussion, it has my support. I also like the idea that giving this more exposure could help development. Not just from a pressure standpoint :) but possibly finding people who would be willing to do some of the grunt work or whatever, to help make this work in IE (and maybeplease in Safari :D ) -- Ned Scott 07:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, it's now a gadget. ?????l? 02:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Metadata script as a gadget

Discussion started at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Suggestion for new gadget.

I suggest that the script at User:Outriggr/metadata.js[1] be made into a gadget. The script displays an article's assessment rating below the page title and colors the page title accordingly.

Making this script into a gadget would result in the assessment system, a good judge of the overall quality of an article, becoming more generally known and available to more people. For more detail on how it meets all the criteria for gadgets, see the village pump discussion.

There's a slightly different version of the script in my userspace at User:Pyrospirit/metadata.js. The only difference is that I changed one condition for the begin function so that it works on diff pages and old revisions. It's a useful additional feature, so I recommend that this change be made to the gadget version as well.

The script can't do any damage, and since it seems to be compatible with all major browsers, I really don't see any reason not to turn it into a gadget. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 14:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the code can be shortened by using existing sajax_init_object(). Also, if assesment is always on the top of the talk page, &action=raw should be changed into &action=raw&section=0 (this feature has been added quite recently). And while I don't like scripts that query the server on every page, I guess this can't be improved in this particular case ? AlexSm 22:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm very inexperienced with JavaScript, so could you show me how you would do this? You can make the change you suggested to my slightly modified version at User:Pyrospirit/metadata.js; it already has the change that lets it work on diffs and old revisions, which means it'll probably be the version the gadget will be copied from. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 23:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I found that the script, apparently, cannot parse & correctly. See this for an example. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 15:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, it is not &, as this works correctly. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 15:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what's causing this, but my best guess would be that it's the parentheses since those are the only characters other than the &, letters, and spaces in the title. Fortunately, it seems to fail silently in the first diff you linked to instead of giving annoying error messages or something. I'll try to fix it, but it doesn't seem to happen very often. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 15:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I've done some testing, and it seems to occur whenever there is an & symbol inside parentheses. For examples, see Gnome (Dungeons & Dragons), Character class (Dungeons & Dragons), Wizard (Dungeons & Dragons), and any other page with (Dungeons & Dragons) in the title. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 15:36, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that it is requesting the wrong talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gnome%20(Dungeons%20&%20Dragons)&action=raw&section=0
Note that it is not escaping the &. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 15:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
And Mario & Sonic is not working, the URL is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Mario%20&%20Sonic%20at%20the%20Olympic%20Games&action=raw&section=0
that means it is taking the assessment from Mario instead of Mario & Sonic. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 15:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I tried escaping the wgTitle variable, but it seems to have made no difference. Did I do that correctly? I'm still learning JavaScript, and this is the first script of this size written by someone else that I've worked on. I don't see what else could be wrong with it at this point. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 16:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Took a while to figure out what was wrong, but it is now fixed and seems to work on all pages as it should. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 20:44, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

So... anyone going to actually make this a gadget? Admin needed, please! Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 22:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

  1. ^ To avoid confusion, note that this version has some bugs that are fixed in User:Pyrospirit/metadata.js, which should be used instead. — Pyrospirit
Well, I will see if I can make it on this weekend. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 17:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Y Done -- ReyBrujo (talk) 19:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Special:Log Table

Moved from MediaWiki talk:Gadgets-definition.

I propose adding LogPage Table script as a gadget. I guess some icons could be changed to better ones. One possible problem is the maintenance, since new kinds of logs seem to appear regularly these days ? AlexSm 02:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I've just started using it and it seems pretty nifty. I'd support this. -- Ned Scott 07:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I've been using this a while, and I keep finding myself reverting back to list view. I think the technical concept is great, but the actual layout could use some work. -- Ned Scott 03:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Gadgets

I skipped the process, since I was unaware it was necessary, and installed the following gadgets:

  • Move tabs to sidebar (monobook)
  • Move tabs to sidebar (modern)
  • Compatibility layer to run monobook scripts in modern

—Random832 02:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The process doesn't matter at all, frankly. I don't like either of the gadgets above myself, so I won't be adding them, but I won't oppose them until they are actually made into gadgets, because they are messy, and not likely to have a wide audience. I personally don't like WikiEd either, I think it is too bloated, but I'll let that one be. Prodego talk 01:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Language Links

