Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Archive10

`coord` displays overlap with some parts of the page

I'm not sure if this is an issue with the CSS of Vector 2022 itself, or if it's just a problem with some specific pages. I noticed that, on some articles relating to locations, the coordinates in the top-right corner overlapped with some parts of the pages like infoboxes, dispute messages, and other things right at the top of an article. Of the pages I looked at, all of them used some form of title display: {coord|...|display=title} or {coord|...|display=inline,title}; I'm not sure if this is the only display that has this problem.

Here are some screenshots showing what I mean:

• Coordinates sometimes overlap with infoboxes: https://imgur.com/x5Nq4rn (link to article).
• Coordinates sometimes overlap with dispute messages: https://imgur.com/JrlOznX (link to article).
• Coordinates overlap with the "Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted" message that appears when previewing an edit: https://imgur.com/URs93YH.
• This does not happen on the same pages when using Vector legacy: https://imgur.com/0xSWhGC.
• Some pages with hatnotes have the coordinates placed correctly: https://imgur.com/QOUYCN4 (link to article)...
• ...while others do not: https://imgur.com/ufqJB7D (link to article).

I'm not sure where else to report a bug with the skin itself. I figured this would be a good place to do it, but I'll move this post elsewhere if need be. If this page is just for feedback, I would be remiss not to share that I love the 2022 skin :-)

Cheers. Matt.brown (talk) 21:10, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Matt.brown, thank you for your feedback! About this issue you can read the task T281974 on Phabricator and discussions of related tasks too. If needed, you can add further screenshots and specific cases in the discussion. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 09:51, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

The new layout looks horrible

No offence, but I created an account just because the new format is badly designed.

Hello,

I study education and am in deep shock about the new wikipedia layout. Why the fuck do UI designers think removing borders and cramping everything into togglers actually makes things better? Like who the fuck sparked that trend? Apple?

What used to look like an encyclopaedia now looks like a white wall of simply nothing. There no longer seems to be any visual (like actually visuable) organization of a page beyond the paragraphs.

It isn't just that there aren't any visible borders anymore, there also is no contrast whatsoever and the text flickers while scrolling! It horrid and counterintuitive as fuck, because it makes your eye get lost and is utterly immemorable and thus fails to fulfill the basic criteria of visual educational material.

Get education experts when designing the UI next time. This is shameful.--2A02:908:966:63E0:E94E:DAB1:D3A:483 12:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I totally agree with your comment! I have no idea how someone may break so much the user experience as they did. I haven't been logged to wikipedia for more than a decade, but had to, to choose some older variant of visual style, to even usefully read an article. A shame on them, a shame! How come they have not tested it before release. Sslukt (talk) 15:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Small correction, they did test it before release (and I hated it then too), but couldn't figure out how to put it into words. The OP states it excellently. Wiki joedirt (talk) 23:16, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Same! I haven't logged in for 7 years, but now had to, just to change the layout.. why do you even need to log in for that? makes no sense. P3rttiz (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree, but it's not just here. The entire Web seems to be going through a phase of ugly and stark being considered design statements. I do hope it passes quickly. 74.115.78.80 15:28, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. All the illustrations have been reduced to postage stamps. It looks fine on a phone, but is utterly unusable on a computer screen. The aesthetics have been trashed along with the functionality. The web is a visual experience and Wikipedia has just died... 2001:8003:D40E:7E00:ACDF:D45C:10E0:7BF4 17:06, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree. Some websites tend to change themselves radically (e.h. IMDb) when old version is working just fine. Gevorg89 (talk) 17:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree, the new-look looks extremely unorganized, but at least you can switch back to the old one... Telltemmne (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Certainly, the new layout looks utterly dreadful, good thing we can change back to either vector legacy or monobook. Interlacing (talk) 20:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree. Clear-cut downgrade. Forresthopkinsa (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I've been using Wikipedia since day 1 and I had to create my first account today just so I can change the layout to the old format. What a HORRIBLE redesign. It's looks like garbage on a widescreen laptop monitor. Why is there so much white space on the left side? Is wikipedia for Zoomers on iPhones now, like TikTok or some other garbage? This is the worst website redesign I've ever seen, including that one that Digg did like 12 years ago that made literally everyone leave the site for Reddit. Just BAD BAD BAD. 76.104.139.237 21:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

so fucking true man 71.226.203.33 23:41, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

It is nothing but worse. Jacob Agar (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I actually came here to say the same thing; the new UI isn't just ugly, but it's genuinely painful to use on desktop, to the point of being borderline-unusable. It was clearly designed with mobile users in mind, despite the fact that, afaik, the overwhelming majority of editors prefer desktop; I say this as someone who does mobile edits from time to time. I don't want to have to log in every time I use Wikipedia just so I can even navigate a page! Change it back! Birdn4t0r (talk) 22:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

You can get the mobile UI on desktop already with .m in the url. I just switched from the mobile view that had opened up by accident to desktop view and I think the layout is even worse on desktop than the actual Mobile UI. This style is not ready for prime time and should in no way have become the default.

The UI getting old and stale is worse than being actively bad.

Shadowmaster13 (talk) 08:26, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Count me in on that one: Huge waste of screen real estate, on my 1920 pixel width screen only half is used by content and it would not be more if resize the browser window to full screen. The article-outline was separated from the article, no visible connection between article and pictures/graphics, way too light UI overall, languag switcher anywhere and search-field moved anywhere else.

Seems like it was designed to fuck up and bug out the user. No real user experience while designing this was in mind i think. 2A02:8109:9D40:1F1C:E475:3EC8:7B5E:28CE 23:34, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I made an account with wikipedia just to switch it back. It's not so much the design is horrible, but it looks exactly like the mobile layout and I don't use the mobile layout for a reason. I don't entirely unsupport the idea of re-optimizing Wikipedia for modern UI (not that I wouldn't switch it back anyways lol) but doing it in a way that just feels like copying the mobile format is so weird. 47.146.190.208 02:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

While I disapprove of the profane language used in this comment, I have to echo the sentiment. The amount of white space in the new layout is so jarring it makes articles absolutely dreadful to read on a desktop display. Does Wikipedia even care about how resoundingly negative the feedback to this new design has been? 2600:6C44:747F:98D5:E9C9:BDC3:1868:6F99 03:30, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Uninspired redesign, neither better looking or more functional, so I have no idea what was the intention of whoever came up with this. There is no way someone beta tested this because it would not have gone live.

I have no idea why someone thought the interface needs a change in the first place since it was optimized for a dictionary, but on top of that, it made no sense to take away the access to international versions and Wikimedia on the side which represent additional references. It would make more sense to make the old one default and offer the new one as option. 2600:1700:20C1:4920:B8D9:705C:D86C:BF8F 04:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm mostly reply just to increase the number of replies so they see we don't like this; while the profanity is unnecessary I wholeheartedly agree that desktop websites should have desktop layouts and mobile layouts should stay on mobile. The same complaints were made when Windows 8 came out and when Facebook did it I stopped browsing their website on desktop entirely. At the very least you can change it back in the preferences menu (although that's only available to those of us who've made accounts), unlike Facebook and the new Steam Library (which is not that new anymore). Jacob p12 (talk) 05:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Completely agree. Vector 2022 sucks due to clearly very little thought being put into it. Excelsiorsbanjo (talk) 05:51, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I literally went to the step of creating an account just so I could complain about (and hopefully get rid of) the horrific new UI. I've seen better web design in simple html pages from the 90s. --118.149.76.228 10:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

My main issue with it was that the text was not wide enough and it was harder to read. Glad there's a button at the bottom to make the width fluid. 5.15.71.147 12:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

This mostly fixed it for me, thanks for that!

While I'm here, my suggestion is for a border to be added to the edges of the container. The white blends into the grey too easily and it is a bit disorientating. The border helps the user find the edge of the page/container, and it also has the benefit of looking more authoritative. Moissanite (talk) 19:59, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

You're totally right. I also had to make an account to select the proper UI. This is clearly some change pushed by some kid who thinks JavaScript frameworks are the best just because some marketing move told him so. Maybe some company author of the framework donated money to Wikipedia to make this change. Otherwise it makes no sense and it just makes Wikipedia worse. Microph123 (talk) 12:45, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe the real purpose of the change was to get us all to make accounts.... 66.214.69.101 01:46, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Thıs is absolutely true, there was no need for a resign as the older one was perfectly fine and the blank white space in the sides is horrid and a waste of space. Klad 2 (talk) 13:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

The new layout sucks so bad. While I think that the old layout looked kinda ugly, I definitely prefer the old one, because it's much easier to read with the old layout. Old is gold, especially on Wikipedia 109.247.106.208 13:45, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I think maybe if they added a dark mode it wouldn't suck as much though. 109.247.106.208 13:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

At least it helped for user count, I had to create an account to revert to the old appearance. 2A02:AA13:7200:8A80:B8E5:F3A9:623C:352D 17:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Can't agree more. I don't know if it was their intention to confuse people at first, and then force them to make an account to switch back from the horrible redesign, a la Reddit style. Terrible decision. 62.167.140.205 18:40, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

this is what i came here to say! the only reason i created my user account is so i could revert to the old design! the new one makes me want to vomit. Jakeyounglol (talk) 23:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I can only agree. The new design is pretty much a compilation of every awful UI design from the past decade. It's genuinely awful and makes the experience actively worse. It really, really, really needs to be rolled back. And I'm hoping WMF isn't going to dig in their heels about this. Because the old design is flat out superior. 2600:1700:1471:2550:2195:BD59:6E8E:AB0C 01:29, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more, the new look is atrocious and an unbelievable waste of space. This is a perfect example of attempting to fix something that isn't broken. ElaenaS (talk) 01:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I've been trying to give Vector 2022 a chance over the last few days, and what I really don't like so far is how dead it feels. Like, this lack of visible page organization, as you pointed out, makes it very dull. All this white without much contrast actually makes my eyes uneasy. That is my experience so far. RoadTrain (talk) 02:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I too am chiming in to say I made an account for the first time in 30 years of using wikipedia to revert to the old format. The new vector is atrocious to look at and makes reading a chore. The old layout was engaging and helped you intake information. Thats part of the reason people could get lost in wikipedia it was so easy to read. 2603:8080:A704:5A81:A800:FCEE:7F61:1D8F 10:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I created an account just to voice my distaste for the new layout. WHY is the width limited??? I get that to some it may be easier to read, but for me, with a 27" screen, I now have to scroll quite bit to read the same content. I MUCH rather read longer lines than be forced to scroll every couple seconds.

