Talk:Page Previews/2014/12

The Hovercards beta feature solves the core problem of users opening multiple tabs to gain an understanding of a word in the context of the subject they are reading. Whenever a reader hovers over a link to another article, a short summary of the subject, including its graphical image, is provided to them so they can decide whether they need to visit that subject more fully before continuing the current subject.

Please give us feedback on your experience using this beta feature so we can change and improve it. Each language is welcome in this discussion!

You can read more about the feature here.

Known Issues:

• First image is not always used due to image proportions, size, or quality

Note: this page is using Flow, to give feedback on Flow please use the Flow talk page

Text within brackets is excluded

Another useless limitation is that text in brackets is excluded, that keeps the very most vital information from personal articles hidden: "Albert Einstein (* 14. März 1879 in Ulm; † 18. April 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey) war ein theoretischer Physiker. ..." is shown as "Albert Einstein war ein theoretischer Physiker. ..." Why does it take so long to fix this silly issue? Robis~mediawikiwiki (talk) 20:55, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Please see the conversation on this board https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk%3APage%20Previews/2014/11#h-Text_in_parentheses-2014-11-24T17%3A36%3A00.000Z Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 00:42, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The text within the brackets contains the most interesting information that could be served by this Hovercards (at least in the German Wikipedia). As long as this is kept hidden, the Hovercards are almost completely useless. Milkyway22 (talk) 05:24, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Now filed as phab:T91344. Please edit or add details, there. Thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Looks great, but could use some work

I like this feature very much, and I hope that it is taken out of beta stage and used by all users. It is very helpful. However, as other members have pointed out, it is quite annoying when you are reading a hovercard when it cuts off a sentence and you have to click on the link to finish reading. But with a few bug fixes and visual edits, it should work like a charm. Kch1999 (talk) 03:30, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hovercards are cut off outside the screen.

when a hyperlink is at the top or bottom or side of a page, the hovercards are cut off the screen. I know you can just scroll up but it would be much more helpful to move the hovercard out of the way Theo ducos (talk) 07:07, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I’m totally agree with you Abdelhak Ohammou (talk) 00:10, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Can you include a screenshot? While we were seeing this as an issue at one point we had made improvements to caused this no longer to happen, what browser and operating system are you using? Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

"Don't show Images" deactivated Hovercards, unable to activate them.

I clicked on the setting button of a Hovercard and deactivated Pictures (on the German Wikipedia). Now it shows the normal tooltip instead of a hovercard. Hovercards seem to be deactivated, but on "Beta" it is showed as activated. I tried to deactivate and activate, but that didn't worked either. CennoxX (talk) 13:47, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused. There is no option in Hovercards to deactivate "pictures" (unless that's the German Wikipedia's name for Hovercards?).

However, I think you might be talking about how to re-enable Hovercards itself: That's done via the bottom of any wikipage - a link is added next to the "Mobile view" link, in the same way that Reference Tooltips does it. I agree that is unclear, and I'll add a screenshot to the documentation page (and below). Thanks!

Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, in the German Wikipedia the option to deactivate the hovercards is indeed called "Vorschaubild deaktivieren" ~ in english "deactivate thumbnail". I've changed that now in the translatewiki. CennoxX (talk) 23:59, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be nice to have such an option though. SheikhEmaduddin (talk) 16:07, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Hovercards-specific summary

Imagine that the first sentences of the article don't show anything worthwhile in Hovercards because of the limited space they provide. Instead of changing the original article, we could use a Wikipedia template in the article where we would write what we want to be shown in the Hovercard (this "article summary" wouldn't obviously appear in the article itself).

Thus, the Hovercard would check if the article had an "article summary"; if not, it would just work like it does today and just show the first sentences of the article. NunoAgostinho (talk) 23:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The first few sentences are what gets shown in external search engine results, too, so it's good to have those as clear as possible.

For WikiData, the descriptions are meant to be very very short (2-12 words) so we can't easily re-use the Description field there...

Relatedly, I did a round-up of related Concise descriptions at m:Concise_Wikipedia#A summary of existing short-options, using an example, which might be good to keep in mind. We really don't want to add another system... Writing yet-another-summary simply wouldn't scale (consistently) well to the millions of articles in all languages. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Current issues with Hovercards

• Text formatting like bold and italics is removed (which isn't nice with painting titles, as shown in the figure below);
• When removing the text in parenthesis, the script should look out for context; e.g., if the original article reads like "Amy Watson (1980), also known as...", the hovercard will show "Amy Watson , also known as..." (notice the space between the word "Watson" and the first comma).

NunoAgostinho (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• The bold for the article title isn't meant to be removed, but there's a bug when the title ajoins punctuation, phab:T69227. I'm not sure if italics are (or can be) preserved. @Prtksxna:  ?
• That's filed as phab:T69225 ("Space before removed parentheses should also be removed in the extract"). :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:58, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

With IE 11 (the only one I've tried so far) the hovercard on a link can be viewed only once. If you hover again it just shows the top of the 'frame'. Previous cards return if you refresh the page but then, again, appear only once. Zotric (talk) 11:24, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

With IE 11 sometimes the text is overwritten by 'last edited' Not a big problem. Zotric (talk) 11:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I have noted that when the text has the superscript tag it does not render properly.