I've finally gotten my language links tool to work properly in IE, and I think it's a good candidate for a gadget. The (heavily commented) code is at User:Zocky/LanguageLinks.js, and it can be of course installed with

importScript('User:Zocky/LanguageLinks.js');

The tool basically turns the language link box in the sidebar into a miniature multi-language dictionary, by displaying the titles of linked pages instead of language names. It needs to be tested against IE7, otherwise I think it's ready to go. Zocky | picture popups 13:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

We already discussed this on IRC, but still: creating a table instead of a list breaks {{Link FA}} and any user's custom CSS. —AlexSm 21:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle

I know there are obviously going to be objections to this, but wouldn't WP:TWINKLE make a good gadget? I know it is not compatible with IE but neither is WikEd. Parent5446(Murder me for my actions) 03:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

There is still some things missing in gadget to account for Twinkle optimally, otherwise there would have to be 15 additional separate gadgets. etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by AzaToth (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2008

watchlistSorter

I have just created a new watchlistSorter because the existing one no longer works. I think this could become an gadget candidate and I would like to hear your opinion to improve the script. See the script's page User:Cacycle/watchlistSorter and the code User:Cacycle/watchlistSorter.js. ?????l? 05:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I responded with some notes on User talk:Cacycle/watchlistSorter. —AlexSm 21:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist: only new, sort, unwatch

I propose testwiki:Wikipedia:Gadget/Watchlist as a gadget. It's primary function is to show only new changes, this is very useful and I think should be built into MediaWiki. The code is borrowed from User:Ilmari_Karonen/watchsince.js. Two other functions are ajax unwatch (borrowed from my wlUnwatch script) and a simple sorting. Currently this gadget is live on test.wp and ru.wp. —AlexSm 21:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

HotCat.js can now be tested

I have started work on a port of HotCat.js I know quite a few people want this as a Gadget, but it needs some thorough testing of course before it can be. So User:TheDJ/Gadget-HotCat.js is the code to test. A short list of important changes from the original:

  • blacklisting code is disabled.
  • all code for the uploadForm has been removed
  • autocommit is disabled
  • will be enabled on pages without categories so that you can easily add them
  • uses javascript:void() as a dummy value for href in order to avoid a conflict with popups.
  • checks for {{Uncategorized}} and removes it if a category is added
  • does not use JSconfig for configuration options like its Commons original

If you have any problems or comments then please leave them on the talk page of the script or on my usertalk --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Added as a Gadget. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Contributions ranges

I've got an in-progress script that might be a candidate for gadgetude: User:Splarka/contribsrange.js. It is for looking up ranges of contributions (specifically CIDR), or wildcard searches, which is an oft requested item. There are toolserver tools to do this, but they work on the replagged database and are a bit inconvenient. If it detects a valid /16 or /24 to /32 CIDR in the input box or URL parameter, or if it sees a string ending in an asterisk, it performs an API call to &ucuser or &ucuserprefix, via <script> &format=json (so has the potential to work across domains if required), with an event handler when that script loads that decodes the returned information. It respects the namespace selection, year and month "start" date (both required), and has crude pagination. Obviously there are several ways to improve it (or in fact, deprecate it, by supporting these formats native in Special:Contributions), but I'd like feedback and opinions on it (even if it isn't worth Gadgeting). There is one problem with spaces (see bugzilla:13157), as the API (as of this writing) doesn't seem to handle spaces in the string.

However: it needs testing on alternate browers, as well as esoteric test cases I can't predict. --Splarka (rant) 00:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

A wonderfully useful tool and much faster than the toolserver-based one. Possible issue - MediaWiki allows usernames to contain an asterisk. Mr.Z-man 05:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Per asterisks in names: I was aware of that, but couldn't offhand think of any easy way to indicate a prefix search in a known wildcard syntax that wasn't allowed in usernames. I think the cross-occurences would be rare enough and harmless in the long run. Obviously this tool could have been disassociated with Special:Contributions in a way that would make it more intuitive, but I was going for simplicity and almost invisible background operation. --Splarka (rant) 06:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Cool. Prodego talk 22:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
The output of special:contributions/127.0.0.0/16 is interesting as it finds user:127.0.01 which is not an IP address - it is an actual username. Same goes with special:contributions/216.126.89.0/24 which finds an IP address written in the old UseModWiki format, user:216.126.89.xxx. I'm unsure whether these are bugs with the API because it does say it will find an IP range *or* wildcard. Graham87 06:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
This is also used as a gadget on commons and meta. I've gone ahead and added it as a gadget. Mr.Z-man 03:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Sweet. --Splarka (rant) 07:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle (default settings only)