The previous design was clean and compact. Some may say cluttered, but really everything was at your fingertips and super convenient.. Like an airplane. The new design hides things behind annoying menus, and the TOC being hid behind toggles is REALLY DUMB. Now I can't see the outline of a page without guessing and randomly clicking on toggles?? WTF?! The new design also wastes ~2/3rds of horizontal space on a 27" monitor which looks really goofy. It feels so sterile, and like a clone of other wastelands of the modern web. Ugh. Frustrating. At least with an account, now I can revert the look. Jammnrose (talk) 17:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Adding my voice to those who had to create an account just to go back to the old layout. The new one is just awful. Hargan2 (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Ive always donated to wiki since i graduated college. I will never give them a cent ever again. Same thing with mozilla and mdn. Its like they used the same brain dead designer Randt1234 (talk) 23:39, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't normally comment on talk pages, but good god is this new UI design the most useless one I've ever seen. Nobody asked you to hide everything behind unintuitive buttons, it was working just fine before you fiddled with it. Hobtan (talk) 23:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Have to agree that this new redesign looks very bad. Please revert it!! 83.254.212.105 23:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

This is garbage.. I can't resize the content in a widescreen monitor to get full viewing width. Who thinks this is actually more usable ? Psiberfunk (talk) 03:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm chiming in as a UX designer–this is shameful and I'm so very tired of "new" UI improvements just turning out to be hiding functionality behind toggle screens. Enuui (talk) 06:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I've used the new layout for two weeks. I'm switching back to the old look because it displays the article in a wider column for reading and editing, because it doesn't have a right-nav bar for Tools that I have to hide, and because it uses gray backgrounds to guide my eyes. PRRfan (talk) 16:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. HATE the new layout. There is so much white space it almost makes me sick. I don't know how web developers get the idea that they know better than I do about what size I want my window to be. I set it to a given size, some smart a**e developer sets 5" borders other content! How arrogant is that. If I wanted it that size I could easily do so. Guess what, I didn't. IanKennedy1965 (talk) 17:08, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. New format is harder to navigate, particularly on the desktop. Many articles are actively more difficult to read, between the increased white space on the page and the way the text boxes have been 'streamlined'. Not sure if anyone in authority at Wikipedia is reading these comments, but you really dropped the ball on this redesign. 128.164.30.116 19:01, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

If I want to read on my phone, I grab my phone. Why do developers everywhere think that a desktop website should look like a phone website. This new appearance may disappear.

Why must everything always be hidden for an empty appearance?

More search and click work for the same result. Like logging in. To create an account one click. To log in two clicks. Willem ter Haar (talk) 21:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

The new UI looks awful. It's so bad it made me come here to let my voice be heard. Please change it back to the previous version while you come up with something better ☹ 71.208.54.176 22:56, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Like many, I have created an account to switch back to the old style. Maybe this was the idea? The new design is woeful. What's the point of having a large monitor if you put all the text in a ribbon down the middle, with huge amounts of white space on each side. Horrible. 81.107.32.77 23:16, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree. I thought the site was broken at first, then came to find out that this was done on purpose.

If nothing else, it pushed me to figure out how discussion pages work. But I'm deeply not in favor.

I'm not sure where all of the content on the left side of the page went. Is there a migration tutorial? 2600:1700:EB0:3790:D07F:D785:80DD:AC07 01:28, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I thought i was on the mobile version then found out this was actually a new layout. This is just all around dumb. DarmaniLink (talk) 08:56, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I will stop donations immediately if this is NOT changed back to default. The new "theme" is total shit and I will have NONE of it. This is not the reason I donate money to Wikipedia. Whoever made this decision should have been ousted yesterday. Revert it back to the previous DEFAULT and MAKE people choose the crappy 2022 (genX-edition) if they feel compelled. Newlayoutsucksass (talk) 10:58, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree. As one may guess, I made an account just to be able too change the look. Please don't make non registered users suffer, they're people too! WikiP'sNew2023UIisTRASH (talk) 20:20, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

While you’re welcome to voice your opinions/feedback about wiki functions, please do not take it into account usernames. Tropicalkitty (talk) 20:33, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Had to make an account just to go back to the old design where the content isn't squished into a tiny section just to make room for whitespace 108.31.241.8 20:26, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I completely agree!! I thought that the CSS template was not loading properly to start with, then that facepalm moment.

I am surprised because they think MOBILE MODE is a must, that there wasn't a forced DARK MODE as well.

Even the Skin Appearance Preferences does NOT SAVE EITHER, Seriously WTF Shealladh (talk) 10:47, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

totally agree, horrible UI, but fortunately you can change it in preferences, what i encourage you to do, then they will know in theirs A/B testing that users actually really prefer old layout. 176.221.123.255 12:10, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the new design isn't ideal. I am most frustrated by the large borders/sidebars on the sides of desktop monitors. Why squish all content into the middle of the screen and leave these massive blank rectangles on the side? Less information on the screen at a given time = bad, in my opinion. That is my main gripe... I like the idea of a sticky table of contents, but I am too jarred by the sudden change in page size relative to monitor resolution/aspect ratio. Donlad26 (talk) 15:50, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I too can only agree. The MASSIVE amount of whitespace introduced is a complete backwards step that I cannot believe passed to the end. 2A01:4B00:8786:D00:9CCA:920:18FE:893D 19:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I was using the "?useskin=vector?useskin=vector" thing to force the old design, but that stopped working it seems. So here I am, a glorious, new registered user. My username conveys my feelings on the matter. Yournewdesignsuuuucks (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

100% agree. At first I thought I'd accidentelly opened the mobile version, but then to my shock realised that someone at Wikipedia apparently thought it was a good idea to make this the design of the main version of Wikipedia. This should be reverted asap and the person who greenlit this should be fired. Luckily there is an option to switch back to the previous design, but the user experience should be good out of the box without having to manually change some settings first. -- Cyberhopser (talk) 18:35, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh wow what a worseification.... i hope next time they beg you for donation they receive at most only 1/4 of the usual, clearly they have to much money to waste.

- Language selection, much more inefficient

- New right side menu distracting from the article

- Horrible, completley unusable new TOC

- Switching from a design usable at all resolutions (usually i even preferred it on mobile, as i didn't like the castrated mobile version aswell) to a fixed width is a massive step backwards too. (As others noted already: lots of wasted space) BorisSapulu (talk) 18:39, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

It is quite awful, and I created an account to revert to the old layout. 198.102.103.103 01:25, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

echoing here the new ui is eye bleed inducing i feel as if i will get a headache looking at it for too long. the cramped appearence makes reading anything a chore and makes things ugly with the spacing what is with that planing to add huge banner ads? the only reason i made an account was to revert this change will likely cause some people to leave if its not fixed this should be an optional theme not the defult your going to have infogalactic eatting your lunch. change for the sake of change is never good, if you need your ui design team to earn their keep then have them work on optional skins for the end user to select. the mobilefication of the net needs to stop theres a reason .m exists use it. Bobboter (talk) 05:13, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I made an account specifically to save my preferences regarding the appearance. I'd rather check wikipedia on my phone than go through the 2022 layout. Awful. VangyTuft (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I do agree with you - like I agree 100% with everything you said - but you can change back to the original layout, so I'm not too upset. I don't really see them taking away the legacy layout either. 2604:3D09:A977:3600:5DEE:6E28:6C0:7871 11:14, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Yep. I actually registered on Wikipedia just to have the preferences option to switch to the old layout. It's just amazing how bad the new one is. Yegork1978 (talk) 19:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

About the only 'positive' is a separate TOC, and even that is rather badly implemented. It should be the topmost left table, separated from other menus and options, aligned with the article. Vinner19 (talk) 21:35, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I totally agree!! I can live with if design is not too nice-looking, but I hate when it's unpractical. And this new look is just too horrible to use. I often switch languages, sometime even those I don't talk or read, only now its impossible task to do it quickly with that stupid select box, if there are twenty languages. Moreover, I have to log in in each language to set old layout, that is so very annoying. I could write quite a list what else is useless, but I see others wrote it down already. BeaBeta (talk) 23:38, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I do not understand the disregard for users screen space. I purchased a large monitor only to find that 'designers' throw away large parts of it's space. An wiki page is not there to look beautiful (not that you could call the new design beautiful! but at the end of the day I suppose that's a matter of taste.) It's form should start with and follow function; it's there first of all to provide information, and options at your fingertips. Both are reduced significantly.

I am very glad to be able to switch back! 2A02:A46A:A337:1:14E3:853E:3CB2:6782 09:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

The new layout is EXTREMELY inaccessible for people with disabilities in my opinion.

The text being all smashed together is harder to read, the white space is distracting, and the god awful hamburger menu requires extra movements and clicks to open. Everything is so unintuitive, frustrating, and makes my head hurt. I imagine people who need screen readers are having an even harder time than I am using this site. People shouldn't have to make an entire account just so they can use an educational website without suffering.

Wikipedia 1000% did not have people with disabilities in mind when working on this redesign and approving it, as seems the case with most websites who push for the atrocity that is "modern" web design. I wonder if Wikipedia realises they aren't required to follow the the trend of having an ugly website that's terrible to use. Azethes (talk) 09:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I think it depends on the person. I have disabilities and prefer the new layout. The previous desktop version looked to me like an overwhelming wall of text. Each line was so long that I couldn't keep track of what I was reading, and constantly moving my eyes from left to right across that wide field caused fatigue. Screen readers helped me maintain focus, but I would just opt to browse on my phone instead. The new layout provides short, digestible lines of text, and the white space creates a cleaner, focused appearance. I do agree that modern web design sucks, but I find this revamp to be helpful. Otherwise, I would love to use MonoBook!

I'm sorry you're having a difficult time with the new layout. It looks like many people are in the same boat. I'm glad we are able to toggle between different layouts in order to figure out what works best for us. All I can say is that I'm thankful to have the new layout as an option. TheCowboyPirate (talk) 08:39, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

The only good thing about the redesign is the TOC sliding down with us on the left as we scroll the article. Everything else is bad. The one thing we could have used is a dark mode and we're being told it *was* technically impossible to do, has recently become possible, but won't be done regardless. I've never heard anything like it. 81.100.55.96 00:26, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

THANK YOU. It looks SO bad dude. This needs to be reverted ASAP. Thank god they at least made it easy to change back. Sleampy (talk) 23:30, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree. Created a Wikimedia account today to change my theme preference, lol Jessveness (talk) 07:35, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I am so glad I am not the only one that thinks the new layout is god awful! I thought I was going insane when I was google searching "new wikipedia layout" and all the top results were news articles with headlines like "Wikipedia gets its first makeover in over a decade… and it’s fairly subtle" (link). I was so happy when I found out that I could get rid of the layout by logging into my account. Sockbucketfrance (talk) 08:35, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Definitely agree. New look is a piece of shit. Hire some UX designers! and think twice - it looks ugly on the huge PC screens! 213.210.175.85 12:05, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. It is absolutely horrible. 213.160.161.52 21:56, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I was trying to save my appearance preferences to one of the older themes, and it straight up will not apply. Every time I re-visit a wikipedia page it is set to vector 2022. Is there a fix for this? I've already cleared my cache/cookies. CapSAR (talk) 03:40, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree! this needs to be revised back to the older verson by default. Webpages need to be functional, and not minimal. The new layout is not even optimized to view more text! Haldardhruv95 (talk) 05:57, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

i fully agree!

been using wikipedia for all my life and this new ui is a major shock, whos fucking idea was it to change it without a poll or something? Zekromisblack (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I am more worried if it gets worse, like when they start introducing a fixed sticky nav toolbar in the next design (I thought they listened in 2020) and ram it in yer face constantly as you scroll the page where it is in the way and distraction.