On the "factorial" page hover over the "googol" link in the infobox.

It displays the number as '10100;. MadCowpoke (talk) 03:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

@MadCowpoke: filed as phab:T112137. Thanks :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 18:05, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Can in cards displays offers to the point (end of sentence)? Sometimes the meaning is lost Marazmatic76 (talk) 07:03, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

@Marazmatic76 the main aspects of that issue are tracked at Phab:T67845. If I understand correctly, the main problems involve the difficulties of variable word-length, variable text-size, and a fixed image size (in both the vertical and horizontal layouts). They are working on it, though. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:07, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Content-dependent information

What if we could include more information into Hovercards depending on whether we're displaying an article referring to a person, an event, a movie, a TV show, etc.? Basically, we could include extra information in Hovercards depending on the category of the article. The best example I can give is for people's date of birth and death, which is removed in the Hovercard preview because it's usually contained inside parenthesis. Check the following examples I've created to see how this could be implemented.

PS: I've also used ellipsis (...) in the end of the Hovercard in the first image because I prefer to have some indicator that the sentence is unfinished (thought that's another question/issue).

NunoAgostinho (talk) 23:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Great ideas for furthering Hovercards, once more information is able to be pulled from Wikidata, a lot of this will be possible. We can add these tasks to the backlog for the feature. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 02:28, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

@Jaredzimmerman (WMF): where in the backlog did you file the wikidata integration suggestion? I can't see it in trello/phab/wiki, but don't want to duplicate your efforts.

@NunoAgostinho: Including an ellipsis is part of phab:T67845. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:51, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't file anything yet. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 03:38, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

logged as T85187 feel free to expand as needed Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 00:41, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Hovercard which point to Disambiguation pages, aren't currently helpful

The Hovercards become sensless when it's come to a word that can reffers to different matters.. the link have to be known in their contests so the hovercards can show their content.. Gezark (talk) 02:08, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean links which refer to disambiguation pages? Hovercards aren't meant to define all possible meanings of a concept, rather the preview the target of a linked page. In some cases the target will be a disambiguation page, but editors try not to have these in most cases in the body of an article. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 02:26, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Geraki filed phab:T73653 for "Popups to Disambiguation pages should show a standard message", which I think is the solution you might want, too? Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:37, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

mixed languages

The messages of the last edit on hovercards in the English Wikipedia with German as display language are in mixed languages, something like "Zuletzt bearbeitet 11 months ago" - the first part is Germnan, the second English. In the German Wikipedia this works fine. CennoxX (talk) 16:56, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Filed as phab:T78701. Thanks. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

More text to be showed by the hovercard

Most of the wikipedia pages have a very elaborate introduction paragraph and it is very annoying when insufficient information is provided by the hover card. This kills the whole aim of the hover cards. Among the ideas I would like to suggest are...

1. Make the hover card text for each page a separate entity, not the first few sentences from the introduction. It can be made to be edited and created by anyone, just like the pages themselves. And if any page does not have a set hover card text the first few sentences can be displayed as a default.

2. Allow a read-on option on the card which will enlarge the card and allow the viewing of the complete introduction paragraph. Scrolling can also be allowed in that enlarged card. SheikhEmaduddin (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

i think that a snippet which everyone can relate to is very difficult to make. But I would highly appreciate if we can have a defined set for every category which canbe displayed in the hovercard, because even a simple change (comparing a picture of a person on the right of the card to the top of the card in landscape mode) chops off a good amount of text.

An read-on option with maybe a word limit of 100 words or something similar will help people like me, as right now many of the cards do not have an ending, but rather go like "He is well known as the author of the award-". Please avoid the suspense :D

A reduced font size for the Hovercard to accommodate a bit more of text will help.

A user specific setting to add some features to the the hovercard, like word limit, font size, settings to turn it on/off would be another one suggestion.

Wish all wiki-family a very happy new year! Amitrish (talk) 16:46, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that the relevance of the information depends on the context. I think it would be nearly impossible to create a few lines of text that everyone finds relevant to every context. Therefore I think that simply displaying the introductory paragraph is the best we are going to get. I do, however, agree that there should be an option to the expand and scroll the card. Scuiridae99 (talk) 11:19, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Reference in hovercard

In the hovercard of the german article de:Marco Polo (Webserie) after the first two sentences/points, the first reference is shown on the hovercard. http://i.imgur.com/ReVEcBO.png CennoxX (talk) 11:22, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Thats a great catch, I've logged it as T85186 Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 00:38, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I LOVE the hovercards and I think they are a great tool.