I'd like to add a gadget for Twinkle (default settings only). The default settings should work fine for most users, and having it as a gadget would make this very useful tool easier for nontechnical users to install. Any thoughts? —Remember the dot (talk) 22:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't it not work in IE? Prodego talk 22:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't work in IE due to IE's incomplete JavaScript support. The gadget would clearly state that it is for Firefox, Safari, and Opera only. —Remember the dot (talk) 06:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd like Twinkle as a gadget too, but see the Twinkle post above Think outside the box 14:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I went ahead and added it to the list. It does work as a gadget, you just can't customize it.
By the way, I set up the Twinkle gadget to just import Twinkle from AzaToth's userspace. Since all user scripts are automatically protected, there's no danger of vandalism, and we won't have to maintain two copies of the script this way. —Remember the dot (talk) 21:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Thats great! Any chance of getting Friendly as a gadget too? Think outside the box 09:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Sure thing. —Remember the dot (talk) 00:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Think outside the box 12:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Would there be some way of adding a link/note so that when someone is selecting things as gadgets they could be told that there are customizable options outside of the gadgets interface? I bet there's some editors out there that will be using this out of convenance, but would still be knowledgeable to edit their own monobook.js file, but might not be aware of normal userscript stuff. -- Ned Scott 04:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think they already do; "Twinkle uses the default settings only; to customize Twinkle you must install it the traditional way." Think outside the box 10:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Less edit clutter

At User:Magnus Manske/less edit clutter.js. Tested (by me;-) successfully on Firefox 2/3, IE7, Opera. It was suggested to add it to the gadgets, and maybe even turn it on for newbies by default. One step at a time, though ;-)

From my mail to wikien-l:

It separates

  • templates, images, and horizontal lines at the top of a page
  • templates and some magic words at the end of a page
  • categories
  • language links

into text boxes of their own. This happens automatically right after loading the edit page, and it all gets reconstructed into a single text the moment you save, preview, or diff the edit. On preview or diff, everything gets separated again.

It is only enabled for the article namespace. Top and bottom edit boxes can be hidden (I could add an option to hide either as default), and everything can be reset to "standard", giving the normal edit page for the moment.

Besides better structuring of article body and "meta" content, it does clean up whitespace, sort categories and language links alphabetically, etc.

See a screenshot. --Magnus Manske (talk) 10:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree as a gadget but not by default. Think outside the box 14:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Some notes:

  • When user clicks on a save/preview/changes button, I think the script should hide additional textareas, otherwise it might be a bit confusing on a slow connection.
  • The script absolutely have to empty additional textareas before joining, otherwise sequence "Show Preview" - press-escape-button - "Show Preview" doubles all interwiki, categories, etc.
  • I'm afraid you cannot rely on a simple regexp to find all interwiki and you have to keep a list of all interwiki prefixes. Some prefixes are more than 6 characters long. For example, try to edit Elephant: after preview the script resorts interwiki the bad way.
  • We need some kind of announcement that many editing gadgets are not compatible with each other.

—AlexSm 16:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

In addition, if the references in the text have a lot of info, it extends the page width, extending the bottom three textboxes along with it, making the process more difficult. Parent5446(Murder me for my actions) 23:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Batch proposal

I have a batch proposal of gadgets. I took them from the Simple English Wikipedia and they seem pretty cool. They all work, obviously, and I think they are all compatible with major browsers. I copied all of the scripts into my userspace. They are in the following pages:

User:Parent5446/MediaWiki/GadgetDiffs.js - Adds a button to the top of the page that shows the diff of the last edit. (I think this might not be added since TWINKLE is already a gadget and TWINKLE includes a last button.

User:Parent5446/MediaWiki/GadgetHotCat.js - Allows users to add, remove, and change categories using plus and minus buttons at the bottom of the page.