I am totally against it. It should be down the user what they want to see constantly on their viewing and not a few people who think they want it stuck constantly against their wishes in the guise that it will help and the users are somewhat stupid and confused.

They will loose my donations once they do that on Wikipedia. MrMobodies (talk) 02:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Agree, less intuitive, less effective real estate. Suggest making it optional, not default and seeing how many actually opt-in. Saucypuck (talk) 01:23, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Have to agree, unfortunately. While I don't have a flickering issue, the layout is absolutely terrible and seems to combine the worst of a desktop and mobile layout in one. Please go back to the previous default and save us from the weirdness of wasted space combined with restricted element sizes. There's no reason to make such a change here - sometimes something is just good and you should leave well enough alone. P.S.: it's not "subtle". Wolfbeast (talk) 08:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree! I made this account just to change to Vector legacy... I love you Wikipedia but this new layout has go to go! 178.55.41.49 10:04, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I would also like to express my discontent with the new layout. Like many people here, I've made a wikipedia account just to go back to the old theme. 79.186.222.249 17:26, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm a long time donator and small time contributor to wikipedia, and I add my voice to what appears to be hundreds of others concerning the layout change. It is incredibly cramped, counterintuitive and disorienting, and overall much worse than before. "Improvement" for the sake of improvement is a modern plague. Considering the overwhelmingly negative nature of the feedback I see here, why isn't this change reverted at once? Numero4 (talk) 06:49, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I know, why is it under desktop "improvements" Higuys153 (talk) 04:52, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I cannot claim to be an expert in editing Wiki pages, but as a retired academic I have a lifetime of reading journals in science. I'm now not too well and most of my Wikipedia-reading is done on a 15" laptop while sitting in a reciner chair. I typically spend hours a day reading it. I also take the trouble to donate for this :-) I use Firefox and I have a large collection of bookmarks, which I normally keep visible on the LHS of the screen. For a little while I have noticed that the longer pages of Wikipedia have lost their valuable pale blue indexes, so useful because as you read parts of a page, the sections you have previously visited change colour. Very recently I have discovered that if I close down my bookmarks view I see a sort of quasi contents list (with nothing of the precision of the old contents lists). Also, there is stuff on the RHS that I hardly ever look at (was it ever there before?).

Today I have looked around and discovered this "skins" issue, and if the changes I am witnessing are anything to do with this, then I don't like it - AT ALL. The old American saying "If it ain't broke then don't fix it" comes to mind. I pretty much agree with all the above complaints and I think it's time Wikipedia did a "revert". I note some commentators suggested that the new presentation should have been an option to opt into for a year or so; that would heve been much sounder treatment of us users.

At this point I have just gone to my desktop with its 24" screen an run up tabs showing the Vector 2022 and previous skins. To me it's no contest: lots of white space on the new skin, pleasant document-style layout on the old. Anyway, as I now know how to view pages using the old skin, that's what I'll be doing. Bicyclic (talk) 16:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I see a SPAMMY FIXED HEADER here but thanks to this extension (CAN'T BELIEVE I expressed my concerns in 2020 to grant user a choice that I am at the liberties of browser extension like this one:

Chrome: Sticky Header Hider aka Fixed Header Fixer

Firefox:StickDucky

This page looks nicer

"Currently, many functionalities on wiki pages are only available to users at the top of the page."

NO I DON'T WANT THAT.

Main page:

"This becomes problematic on longer pages, when scrolling past the first few paragraphs means the user would need to scroll back up to access the tools and other resources again." I'd rather do that than have something slapped in my face constantly. Dont under stand how annoying that is". RUBBISH! Put on the side panel then.

If ANYTHING IS problematic it is having fixed nav toolbars and widgets rammed into my faced constantly and follows down the page as I scroll away from them totally unwanted and undneed and they are still there in the way and as a distraction.

"Our proposed method of addressing this is to make the site header “sticky” This means it stays fixed to the top of the screen (above the content) as you scroll up or down the page."

No I DON'T WANT THAT. That is NOT HELPFUL THAT IS ANNOYING.

It wasn't a problem before LEAVE IT ALONE.

Absolutely no regard for the preferences from users.

The side panels was fine as long as I can hide it. But when you start slapping things that span the top the follow down the page, unable to hide it that maybe unwanted by the user as in in the way, that is what I class SPAMMY BEHAVIOUR. Reminds me of the browser toolbars that came installed with flash player and adbobe web installers and also the so called "free games" last decade.

The tools above I see in this form that seems GOOD enough until you take them away and put them on the spammy toolbar that gets hidden by the extension.

Developer: "The users are very stupid and confused and don't know what they are doing, they are naturally born with a very low IQ level and low abilities which means they can't navigate websites and can be very challenging for them so a fixed header will help people in that it is always there if they want it or not which means it is quicker and easier to get to... lets plaster it everywhere for their own good."

No I don't want it. I want it left alone.

So far so good on the exisiting wikipedia. I don't sign inI just read articles. As soon as I see a fixed nav/header/toolbar on Wikipedia you can forgot the donations.

I do not have difficulty using it, I do however have great difficult navigating a website with unwanted fixed things that are in the way of the contents and serve as a distraction. instead of flowing with the rest of the page. MrMobodies (talk) 02:20, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The new look is awful, with far too much white space. Perhaps Wikipedia should provide users some simple control over the appearance. And perhaps browser makers could get together and incorporate some sort of "style" preference (eg. navigator.style="[compact|mobile|desktop|...]" then every web site could automatically provide multiple css choices accordingly. Unfortunately CSS has become grossly convoluted and overly complicated, as have the javascript intrusions. Really this whole UI mess needs a lot of cleaning up. 208.71.172.42 03:05, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

It looks like it was designed for mobile not desktop, absolutely terrible and unneeded change. I hope they're listening instead of burying their head in the sand until the criticism dies down then declaring it a success based on people giving up. Thenewdesignisterrible (talk) 07:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Replying to concur, the new layout is terrible and highly inaccessible. The design is completely inappropriate for Wikipedia. Freedom4U (talk) 03:33, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

the new layout is terrible on desktop, *especially* for a multilingual user like me 2601:600:C980:2DA0:80BF:252A:BF4:8EBC 12:08, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree, I hate everything about this new layout Muddiebuddie (talk) 04:09, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Had to switch back to Vector Legacy 2010 in Preference here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering Intrepid-NY (talk) 16:11, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

agreed. looks worse and harder to read 128.6.36.140 20:16, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, Vector and in particular the left hand 'bookmark' or whatever it's called removes too much content. The previous version (2010) was much easier to read in my opinion. Can we improve without taking away too much of the content which the reader wants to read? Textualism (talk) 11:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, I had to make an account just to get the old layout back.

For me the most annoying thing is that the language selector is hidden in the new version. As a multilingual user I usually read articles in all languages I can read to get the most of it. 88.115.148.22 07:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

The only reason I made an account was to revert it to previous layout and provide feedback on how much I HATE this new layout.

It reminds me of when someone sends you a mobile link on desktop and the .m.wikipedia in the URL causes it to look poorly formatted with a bunch of useless white space. RevertToLegacyLayout (talk) 08:21, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Agree 2A00:23C5:DC80:6301:0:0:0:1083 16:00, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

As a 17-year-old Wikipedian, I completely agree. The new look (2022) is terrible. It is not acceptable to me. I went back to the "2010" look. Radek68 (dyskusja) 06:59, 27 April 2023 (UTC) Radek68 (dyskusja) 06:59, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Came here to say the new layout looks horrible. Whose idea was this? 69.245.61.93 17:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Signed up just to agree how horrible the new layout is. I have a 2560x1440 display and the new design uses 1/3 of it. Why are we treating desktop sites like mobile sites. You HAVE a mobile site, mobile.wikipedia.org, use that for you vertical/skinny text display. Stop taking away my screen real estate, you are NOT fandom. Stop ruining your website experience. --Kinomora (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

It's growing on me. But there's always the option to stick with the old layout. I just got here by clicking through the "preferences" menu. PaulHammond (talk) 19:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Vector 2022 must die.

Agreed, I made an account just because i read you can change the layout back to the original and when the survey asked what reason i had for creating my account today and since it didn't allow me the option of telling them to delete this new layout i'm posting it here

I agree, the new design sucks. The one function I use as a multilingual person - changing language - has for some reason been hidden behind a drop down gadget. "More prominent" my ass, it's much less usable now than simply clicking on the language on the left side. --2A00:5500:80E8:AB00:0:0:0:100 18:01, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

This was the key problem that drove me to log in and setup preferences. Frequently change languages. Used to be a consistent annual donor, but clearly they don't need the money if there's budget to waste on removing all the functionality out of a UI that wasn't broken. Everyone who signed off on this, the whole way up the management chain should tender their resignation immediately. Dvulrich (talk) 20:30, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Fully agree with you! I don't get why websites that are LONG established and work perfectly fine feel the need to be..... *sigh* [record scratch, turns baseball around] HIP! With it! In with the crowd! Not like your parents! So don't frown! [end lame 90's nonsense that ad companies though was cool] They need to stop. They all need to stop. Pinkfluffyunicorns88 (talk) 03:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

It is more prominent. English is not my native language, but the majority of articles I read, are in English. Every now and then, I change between English, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and a few times in the past, even French. Heck, I've even looked at articles in German. I prefer the new drop-down in favour to the old list of languages. Now the languages are always in the same spot, there's no long list of text claiming attention when I don't need it, and most importantly: no more need for scrolling to change language. That was so annoying about the old design; having to scroll down.

And now that I'm here, I'd like to inform you that the old design was not perfectly functional. I've tried creating a dark mode skin on top of Vector, and that's a truly horrible experience. Technologically, the old Vector skin was terrible. And it was not built for the screens of today either.

