Help:Reference Previews

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The Reference Previews feature shows a preview of a footnote when you hover over its footnote marker. This feature is part of the MediaWiki extension Popups , which is used for Page Previews .

Background

The Reference Previews feature aims to fulfill a wish from the German-speaking community's Technical Wishlist and is developed by WMDE's Tech team, with support from the WMF’s Web team. The design for this feature has been developed by the WMF. More information can be found on the main project page on Meta.

Overview

Reference Previews display a preview of the footnote as it appears at the bottom of the page. Within the preview, any and all footnote content (text, images, tables, …) can be displayed. At the top of the pop-up, the reference type is displayed. Reference Previews were designed to create an experience consistent with Page Previews, so that all pop-ups have the same design, regardless of whether you are hovering over a page link or a footnote marker.

Reference Previews and Page Previews next to each other.

Interactions

Hover over a footnote marker to open the pop-up.
Click on a footnote marker to jump to the References section (as you would do if there weren't any pop-ups).
For shorter references, the pop-up window adjusts to a smaller size.
If the reference size exceeds the maximum pop-up, you can scroll within the preview window.
External links inside a reference open in a new tab.

The preview functionality relies on JavaScript. If you don't have JavaScript activated, there is no hover effect, and footnote markers remain simple jump marks.

Opt-out feature

Reference Previews will be activated by default for everyone (logged-in users, logged-out/anonymous users, readers of a wiki).

You can toggle them off under the Appearance tab in your preferences.
You can also open this preference tab directly by clicking on the cog wheel in the pop-up.
Anonymous users/logged-out users/readers can turn the previews off by clicking the cog wheel and toggling the setting. This saves the preference via a cookie. They can be turned back on using the “Edit preview settings” link in the website footer.

Please note: If you use the Reference Tooltips or Navigation Popups gadget – either because it’s a default gadget on your wiki or because you enabled it individually – you won’t see Reference Previews. If you disable the gadget, you can see Reference Previews.

Exposed reference types

At the top of each pop-up, Reference Previews prominently indicate what kind of source is being referenced. We currently define six reference types:

Reference (generic)
Web reference
Journal reference
Book reference
News reference
Note

How to assign a reference type to your reference

Each reference is defined by CSS classes, e.g., <cite class="journal"> for journal references. These classes are set in the ‎<cite> element in a reference's content. References without cite tags and classes (e.g., plain ‎<ref> tags) are displayed as "Reference".

To assign a reference type:

The easiest way is to use a citation template that includes the cite class. The English cite templates, for example this one, specify the cite class already, and derivations of these templates are used in many wikis. Other templates can also be updated to do so.
If you're not using templates to add references, another option is to add a ‎<cite> class directly into a ‎<cite> tag, like so: <ref><cite class="book">reference content</cite></ref>.

Deployment roadmap

test.wikipedia.org (testwiki): 28 February 2019
beta feature on:
- German Wikipedia: 4 April 2019
- Arabic Wikipedia: 4 April 2019
- all wikis that use the Popups extension (all Wikipedias & en, he and zh Wikivoyages): 24 October 2019
default feature:
- German Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, Estonian Wikipedia, Basque Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Gujarati Wikipedia, Finnish Wikipedia: 6 May 2021
- Marathi Wikipedia: 10 May 2021
- German Wikivoyage: 21 August 2021
- all other wikis which use the Popups extension (all Wikipedias & en, he and zh Wikivoyages): 21 November 2023

Links

Extension:Cite enables ‎<ref> and ‎<references /> tags
Extension:Popups

Reference Previews

Page Previews

Help with translation

The software messages for this feature can be translated on translatewiki.net. Any help is much appreciated!