User:Parent5446/MediaWiki/GadgetNewpages.js - Adds a box in the sidebar that shows recently created pages. Updates every five seconds (Or ten, I forget which).

User:Parent5446/MediaWiki/GadgetRecentchanges.js - Same as above except with a Recent Changes box.

They are all pretty useful and I think they would help out a lot. Parent5446(Murder me for my actions) 22:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

As a small note. The GadgetHotCat.js (as in use on simple ) is a copy of my User:TheDJ/HotCat version that has been in testing on en.wp I think that it might be safe by now to make a Gadget of that. The big changes have been tested for a while, and I'm not aware of any issues atm. Although recent changes to the Category HTML box might require me to take another look at it, just to be sure. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering btw. if people would appreciate to have the hotcat functionality for the upload form. I figured it would be less useful here, but if need be, it can easily be actived/re-added --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the upload form. Some people might find it useful. However, I think the main tool should definitely be a gadget. It is very useful in articles. Parent5446(Murder me for my actions) 19:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Just so you know, all of the scripts I listed were duplicates of scripts on Wikipedia. So I deleted them. I still think they should be added, though. Parent5446(Murder me for my actions) 13:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
HotCat has been added as a Gadget. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki Scripts

I've started of a discussion about Lupin's Anti-Vandal tool here about it being a possible Gadget, would this be possible I find it very useful when I patrol wikipedia for any vandalism. Terra What do you want? 13:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Embedded font support now live

The latest version of Safari includes support for embedded fonts, opening up new possibilities for font support on Wikipedia. To demonstrate the concept, I added the DejaVu Sans font as a gadget. If you are using Safari 3.1 or later, just checking the box will enable you to use this font even if you can't install it directly onto your computer.

Please try this out and let me know how it works. DejaVu Sans is not the most useful font, and I'd be interested in hearing about other fonts that might be useful to have as gadgets. —Remember the dot (talk) 17:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Everyone keep in mind that this needs to be limited to fonts which are available under a free license. —Random832 (contribs) 17:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Advisor.js proposal

I'd like to propose a script I've written—it scans the wikitext as you edit and suggests fixing some common formatting and stylistic issues. It works in most major browsers, I try to keep the code clean, commented where necessary, non-invasive (no pollution of the global namespace, no augmented prototypes of built-in objects), with reasonable defaults, and independent of the skin. I usually fix bugs and add new functionality in the weekends. --Cameltrader (talk) 12:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Just so you know, there is a suggestion it adds that should be be made. I suggests that you change the standard ellipsis ("...") to the special character for ellipsis ("…"), which MoS discourages greatly. This should be fixed where the advisor changes ". . ." and "…" to "...". (Just as a reference, "..." is three periods, "…" is the special ellipsis character, and ". . ." is three periods with spaces in between. MoS recommends the first, discourages the second, and says the third is deprecated.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parent5446 (talk • contribs)
You are right. I will have to invert the original idea. --Cameltrader (talk) 17:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
My concern with that is that part of the MOS is marked for cleanup. I don't know if that means it just needs reformatting or if a change is expected. It seems to indicate that the ellipsis character isn't recommended because of difficulty to input and readability in certain fonts. We use standardized fonts, and difficulty of input shouldn't impact an editing tool. I may have missed something though. Jay32183 (talk) 18:44, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
The purpose of the script is to help editors follow the MOS. I view this as an evolutionary process, and not something static. Whenever I notice that the MOS and Advisor.js are out of sync, I usually adapt, so the MOS cleanup is welcome.
What I'd expect you to discuss here is whether it is justified to include the script as a gadget or not. --Cameltrader (talk) 20:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I support this tool as a gadget. I was suggesting the MOS may need change because of the tool. If this is a gadget, the ease of input isn't a concern because the tool will turn either input into the same thing. So this should be a gadget and that should help the evolution of the MOS. Jay32183 (talk) 06:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow, changing the MOS because of a tool sounds ambitious :) In this particular case, ease of input is a hurdle, but I think they had other reasons too when recommending not to use U+2026—it appears too narrow in some fonts or is completely missing. Your counter-argument might be that an ellipsis carries different semantics than three periods, and as long as Unicode provides such a character, we should use it ("support standards!").
I just hadn't paid enough attention to this topic before you mentioned it. Thanks for your support.--Cameltrader (talk) 07:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)