I hope the redesign of Wikipedia can bring us a much easier experience for building custom skins. Imagine, a future with lots of skinning abilities. Where those that want thick borders get that, those that want no borders get that, you can freely change between light and dark modes without issues, etc. Andcraft (talk) 04:03, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

ad "That was so annoying about the old design; having to scroll down." - the hell... instead of short scroll down I have to scroll all the way up now and then click and scroll again...

what a symptomatic for all the "new, thin, clean, lightweight" hipsterish design... in the end, less information, worse navigation and more scrolling and clicking 213.220.196.10 14:01, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

There is even an RfC where they discussed returning Vector 2010 as the default. Of course in the end wiki guys just ignored everything said against the new design. "We did research and you argument is invalid."

Enforcing this view on non logged people is just bonkers. Tarkalak (talk) 09:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Totally agree. Vector 2022 is horrible. Full stop. Please at least do not make it default. I know how to revert it with or without an account (just use a browser add-on named ‘Redirector’ and write some rules), but the ugliness and the user hostility shown in this design are beyond understandable. Chu Tse-tien (talk) 22:22, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I concur: this 2022 as a default is a horrible waste of page space. 99.73.36.110 01:43, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Same here. Not only doesn't it look like anything educational, it wastes space on any screen bigger than 8", and the stark whiteness leaves you lost in space. I switched back to the one with the book, that at least looks pretty. 92.200.175.206 20:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The new layout of Wikipedia is horrible, we all know that at this point. But I noticed something entirely else. The English version of Wikipedia is downgraded with this Vector 2022 nonsense but the German and Russian Wikipedias use the superior old Vector 2010 layout. Yes this is true-you can check this right now if you don't believe me. I do not know Russian or German language, I was just clicking around to see what is going on with their layouts. So good for them and for English readers we get the bad user experience.

Why the team that works on this decided that the English readers and editors should be tortured with this new layout?! How and when the other non-english communities have negotiated to be spared and not suffer the Vector 2022 disaster??? They have their voice heard and opted out but we the English using community are second class citizens now? How the other communities managed to convince you and we fail when we say we do not like Vector 2022? 94.26.15.134 16:29, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a massive downgrade on anything but a small phone. Varixai (talk) 16:19, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Created an account just in order to keep reading in the legacy layout... The UX for a multilingual user is terrible, you need to click your way through some pointless language menu rather than just select the language from the box to the left (where you also instantly see in which languages the article is available). And besides, on a UHD screen 70% of the screen surface is displaying nothing... Why would you do that? That's what the mobile layout is for, isn't it? It can be safely assumed that desktop users are using horizontal displays, so why optimize for vertical displays?

I really hope that this way of design does not become the new standard. Wwlaa (talk) 22:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm making a wikipedia account just to get away from the waste of space.

Make an account? - Thank you, I didn't know about that. Vector legacy is really a more enjoyable experience. It's why people go to cinemas even though they can watch at home. What a difference. Changing the format for mobile is understandable but doesn't make sense for desktops.Preroll (talk) 16:21, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Just another who thinks this 'new look' is nasty, harder to use, harder on the eyes, just plain annoying , effed up bs. 😨😡 Wikiwavy (talk) 17:24, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This mess seriously undermines the credibility of Wikipedia -- as if Wikipedia didn't already have ENOUGH credibility problems.

The previous "skin" was clean, clear, matter-of-fact -- giving Wikipedia at least the appearance of being a no-nonsense reference -- and was far easier to use.

Where did the article's Table of Contents (ToC) go? It's no longer visible (unless you poke around and find the pop-up, which -- if it's a moderately long ToC -- scrolls off the screen, and is horribly awkward and frustrating to use.

I finally figured out I could undo the damage, at least when "I" view it, by making changes to the "Preferences" setting (I'm a Wikipedia "Veteran Editor," extensively certified computer professional, state-licensed educator in computers, and former award-winning web developer, so I should have been able to figure out a personal solution, but it was not obvious) -- and MOST ordinary (non-editor) ''Wikipedia'' visitors will have NO idea the option exists.

This screw-up is what happens when you let some amateur idiots make changes for the sake of change -- they'll "fix" what isn't broke, break it as a result, and then shout "Progress!"

Raises extremely serious questions about the leadership, governance and future of Wikipedia. Penlite (talk) 13:05, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

What do we have to do to get this eyesore reverted? It's honestly the worst change I've ever seen. Dyaluk08 (talk) 10:24, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I finally figured out how to go back to the old look, or so I thought. Only works for the one page you are on. Surf to another page, ugly look is back. StyxinConn47 (talk) 18:05, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Wanted to add that taking the advise of someone at Wikipedia, I logged in and was able to set a preference to revert page format back to the old look, which I did immediately. I cannot stand the way they shoved all this empty space on the pages over to the left side, while the meat of the site takes up the right two thirds of the screen. But now when not logged in, the "[Hide]" switch above the wasted space won't even work. This is with Firefox V. 80 something. This is so crazy. StyxinConn47 (talk) 18:52, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

On the assumption that sheer numbers of comments do actually count for anything: The new style is indeed (I'm afraid) really horrible. Depressing to see Wikipedia get sucked in to the current fugly flatso-design fad (that I fervently hope will quickly go out of 'fashion' soon once everyone sees it for the emperor's new clothes that it is). Painfully searing white everywhere (the previous theme wisely used gentle off-whites and grey shades to elegantly put secondary UI areas into the background and make for a more relaxing reading experience). From an accessibility perspective the biggest loss for me is the lack of that good contrast and vertical line separator between the left hand menu and the main content area: now all just an endless sea of indistinguishable searing white, and, when I am reading, without those subtle but essential separation cues (and with an excess of horizontal whitespace that doesn't have the needed tight margins to even remotely work as a "newspaper column" substitute), my eye is irreversibly drawn to the left hand edge of the window at the end of Every Single Line, causing a real 'low level' brain 'glitch' in trying to read. Ugh! --Davecykl (talk) 21:42, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree, new design is horrible. I think the new design is very wrong way. We are in 2023, full HD, 4K, 8K, big screens, etc... why should we make narrower pages, websites??? Wiki has already responsible mobile version. For example many people are using 1920x1080 screens, in this case many pages with lists, columns with lot of information, images are broken now (I edit many of this). The left area is total empty and unused in most of the Wiki pages. And there is a big white gap on the right side of the Wiki pages also. What is the reason to make the content, the information so narrow??? Check out these pages with new and old design: [1][2][3] I support to revert the narrow layout of the new design. OrionNimrod (talk) 10:30, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

As desktop computer user on Firefox, I agree with posters here about the new Vector 2022 design more difficult to navigate, less intuitive. For example, the index of sections in an article has disappeared in Vector 2022, and when I re-size browser, the index of section re-appears. Which (sub-genius) designer dreamt up this useless feature to inflict upon us?! Previously this index was static right below general summary. And so many other intuitive features/layout in Vector 2010 have now disappeared to make life so much harder for Wikipedia users. If Wikipedia is trying to lower readership with Vector 2022? Congratulations the Vector 2022 layout has soured my Wikipedia user experience that I think 3 times before clicking on any Wikipedia link now. Thank you Wikipedia for breaking was was NOT broken. Puffin10 (talk) 16:47, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

It's narrower precisely because we have larger screens. If there were content on every part of the screen, without any margins, then people would have to constantly swivel their heads side-to-side. I have a 32-inch-monitor and I don't want to have to adjust the size of my entire web browser just to be able to read one website without straining my neck. Galactipod (talk) 13:35, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Just to add to the chorus of voices here - it's a bad new design, the last couple of defaults were both good. The new one's not without some silver linings, floating TOC is nice, but it's a very big downgrade overall. In particular the whitespace is an assault on the eyes and it's sad to see yet another website make this same mistake - an absolute cardinal sin of UI design in my book. I really hope it gets reverted back to Vector 2010 as default - I'm yet another IP user who now uses an account solely to avoid the redesign but as I use a VPN this is not exactly convenient. --AcumenDonor (talk) 10:59, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Everybody expressing oneself here (in a very respectful way...) is just having a basic reaction to a change.

Name ONE quality website that hasn't been shrinked in width?

You are talking about user experience, but you are talking about your own habit only: how can reading a sentence on a 50cm width is a good user experience?

It also solves one of the main layout issues by being accessible by any kind of screen shapes: before, every contributor was changing the image organisation according to his own device, never caring about what screen others could have. Now everybody has the same layout: how can this be a problem?... Daehan (talk) 12:59, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

It's been two months. Maybe you could write it off as a reaction to change if it was two days in but the dust has settled and it's still not going down well. Personally I delayed posting (and missed the votes) precisely to not have a knee-jerk reaction, but my negative reaction is actually quite a bit stronger now than initially. I've definitely seen worse redesigns but decent ones, and even many bad ones, don't usually still rankle months later.

I'm not going to spend too long on the irony of saying "you are talking about your own habit only" and then immediately talking about your own preferences, but I will point it out.

While we're talking subjectivity - my display is 50cm across, I have my web browser at full screen and, yes, I prefer reading like that and yes, subjectively, that's a good user experience. In contrast the ~60 characters per line that's often posited as the optimum line length is nigh-on unreadable for me on a monitor, though fine in print. I don't know how solid the evidence is that this is any kind of optimum (I'm very sceptical given how vague the usual source given is) but it certainly isn't a universal optimum!

Fortunately the new layout isn't quite as bad as that but I personally never experienced the issues you had with the old layout (not to say they don't exist, but they're clearly not that major) and think the old layout was better at accommodating different tastes and was therefore a better default. Especially given logged-out users can't set layout preferences with cookies. --AcumenDonor (talk) 15:28, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

As a person with a 32-inch-monitor, the whitespace is lovely. The content is exactly where it's comfortable for me to look: in the middle of the screen. The alternative is constantly swiveling my head side-to-side and straining my neck. Galactipod (talk) 13:42, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

As a person with 24 inch monitor im mad when someone wasted screen space that i have paid for. And i really don't like hidden language menu, it adds one more click. 89.64.124.218 10:06, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

How to disable/hide the switch to old look button?