No one wants to click on every single thing they dont know about. Thats why hovercards are very good and would make a good part of wikipedia. Generic BobJoe (talk) 18:22, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I just dont like where it says "last edited X hours ago" it blocks the text of the hovercard and it is hard to read. Generic BobJoe (talk) 18:25, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I like that/don't think so. It is a good indication how up-to-date that article is, if I want to read it. CennoxX (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Thats a good feature, I just meant they should fix it so it doesn't block the text Generic BobJoe (talk) 02:34, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, many users felt the last updated information presented on mobile was useful, so we are displaying it on the hovercards. Is certainly a tradeoff to have that text or more of the snippet. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 00:34, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

the last updated is a good feature. I meant that it should be fixed so it doesn't block the text. I kind of typed it wrong Generic BobJoe (talk) 02:37, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Would it be possible to make the "last edited" text a popup or tool-tip, perhaps on a small clock-face icon in one corner of the card? If the "Settings" gear icon and the date icon (and the text) were smaller, it would allow a little more snippet space. (If one needs to be fancy, use a calendar icon if the edit is older than some threshold, and maybe a small Stonehenge icon if it was edited in the ancient past.) Luskwater (talk) 14:45, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think its really a good idea, its just not enough to be in a popup. Generic BobJoe (talk) 02:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

This feature really improves the user experience on Wikipedia to a new level of comfort. I love it and the implementation is done really well! The days of clicking for hours to understand what a specific word means are over! Flash1232 (talk) 21:36, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree - it is a great feature. So far as I have tried it. Zotric (talk) 11:21, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

.think. 107.167.98.82 (talk) 13:01, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree. It's a good feature but it has problems. My idea of a hovercard is similar to the present one but it's translucent. Mcpemaestro (talk) 11:01, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree. They are a good function that will make easier and waster reading about things that you don't know and there will less opened cards. Brakloginu (talk) 15:46, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Full info on editors missing now

Full info on editors missing now ... very useful for seeing if someone is a newbie. --~ 69.145.169.117 (talk) 15:57, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Not sure I understand? do you mean the author info isn't linked? Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 00:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

69.145.169.117: Hovercards is not (currently) intended to reproduce all the functionality of NavigationPopups (such as the information about an editor that Navpopups displays for userpage/usertalkpage links). Hovercards is intended as a simpler alternative, primarily for readers. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 04:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

References "preview"

Couldn't Hovercards show article references? I know we have Reference Tooltips (and I use them), but I'd prefer to have a Hovercard for consistency sake. Plus, maybe Hovercards could even show the cover of the book, magazine, etc. which is being referenced (or maybe that's asking for too much since that information isn't supplied with the references...). NunoAgostinho (talk) 17:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, see:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T67114 and

https://trello.com/c/vk3UdF1c/98-extend-hovercards-to-cover-references . I think the icons are useless clutter, but i would really love to have reference hovercards. Consistently at all WP languages, not just at enWP, those slightly hackish "referenceTooltips". Atlasowa (talk) 17:34, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I've never used the phabricator. So... how should I support this feature? The only thing I did was subscribe to the phabricator entry. NunoAgostinho (talk) 00:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

No idea, i never used phabricator either :-) Can you write a comment there and give a link to this thread? Atlasowa (talk) 15:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

+1 to Atlasowa's suggestion.

To use phab, Click the 2nd box (mediawiki icon) at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/auth/start/ and it'll ask to log you in with Oauth.

After that, it's fairly similar to bugzilla but with a few extra features (eg. we can edit our posts!) and a few [currently] missing features (eg. it uses markdown, not wikimarkup, so wikilinks have to be given as full URLs). Ask at Talk:Phabricator/Help if you have any problems. :-) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Card is shown too quickly

I don't want a card to be shown every time move my cursor transiently over a link, increase the delay timer. 12usn12 (talk) 09:41, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the delay is perfect, however an option to be able to adjust the time may be a good as well. SheikhEmaduddin (talk) 10:53, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I've also found there to be a sufficient delay Scuiridae99 (talk) 11:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I think is should be adjusted like 15-20 milliseconds slower, other than that its working ok. Lightspeed2012 (talk) 03:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

See Extension:Popups#Show/hide timing for instructions on how to tweak the timing for ourselves, for now. (Copy any or all of that code chunk, at the bottom of the page, and tweak as desired.) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Special Hovercard for "Help:IPA" links

It would be very useful to have the hover card show us only the rows from the IPA chart which are relevant for that specific word.

For example, in the wikipedia page for Château the pronunciation text says "plural châteaux; French pronunciation: ​[ʃɑto] for both the singular and the plural". When I rest my pointer on 'ʃɑto' a hover card opens up saying "The chart below shows the way in which the international Phonetic Alphabet represents french pronunciations...". I think instead of that text there should be the 4 rows extracted from that chart, saying "ʃ as 'sh' in shoe, ɑ as ..." SheikhEmaduddin (talk) 10:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Is there a way in which I can also contribute in the programming of the hover cards? SheikhEmaduddin (talk) 10:16, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The phabricator workboard with developement tasks is here https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/765/ you might ping https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/p/Prtksxna/ to get help as he's familar with the code

Why the template text you're mentioning might be helpful understanding how to pronounce it, its unlikely to help you understand what the concept means. Hovercards are meant to help with quick understanding of a topic, the kind of details that you're looking for seem like they make more sense on the article page itself.

for the specific example you referring to for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_French the extension currently doens't have a way to point to specific sections of articles, also I don't think that table would reproduce well in a hovercard. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 03:38, 29 December 2014 (UTC)