I like the skin but is there a way to disable/hide the switch to old look button on the sidebar? i dont want my users to be able to do that since it changes a lot of the layout of my wiki AmpereLaw (talk) 15:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi @AmpereLaw you can read this section of our FAQ. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 08:54, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

i want to hide it from all the users thet access my wiki not just me, and also hide or change the "tool" box in the sidebar... where is the sidebar that we have by default that cannot be changed in MediaWiki:Sidebar? AmpereLaw (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi @AmpereLaw: I have updated the FAQ link with the correct one. From Quiddity css, to add in your css:

/* Hide the Vector-2022 "switch back" link in sidebar */
.vector-main-menu-action-opt-out {
display: none;
}

--Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

TOC

Hi. Vector-2022 developers, please pay attention to phab:T335633, it looks pretty serious to me. Thanks. IKhitron (talk) 23:23, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for pointing at this issue and creating a task on Phab. We're doing it this week. I hope this will be fixed soon. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 09:08, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Verdict

Just adding my voice to the majority, I waited to give my verdict, and it's still the same as the first day I saw the 2022 update: poorly done, not easier to use, not more advanced nor more simple. The user who put it the best said "Maybe the real purpose of the change was to get us all to make accounts...." If that was the case, fair enough. I know our feedback doesn't generally mean much to those who run the site, and that's fair as well, but might as well point out that it hurts to have an establishment unconcerned with the community. YouCanDoBetter (talk) 04:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Move article title above the main menu

Hello Vector2022-Developers,

please add a possibility to select in the settings that the article title does not extend over the article width, but over the whole window width. This could be implemented by bringing the left sidebar with the main menu to the height of the article and having the article title run along where the notifications are displayed (example).

Dwain Zwerg (talk) 13:30, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Dwain Zwerg. Thanks for coming to us with your idea. What problem would this solve? I'm especially interested in learning when (under what conditions) this problem exists.

Regarding the solution itself, have you considered the drawbacks? What about short titles being put too far to the left, or the fact that on different viewports, the title wraps in different places, or the problem of Just make it a user preference? With the last point, I mean, perhaps making a gadget would be more feasible.

That said, I'm curious what's your thinking, how you've come up with this idea. Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 10:08, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @SGrabarczuk,

What problem would this solve? Larger headings, like the one shown in my screenshot, would be on one line instead of two.

What about short titles being put too far to the left, or the fact that on different viewports, the title wraps in different places, or the problem of just making it a user preference? I understand the problem, but theoretically you could always center headings, couldn't you?

With the last point, I mean, perhaps making a gadget would be more feasible. That could be, maybe I will be able to convince other people to find the idea good, then maybe me and probably mainly the technical workshop in my community could rebuild the page. Of course, that would mean a higher loading time.

Thank you,

Dwain Zwerg (talk) 10:37, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Not enough space for text

While browsers learned 10 years ago, that it is better to have as much space for the website as possible, Wikipedia does the opposite and makes the side bar wider, which leaves less space for text. That sould be changed. Also it is too white, some contrast with the gray on the sides looks better. Slytzel (talk) 21:40, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Slytzel. Regarding the contrast issue, we're working on a more gray version, and we'll be testing it on wiki soon. You may be glad to read this announcement.

When it comes to the idea of limiting the content width, there's an essay about our goals and motivation, which I'm encouraging you to read. If you're dissatisfied with this design, you may use the full width option, which for both logged-in and logged-out users is persistent (is kept despite of refreshing the page or going to a different page on the same wiki).

Thank you, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 20:41, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Content list gone in BG Wiki

Hello dear team. I would like to know, what is the reason the content list to be moved out from the articles in the Bulgarian Wikipedia? I am long time editor, mostly in he Bulgarian Wikipedia and even for me this "new" is hard to be understand, its absolutely not useful. The list was really important to be on seen place, now is in left and for long articles, is really hard to be used, especially for people which just read and not write. Why we should make more complicated Wikipedia? Станислав Николаев (talk) 14:12, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Станислав Николаев. Thanks for coming to us with this question. You'll find all the basic information on this page, from which you may dig deeper into our testing documentation.

In short, we have moved the table of contents out of the content area to make it easier for users to (1) gain context about the page and keep it while reading, and (2) jump between sections. Both of these make exploring content easier and more efficient. There are also other consequences, like there's more area for actual content in the content area, which is important in the light of a different change - the limitation of the content area width.

Have you identified any particular cases in which the new table of contents is hard to be used for readers? Perhaps you're referring to some issues we're working on. Thanks, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I understand, thanks for the answer. Станислав Николаев (talk) 11:11, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Languages in alphabetcal order

Hi, would it be possible to add an option for displaying the list of languages in alphabetical order - instead of this large "suggested languages" panel?

I swear, I saw this a few months ago but somehow it disappeared. SolarisAmigo (talk) 21:04, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @SolarisAmigo. Thanks for your question. How the language switching feature works, as opposed to where it is placed, is part of different software (Universal Language Selector) decided by a different team (Language engineering). Let me ping @UOzurumba (WMF) who's part of that team. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

please see phab:T319690#8366913 Jdlrobson (talk) 16:31, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@SolarisAmigo

The language selector combines different approaches to facilitate the language selection:

• Provide flexible search where you can find a language by searching for them in multiple languages (you can search for “spanish”, “español”, o using the language code “es”).
• Suggested languages section is useful for people that frequently switches among the languages they speak. For example, a speaker of English and Korean, can quickly switch between them without having to search or scan a potentially large list.
• The above methods are the most commonly used for selecting a language. In the exceptional cases where users browse the larger list, we group the languages by region and script so that they can quickly skip blocks that are not relevant to them.

Providing alphabetical order is not very meaningful for a list of items in multiple scripts (in which order “中文“, “ไทย“, “हिन्दी” should go?).  For more advanced use-cases where you may need a flat list, in many cases accessing the list on Wikidata (From the language selector: “Add languages > Edit interlanguage links”) can be useful.

We would like to learn more about your particular use-case to explore how can we support it better. Feel free to provide more details. Thank you! UOzurumba (WMF) (talk) 17:51, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Vector 2022 with an honest TOC

Hey. I prefer Vector 2022 over the previous version in every aspect save one: That super-annoying sidebar TOC. '''OMG''': It is SUCH A FREAKING PAIN to navigate. Can I get Vector 2022 with honest-to-goodness TOC like Vector 2010? TksLingzhi.Renascence (talk) 01:16, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Lingzhi.Renascence, thank you for your feedback. You can restore the inline table of contents adding this JavaScript code in your Preferences > Skin Vector (2022) > Custom javascript. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 10:48, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

If you like the Vector-2022 layout, but with the old TOC, I recommend the Timeless skin, it's what I use and I like it a lot. Ivanics (talk) 04:27, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Frustrating

This seems like such a simple problem to notice, but apparently it has not. When editing in the new editor, it has a nasty tendency (not 100% of the time) to jump to the beginning of the edit section with the insertion of a capital letter. So after a period, you begin a new sentence. It should follow the period, not start ahead of the entire block. That is text editing 101.2603:8001:A601:2A56:542C:632C:1403:A7D9 18:16, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for raising this issue. What new editor do you mean? Could you walk me through, step by step? What browser and OS are you using? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Incorporate the articles title into the ToC

The sticky ToC looks a little bit anaemic when scrolled down. The titles Contents and the technical (Top) with its weird braces are not really a substitute. I’d make the title of the ToC the same as the articles subject. As an additional bonus it could function as a link to the top. And of course there is sticky magic to only enable the title if the main title of the article is scrolled outside the viewport. 176.199.150.38 00:04, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Is there some A/B testing going on?

I'm used to the contents, when hidden from the sidebar, in en-wiki, would be being located behind the in the sticky header, which is great. I recently discovered that it seems that in namespaces like Draft: it's now a free-floating icon in the top-left corner (e.g., en:Draft:Smart Communications (software company)). Is this intentional? Tenryuu (talk) 22:16, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Tenryuu. No, we aren't running A/B tests now. I think this isn't the expected behavior... I'll file a ticket on Phabricator. Thanks for noticing this and informing us! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:00, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Second thoughts, this appears to be due to the lack of the sticky header in this namespace. Otherwise, the icon would be part of it. I think we (the enwiki community and our team) could discuss and make a collaborative decision which namespaces with the sticky header currently disabled should get the sticky header. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:07, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk: Thanks for the explanation. If a discussion should occur, please let me know. Tenryuu (talk) 13:09, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

When will vector-2022 be the default for the German Wikipedia

Contrary to a lot of comments here I can't wait to finally get vector-2022 as a default for Wikipedia. I am mostly working with ultra wide screens and even when only using the center portion for my browser window, I much prefer the narrow text layout.

I think it's well documented that smart usage of white space and smaller column widths make text easier to read, and I am looking forward to not having to add '?useskin=vector-2022' to German Wikipedia URLs any more.

Where does the discussion on when / if to roll this out for German Wikipedia take place? Is there any public information on this issue available? 62.218.63.247 13:14, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

They are mainly vocal opinions from old-school Wikimedians. The major users wouldn't feel that the old version was better.  🐱💬 03:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I totally understand the frustration of what seems to be a huge part of corporate websites these days, that use huge fonts and narrow paragraphs that make it really difficult to quickly absorb larger amounts of information. I too am furious when I have to endlessly scroll down to see information that would have easily fit on a single page.

With text based content however, I feel it's clear that narrow columns and good use of space between is what you should go with as a designer. 62.218.63.254 15:03, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

There is now a vote and discussion at Vector 2022 als Standardskin. Discostu (talk) 13:42, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Page zone separation trial (Zebra9)

Are comments about the ongoing trial being collated anywhere? Personally I am finding the grey background separation between zones to be a backward step from the "cleanliness" of V22. AllyD (talk) 19:38, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Same for me. MikeMatyMatta (talk) 11:43, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello @AllyD and @MikeMatyMatta. Thanks for being interested in the A/B test.

As we announced before the launch of the A/B test, the goal for this is to measure the following: pageviews, opt-out rates, edit rate, Table of Contents usage, scrolling, and page tools usage. After the test, we'll analyze the data and decide if Zebra #9 would become the default look.

That being said, if you have feedback, we'll be happy to read it! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:10, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Notifications missing from sticky nav

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T333590

The sticky navigation has all the important links available except one: notifications. This means that when I am working through my notifications, I always have to scroll back to the top to go to the next one. This should be changed. Discostu (talk) 13:45, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The Vector 2022 bug fixing that was happening at a pretty quick rate for a few weeks after the initial deployment has slowed to a crawl, as often happens with shiny new beta deployments (see also the Visual Editor, still in beta after many years). See task T329673 for an example of a request related to the sticky header. To fix it for yourself, if you are willing to modify your CSS files, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Quiddity/Vector-2022-condensed.css for code that can make the default page header sticky so that you do not have to deal with the inexplicable differences between the top-of-page header and the sticky header. Jonesey95 (talk) 00:38, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@Jonesey95, you've been watching the development of the project for a long time. You may remember that the initial deployment took place in 2020 and it happened on several wikis, like French or Hebrew Wikipedia. When we deployed on English Wikipedia earlier this year, we were close to the end of the project.

@Discostu, thanks for raising this issue. I admit, I'd prefer the sticky header with the notifications, too. However, according to our engineers, this is a difficult task, and that's why we haven't done it yet. I also recommend taking a look at the discussion in the relevant Phabricator task where you'll find detailed arguments against it. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

With all respect, it was not that difficult for me to get it working for my account. I have it displaying on every page, in every namespace, right now on en.WP. It works great. The necessary CSS is linked above. The fundamental problem is that the top-of-page header is different from the sticky header, which is very confusing from a UX perspective. Making the sticky header the only header fixes that UX design problem. Jonesey95 (talk) 01:47, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Poor mobile support under 500px (MW1.39)

The new vector layout has no user-tools menu (eg login), no notification alerts (and an overly wide search toggle) in the header - unless you know to scroll off the right to find them. This is not exactly the mobile improvement expected, and possibly going to discourage signup from Anons. This happens only when responsive is on in user preferences (which if off affects other skins too).

The issue seems to not be on en WP or mediawiki (which are 1.41) - whats's the fix for this?

Alternatively is there CSS to shuffle them left? (I don't see any in use in MW or WP). I didnt see anything on phabricator.

Issue appears to be related to @min-width-supported in Vector skin in core |resources/common/variables.less

Defines the minimum viewport width, at which point the layout will not get any
smaller and will start horizontal scrolling instead.

@min-width-supported: unit( 500px 

Amousey (talk) 01:42, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Interwiki links dependancy from ULS extension.

Hi! I am quite disappointed that interwiki links has dependancy from ULS extension from MW 1.39. ULS extension works not so properly at my wiki farm, that's why I never used it, and basically I don't need it. And it is quite strange that only Vector-2022 skin has this dependancy as other skins displays interwiki language links. Can you explain why developers has done that? Fokebox (talk) 08:21, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Fokebox. You'll find information about that on the page about the feature. Is this helpful? I understand that there may be some difference between the Wikimedia wikis and third-party wikis. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, let me explain what issues I experience. I begin from the first one:

• I have different localisations of my wiki farm that has common shared database and common files of mediawiki. All localisations made just like in wikipedia: ru.mywikifarm.org - Russian, en.mywikifarm.org - English, es.mywikifarm.org - Spanish etc. The $wgLanguageCode is determined for every localisation, i.e for English it is $wgLanguageCode = "en";, for $wgLanguageCode = "ru"; is for Russian etc. The issue is that the language of all website is correct for logged in user, but when it is a guest (non logged-in user) all localisations are in Russian, i.e. en.mywikifarm.org - is in Russian, es.mywikifarm.org - is in Russian etc. When I switch off ULS extension then all works fine for logged in user and for guests (non logged-in users). And I don't know how to solve this issue.

Fokebox (talk) 19:25, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I use MW 1.39.3 at my wiki family. I have interwiki links and don't need ULS so far. But interwiki links do not work without the extension at Vector-2022. How can I disable ULS but have my interwiki links? Fokebox (talk) 13:39, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I am writing this message to remove dependancy of ULS with Interwiki links. All other skins do not have it. I don't need ULS at my website as it works not properly at my wiki farm. Fokebox (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

The issue is resolved with MW 1.40.0. Fokebox (talk) 08:47, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Sometimes the links are shown. Basically after switching on the extension

And then they disappears suddenly. Basically after using the website, after logging-in/logging-out, editing pages etc.

The second issue is following: When ULS extension is on! I do see the interwiki box showing the number of languages at my Vector-2022 skin, but when I click the box - sometimes the links are shown, and sometimes the box is empty, in spite of that HTML code is fine - I see at HTML this links and text. But it works all strange, sometimes there are links and sometimes there aren't any. And it is difficult to say why it happening and how to debug this.

My wiki farm website:

MediaWiki 1.39.3

PHP 8.0.28 (cgi-fcgi)

MySQL 5.7.34

Fokebox (talk) 19:45, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

On Main Page, the interwiki links are... at the bottom?!? Why?

One of the most disruptive changes in the new interface, is that the interwiki links were moved, from the lower left menu, to the top-right corner of the page. So disruptive that it was necessary to put a warning message in the old place, telling people were to find them. This is already a bad design, and frustrating enough (a good UI shouldn't need to tell people where to look). But today I found out that these new design is not even consistent in the different pages. When moving through different projects and comparing their respective main pages, I stumbled on some projects that use the new interface, and to my surprise I couldn't find the interwiki links in neither the old place nor the new! And after much frustration, eventually I found them... at the bottom of the main page. Why this choice? It was already a bad decision to move them, but at the very least they should always be in one place, so people always know where to find them and don't have to search for them every time. Candalua (talk) 12:55, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Ciao @Candalua! Grazie per il commento, mi permetto di risponderti in italiano. Trovi il motivo per cui il pulsante delle lingue è stato spostato in questa sezione delle FAQ, ti farà piacere sapere che si puo' facimente mettere in cima alla Pagina principale con il consenso della comunità, con o senza un messaggio di benvenuto. :) Resto a disposizione, Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 11:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Tewiki:User menu drop down

This is about Tewiki. User menu drop down has the following issues:

1. When page is not scrolled, when the mouse hovers on Contributions menu item, a sub-menu list appears with three links - contribs, translations, uploaded media. When I move the mouse to click any of these three sub-menus, this sub-menu list disappears. It is impossible to click these three sub-menus. When I move the mouse around the tool tip, then, the sub-menu list does not disappear.
2. In the sticky drop down, the sub-menu is not shown at all.

Note: The behaviour mentioned at point #1 above, is not noticed in enwiki. The above problem is exact repetition of an earlier issue that I reported here on these pages. __ Chaduvari (talk) 01:49, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @Chaduvari for reporting those issues. Traked on Phabricator here, here and here. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 15:52, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Expanding and hiding of dropdown menus implies no change in their indicator symbols

Hi, at the top menu of Wikipedia there exists dropdown menus named "tools" and "languages" and "TW". These menus are by default at the state of "hidden" and have the symbol "˅". But after clicking on these words, the dropdown menus' state changes to "expanded". The problem is that their indicator symbol should change to "˄", but this scenario is not applied, and the symbol does not change and remains "˅". This changing of symbol to "˄" is necessary to indicate the dropdown menu's state is "expanded" and a click on it causes a "hide" action. This scenario is nearly always applied in MS Windows's dropdown menus. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 11:51, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The task T303488 has this visual shortcoming as one of several issues under discussion. DavidBrooks (talk) 17:25, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

why is the search field hidden

In the old desktop version the search field was always visible and you could tab into it. Now you have to click the icon. Why do this? Searching for something is the main use for an encyclopedia. Stuartbrussell (talk) 07:01, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Nevermind, it looks like somehow my browser went to the mobile version where you have to tap the search icon. Not sure how that happened... Stuartbrussell (talk) 07:04, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Sidebar Main Menu

The sidebar main menu should be the same color as the background. Crenshire (talk) 21:47, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

What was the process for adding a sticky navbar?

I see some engagement metrics were used in the Features page, but I believe engagement metrics are the root of all evil on the web. The kinds of questions that matter are "did the user leave the page having learned something?," "if the user was looking for something specific, did they find it? How quickly?", and "did the user retain the information?"

The primary purpose of opening a page on wikipedia is to read the content in the page. A sticky navbar uses important vertical space on my screen that I want to use to read content to try and get me to do some other things.

Where can I learn more about how this decision was made, and who was involved? Is this decision reversible? 107.190.47.147 13:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Interwiki on special pages

Hi! On Polish Wikipedia we used to have interwiki links on Special:Watchlist so as to allow users to switch to their watchlists in foreign language projects in a usual way, like on every other wiki page (the links are defined here). In Vector 2022 however, the language switcher displays just a language icon in the header and nothing happens after clicking it. Is it intentional to disable language switcher in such a case or is it just a bug? Msz2001 (talk) 15:49, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Feature sister project links more prominently

In the beforetimes, sister project links were present in the sidebar. Such "prominence" made some Wikipedias to disencourage the inclusion of sister project links inside the articles.

Nowadays, the project links are hidden for the reader in the "tools" sidebar. Only editors want to see the "tools" sidebar. It's atleast for power-users.

Sister projects need interlinking for survival. Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 03:09, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Suggest adding "Add interlanguage links" to "Add languages"

In the old look, it is easy to add interlanguage links. However, in the new look, the "Add interlanguage links" has been moved away from the "interlanguage" area. I think it should be more rational to have the link there.

When there is no interlanguage links, the current version is:

No languages yet. Add a new one?

Make the content available in more languages.

• Translate this page
• Open language settings

I suggest the improved version should be like this:

No languages yet. Add a new one?

Make the content available in more languages.

• Translate this page
• Add interlanguage links
• Open language settings

Yaukasin (talk) 15:10, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Did someone change something recently?

I'm able to load (eg) "Template:Did you know nominations/..." pages off of my alerts at the top of already opened pages but periodically over the last week (and constantly at the moment) the actual article pages are either loading entirely blank screens or loading code glitches. (2 incomplete boxes in the partial style of, e.g., a section menu.)

Like all right-thinking editors, I'm still using Vector Legacy. Changing that (I can still access this page and my preferences just fine) doesn't seem to have any effect though. Still blank pages (not 404 errors) or glitches.

Did someone adjust something badly? or do any of you know what might be going on within Chrome that might cause this? — LlywelynII (talk) 05:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

@LlywelynII Perhaps report this issue on en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), as here is about Vector 2022. Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 03:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

The sidebar is too wide and the content block is too narrow

The sidebar is too wide and the content block is too narrow. and that the search bar will automatically hide when the layout becomes smaller? I think it's too inconvenient to using. 118.150.85.160 08:14, 10 August 2023‎ (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for commenting here. What language version do you use? Is it Chinese? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:23, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

please add dark mode!!

dark mode should be on wikipedia by now. every or most site on the internet has it. why doesn't the wiki have it too? Crenshire 23:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Crenshire, thanks for your question. We will be building dark mode soon. Subscribe Newsletter:Web team's projects to get updates about that :) SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 12:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

I subscribed. Does the newsletter send me news in the alerts or notices page? Crenshire (talk) 21:47, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

For the time being you can make do with a browser addon (e.g. Dark Reader, which is FOSS and ubiquitous among desktop and mobile browsers) at the cost of a few rendering issues (images with a transparent background and some mathematical formulas will be hard to see). By default these addons are set enabled to all websites, but you can set them in whitelist mode, and pick the websites you want to use it on (as most websites do have a better implemented native dark mode). CapoFantasma97 (talk) 11:52, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, there is a gadget en:Wikipedia:Dark mode (gadget) which maintained by volunteer developers. SCP-2000 (talk) 11:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

in the meantime, i use the extension "night eye" for google chrome Notsammyray (talk) 21:02, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

searching: no suggestions for pages in extra namespaces

Hi there -

thank you very much for your work :) I just noticed that with mediawiki 1.39 and the accompanying vector 2022 skin, the suggestions in the search box only return hits for pages in the default namespace, but not for pages in custom namespaces.

So … given that there is a page "whatever" in the main namespace and a page "whatever2" in a custom namespace with the same content and that searches should include the custom namespace:

• searching with vector 2022 only suggests "whatever"
• searching with the timeless skin suggests both "whatever" and "whatever2"

The expected and desired behaviour is the timeless one.

Thank you for looking into this, Thoralf. T tfbb (talk) 08:15, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @T tfbb, we'll look into this! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Limit the screen width

I think the worst one can do is limit the screen width... I's far less relaxed for reading and a waste of screen space. Switched back to the previous version. 213.219.163.24 23:41, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello! I'd like to invite you to read this page: Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Limiting content width. There we've documented our arguments for this change. If you prefer the full width, you may use the button in the bottom right corner of the screen, too. I hope this solves the issue! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I have a somewhat related question. I see that there is a toggle on the MediWiki site in the bottom right corner to adjust width, which is great... but I don't see it on my own install using Vector 2022 (MediaWiki version 1.39.3). Is there something I'm missing in order to make that visible? I don't have the "Enable limited width mode" option in user preferences either. Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer. Adoxtater (talk) 02:29, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

My install of MediaWiki also does not have the full width toggle button. Fanra (talk) 10:39, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

If you're not seeing the limited-width toggle, it might be because the browser window is too small. Currently, per T326887 the limited width toggle is only available when the browser window is bigger than 1400px wide. JDrewniak (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I have dual monitor and stretched the window to run the full width of both and still no toggle button. However, on the mediawiki site it does show up even on a single monitor. Unless, of course, they're running some other code that makes it happen I guess. Adoxtater (talk) 22:21, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I have designed an alternative toggle button that I feel better represents the functionality... and emailed it to answers@wikimedia.org. Is there a better way to share it?? 68.83.135.144 18:24, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I have designed an alternative toggle button that I feel better represents the functionality... and emailed it to answers@wikimedia.org. Is there a better way to share it??

Disallowing me to upload... AlanGochin (talk) 18:31, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to say that even after reading those pages and the research about page-width, from my perspective it's a bad default setting because it works against the things that page says it's being implemented to improve.

In my experience it's made wiki in general less readable because the article content is now less than 50% of my ultrawide screen (2560px horizontal resolution, default text width ends up at ~1025px) which creates the effect of a newspaper with only one, often extremely long column, hurting readability because you have to jump lines and scroll so much more often which at least for me completely breaks the flow the article had. In fact, I'd describe it as closer to an old school scroll than a newspaper. :/ 203.12.8.36 06:43, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Being a long-time user of Wikipedia I have to say the old look is more superior than the new one. Not only is it wider it is also more simple. Having the contents on the left side of the screen in the new look isn't that helpful because the first thing people see in an article is the introduction. Volcanoguy (talk) 00:09, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Limiting width is actually much more comfortable to read, especially for ultra wide or big screens, and it's the reason most modern websites are formatted that way. Limiting the width of the article also allows to keep in view useful interfaces on the sides, such as the index, shortcuts to various tools and URLs, and so on. CapoFantasma97 (talk) 11:57, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

limiting is the worst I need some way to disable it, because it difficult to read map, tables, genealogical map, edit code, etc Iqudoblev (talk) 18:09, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

@Iqudoblev: Hello, you can follow this instruction to expand the width. Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 02:41, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

What are the options for "$wgVectorMaxWidthOptions" as if it has a max-width setting then this should solve to problem for those of us that need full width to display multi-column table data and complex graphics? ScotGill (talk) 11:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Ignore me ScotGill (talk) 13:52, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

The __NOTOC__.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T317818

Is it possible to disable the magic word __NOTOC__ in Vector 2022? As I understand it is only used when the Table of Content is affecting readability of the article; as it is too dominant regarding article text. In Vector 2022 it is hidden or in the left margin and the Table of Content does not affect the articles text. By disabling the magic word for Vector 2022 all pages will look the same with the "hamburger menus" in the same places. LittleGun (talk) 08:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello @LittleGun, it's good to see you here on MediaWiki.org. We were working on T317818 which seems to be related, but apparently, there were no clear decisions regarding the direction for NOTOC. I'll ask the team. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:01, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, here is a link to the Village pump at Swedish Wikipedia discussing this matter: 1. A lot of the discussion is about when, and how to, use NOTOC in other skins. But everyone agrees NOTOC can be disabled in Vector 2022 for Wikipedia. LittleGun (talk) 12:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Slow language selector in Vector 2022 theme

The language selector takes a lot of time to settle down. I have recorded a profile in Firefox, which can be accessed at the following link: https://share.firefox.dev/46CZJcB

During the recording, the browser spent 3 seconds in reflow.

This slow performance is so annoying that I have switched to the Vector legacy (2010) theme. Self-Perfection (talk) 10:50, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I suppose I have finally found the correct place where this should be reported: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T349428 Self-Perfection (talk) 12:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Self-Perfection. Thanks for reporting this issue, I'll let our engineers know. Perhaps the task should be assigned to the team working specifically on the language selector, since the selector is not technically part of any skin; I'm sure the engineers will figure this out. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

At greek wiktionary?

Letter for deployment of V22 arrived at our el.wiktionary (Greek wiktionary https://el.wiktionary.org/) and feedback concerning the application of Vector2022 to dictionaries like wiktionaries is discussed at Vikileksiko:Wikiacademy:

https://el.wiktionary.org/wiki/Βικιλεξικό:Βικιδημία/2023Vector

Editors, especially interface administrators working exclusively for wiktionaries are very welcome to participate. Thank you. Sarri.greek (talk) 13:55, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Sticky header

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T350091

Hi. Are there any plans to add a sticky header with at least page name on version diffs? IKhitron (talk) 20:57, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Great question, @IKhitron. I've opened a Phab ticket – let's see if there are any engineering or design reasons for not enabling this for diffs. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:37, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Great, thanks. IKhitron (talk) 00:37, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

目的の対象は？

こんにちは、お疲れさまです。

Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Updates/2023-10 for sister projectsをウィキクォート・ウィキブックス（いずれも日本語版）から、Google翻訳で読みました。率直に私の感想を言いますと、「いい加減にしてください ≒ vecter2022への変更を断ります」です。skinをより良くしたい気持ちはともかくとして、私にとっては良くなっていません。既出での問題ではありますが、目次とヘッダーが私の主要な問題点です。

• 目次に対して - wikipediaは大項目主義と小項目主義とどちらを取るのかをまだ決定されていないと把握していますが、大項目のページでは、indexではなくTOCが要点として有用であったと思います。
• ヘッダーに対して - ログインユーザーでないと固定されないのでは、スティッキーヘッダーの目的を達成できていないでしょう。
• 他 - 「おまかせ表示」がハンバーガーの中に入ったのは不便ですが、それは私の（モバイル）環境があまり良くないからだと納得できますが、姉妹プロジェクトを閲覧するのに毎回メインページに戻るのは面倒です。

英語版wikipediaでも、vecterレガシーから2022に変更されたとき、かなりの不評があったのを見ていますが、「ウィキメディア財団 Web チーム」から、vecter2022を押し付けられてる感が否めません。目的はskinの改善であって、wikimedia運動の参加者（ログインユーザ）を増やすことではないはずです。

以上、あくまで私個人の感想ですが、あらかじめ失礼をお詫びします。 温厚知新 (talk) 15:20, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello @温厚知新さん! Thank you for your comment here. I very much appreciate that you have come to us to share your opinion.

• Could you write more what you mean in this sentence, which Google Translate translates as

  I understand that Wikipedia has not yet decided whether to use the large heading system or the small heading system, but I think that the TOC rather than the index would have been useful as the main point for the large heading page

I'm not sure what's the meaning of the words translated as "large heading system", "small heading system", and TOC and index. Thank you!

• Regarding the sticky header, what functionalities (what icons or links, search widget?) would you like to see in the version for logged-out users? Do you think these functionalities would be mostly useful for the logged-out editors or readers?
• おまかせ表示 - we wanted to make the skin more understandable at first glance, at the cost of immediate access to many links. As you may know, most readers don't use the links in that menu, including おまかせ表示 You may read more about that on this page.
• (On a side note, you will find the links to sister projects in the menu ツール, on the right side of the screen. On a narrow screen, this menu is collapsed, but on wider screens it may be displayed in the right column. I just mean you don't need to go to the main page to get to these links, but perhaps I didn't understand you.)

Thank you, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:02, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

I'm not sure what's the meaning of the words translated as "large heading system", "small heading system", and TOC and index.

TOC（目次）と index（索引）は実装されたときの議論で link を付けましたが、私の感覚では、目次と索引は用途が違います。large(small) heading system はカテゴリーのようなものでしょうか。大きな項目だと一覧性は低くなりがちなので、読者の興味を引くような見出し名を、編集者は考えていたりするはずです。

ログアウトユーザーに対してスティッキーヘッダーに最低限必要と思うのは、Wiki logo・Search・Create account・Log in です。私はvecter2022をあまり好きではないので、ハンバーガーは除外しました。

ツールに対しては、私の誤解で申し訳ありません。関連付け(wikidate?)されたページには姉妹プロジェクトへのリンクがありました。大変失礼をいたしました。

言いづらいことではありますが、私個人の感覚としては、内容が読めれば skin はどれでもいいと思っています。--温厚知新 (talk) 18:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)アンダーライン部分にリンク追加--温厚知新 (talk) 09:40, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

追記 vecter2022で目次(TOC)とされている部分は「柱」[4]になるのだと思います。--温厚知新 (talk) 09:40, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

結局そのまま既定のものにされてしまって残念です。WMFが運営するwikipedia（および姉妹プロジェクト）というコンテンツのTOC（サイドバー？）と、ArticleのTOCを両方見れるvecterレガシーが、私にとって便利でした。諦め半分の意見ではありましたが、実際に徒労となってしまって口惜しい限りです。

願わくば、他の多くのプロジェクトで採用しているskinだから、合わせることが正しいと思われないよう祈っています。--温厚知新 (talk) 05:10, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Breaking change

Hello. A couple of hours ago there was a group1 new deployment. Could you tell me, please, what breaking change was in the HTML structure in the New Vector? I'm trying to fix the Watchlist Manager gadget, because suddenly all its buttons on this skin disappeared (on some browsers, what looks like a synchronization problem). It never happened before. If you could tell me what did you change, I can try to fix the problem. Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

There’s been no significant changes except the addition of the new addPortlet API which wouldn’t cause buttons to disappear. You can review all the new Vector changes here: https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-skins-Vector/compare/wmf/1.42.0-wmf.2...wmf/1.42.0-wmf.3

Could you share the code to your gadget? It will be easier for me to help you diagnose what's happening here if I am able to see the code. Jdlrobson (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Weird. Of course, @Jdlrobson, it's he:Mediawiki:Gadget-WLM.js. You can turn off in Special:Preferences the option "ignore all the edits except the last one", turn on the Watchlist filters option, and open the watchlist in Vector and also in New Vector. Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 16:10, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't look like oojs-ui-core has been added as a dependency in he:מדיה_ויקי:Gadgets-definition yet that gadget seems to use OOUI for rendering buttons. What happens if you wrap your code like so?:

mw.loader.using('oojs-ui-core').then( function () {
...
} );

Jdlrobson (talk) 18:56, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

It definitely helped, @Jdlrobson, thank you. And it fits my earlier mentioned suspicion about a synchronization problem, if this library started yesterday to load a little later. I'll ask other people that complained. If it's fine on their side too, can I restore the code and move the library into the Gadgets definitions? IKhitron (talk) 19:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Yep gadgets definition sounds like it would be the appropriate action here (assuming it's only running on watchlist page/logged in users)! Jdlrobson (talk) 21:30, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Great. Thank you very much for your help. IKhitron (talk) 21:42, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

No problem! Glad we got to the bottom of the problem! Jdlrobson (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikidata and Commons?

Re Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Updates/2023-10 for sister projects, I'm hoping to see the new layout also become the default on Wikidata and Commons, so there is UI consistency across all of the Wikimedia projects, is this planned to happen soon? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:12, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Mike Peel. Thanks for bringing this up.

We will approach those communities, too, but we don't have any specific plans with timelines just yet. As you surely know, in terms of cross-wiki UI consistency for logged-in users, setting up a global preference is a solution. Currently, it's the only one.

Another possibility for any experienced community member at any time is to start a bottom-up pre-deployment coordination, for example checking if there are any popular gadgets that need to be adjusted, or any wiki-specific needs that are currently not met. Do let me know if you're interested in partnering with us in this, or if you know of anyone wanting to dedicate some of their time. That would be most welcome! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:25, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @SGrabarczuk (WMF)! I've already set up Vector2022 as a global preference for my account, and am keeping an eye out for specific bugs that can be fixed on-wiki. I think there are some that need configuration elsewhere, though, e.g., what appears on the left vs. right menus now they've split. If you posted on the project chats for Wikidata and Commons, I'm sure you'd find people interested in helping with this (I can help a bit, but don't have much time at the moment). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:34, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Add dropdown for sticky edit button when not at the top

Hello I was wondering for people who have the option "Show me both editing tabs" in the setting "Editing mode" enabled, if it would also produce a dropdown menu for the edit button that's on the sticky header when scrolling down a page. Currently the button opens up only the visual editor which isn't ideal when you want the 2017 or source editor instead for a specific scenario. The current solution is having to scroll all the way back up to get to the button, or switch to source after the visual editor is done loading.

Personally I think this would be an amazing change to speed up editing and would reduce frustration when trying to edit. Thank you. WanderingMorpheme (talk) 01:18, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Wait my mistake, it already has its own button that looks like [[]] to edit the source code, feel free to ignore this whoops. WanderingMorpheme (talk) 17:28, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

How to add a new tab after Edit

We have a gadget that add a custom tab after "Edit" and "History" tabs. But the layout breaks, because the container does not become bigger, so this tab ends up on a new line. What is the proper way to add a new tab through a gadget, without breaking the layout? Thank you. Candalua (talk) 16:42, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

mw.util.addPortletLink()? Since you didn’t tell us where the code is, I have no idea what the broken solution is, and if this function could actually help you. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 11:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I'll complete the answer myself: this code adds a new tab after History: mw.util.addPortletLink('p-views', mw.util.getUrl( 'Special:Example' ), 'Example'); Thanks. Candalua (talk) 17:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Change language on Recent Changes

With the old Vector, from the Recent Changes page it was possible to go to a different language edition (if interwikis had been added to the page). In the new Vector, even where interwikis are present (such as it.ws) this is no longer possible (it says "the contents are not supported in other languages"). Why has this function been removed, and is it possible to have it back? It was very useful for multi-language users. Candalua (talk) 08:47, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Nov 2023 updates: Dissapearing gray vertical line

I looked at french Wikipedia to checkout the changes.

In "menu principal", when folding it out, a gray thick vertical line is first appearing at the right hand side of the menu.

It then disappears, "dissolves", in a way that looks animated by choice.

It is not mentioned in the description of updates. Was it made on purpose, and implemented for all or do I see some kind of bug? To me it is disturbing with the ani,ation at the side of text I want to read.

I am running Chrome on Chromebook. LittleGun (talk) 06:37, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Use full width on Wikisource's Index namespace

On Italian Wikisource, after hiding all the menus, ns0 and nsPage use the full width of the screen, and this is good. But nsIndex does not: how can I achieve the same effect? Thank you. Candalua (talk) 16:39, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Candalua, thanks for asking us this question. This is a matter of local wiki settings, something technically controlled by the team. Index on it.wikisource is an interesting case – as the standard view, there are three columns in the content area. I will get back to you on it.wikisource itself to continue this discussion. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @SGrabarczuk (WMF)! I think the devs actually enlarged the nsPage layout especially for us, because we had complained about it; maybe they just have to do the same thing in the Index namespace. Candalua (talk) 17:08, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Exactly. I mean, perhaps I would soften "have to" to "need to" :D but putting English grammar aside, yes, this is exactly what the choice is about. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Switch to old look

I like vector-2022 but I can't use it because none of my users would unterstand "Switch to old look". How can I get rid of it? 89.206.82.191 10:48, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "none of my users would understand 'Switch to old look'." If you'd like not to see the "Switch to old look" link, edit your CSS (if it's about your wiki, you may edit your MediaWiki:Common.css; if it's about a wiki you read, you may use a browser plugin. Try to use

.vector-main-menu-action-opt-out {display:none;}

Does that answer your question? Does that code work for you? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

That was it for my Wiki used only by a dedicated group (historians).

Thank you.

It's not very easy to find the right class for an item and where to control it: Your help works in my Common.css, but not in my (till now still local) installation in Vector.css. ???

Probably I should spend more time to dive deeper in DevTools. 89.206.82.135 08:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF): What if a wiki has never used Vector 2010? This link should be officially configurable, not only using on-wiki CSS (and be removed after some time – Vector 2010 doesn’t have a “Switch to MonoBook” link either).

@89.206.82.135: You should use MediaWiki:Vector-2022.css to configure Vector 2022. While using MediaWiki:Vector.css may work if $wgVectorShareUserScripts is set to true, doing so is deprecated. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 13:33, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Add Sticky ToC to Dev Docket

I was redirected here from Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Features/Sticky_Header. I'm running MW 1.39.3 using Chameleon with a sticky wiki navigation header, which works great, but I think it would be very useful to have a sticky table of contents for the same reasons as stated for the header on the referring page.

Since the Sticky Header has been taken up as part of the Desktop Improvements project, I think it would be prudent to include the ToC.

Thanks ~z929669 Talk 04:47, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

EDIT: Now I finally realize that the new look include a sticky ToC at left. I honestly couldn't find it when scanning purposefully. It looks like a solution for me would need to come from Chameleon or my own custom tweaks. Sorry to clutter the page with my nonsense. ~z929669 Talk 05:03, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

How to set a logo in Vector 2022?

Hello, I have a problem, I added the code to display the logo in Vector 2022, but unfortunately the logo does not display.

Topic:Xt63zroehwwpfvw6 Monocero (talk) 20:57, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Seriously, does anyone know why I can't set the logo to display in Vector 2022? Monocero (talk) 10:53, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

The "missing in XXX language" in language drop down menu is obnoxious

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T344028

When you click "X language" on the top right corner (in the new Vector kin), it shows a drop down menu. The the menu, it sometimes will also show a "missing in XXX, YYY, and more" if other language versions you've used before don't have this article, at the top.

The problem is, this part isn't loaded together with the rest of the menu. It loads separately and asynchronously, and there is often a small delay between the menu opening and it shows up. Once this part is loaded, it shifts every other things below down.

This causes an issue that, when I click the menu, I already start moving my cursor towards the link I want, and try to click it. The shift-down makes I misclick, multiple times a day. This is very, very obnoxious.

Please fix this, either move it to the bottom, leave the space fixed before loading, or even better, don't draw the UI until everything is loaded. This is classic bad UX.

Thanks. fireattack (talk) 07:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Fireattack, thanks for reporting this issue. I have created a Phab ticket for it.

Because the Universal Language Selector is a different piece of software, technically not part of a skin, it's another team's job to fix it. They have recently raised this task's priority, and I hope they will work on it soon.

Thanks, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, @SGrabarczuk (WMF)! fireattack (talk) 16:31, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

last section is not shown in table of content in the left bar

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352432

go to Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Updates/de use the scroll bar of the table of content, scroll down, last item shown is August 2019: Research and brainstorming at Wikimania but actually the las one on this page is August 2019: Technical Research. I'm using chrome on windows 11, is happens on a lot of sites but not on this talk page. Wetterwolke (talk) 13:28, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Wetterwolke for reporting this. I think this is part of the issue of ToC overlapping the footer. It will soon be fixed. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

thanks for the notice. yep its working as expected using zebra Wetterwolke (talk) 15:50, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Where is the main discussion about this skin now taking place?

/thread.

I remember a dozen different places this was discussed, but I have finally closed all the tabs, lol.

Recently, Vector 2022 on Wikipedia made a notable change. Initially, there was a redesign that narrowed the content width, making it look like a mobile site. However, it seems they've quietly addressed this by making all text fit the browser window, regardless of resolution, especially when maximized. And there is no button down anymore - presumably because all content is now stretched. Is there somewhere where they address or discuss this change? Seems pretty significant. —Jetro (talk) 06:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

@Jetro: You can see the details about this update and the relevant discussion on English Wikipedia. If you have any comments or concerns, you can leave it here directly. Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 07:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @SCP-2000, this is correct!

From the team's perspective, the most direct way to discuss the project, regardless of the wiki, is this page. Different communities may have discussions on their village pumps; we'll have the message translated into different languages. On English Wikipedia, there already is a dedicated thread SCP-2000 linked to.

So @Jetro, you're welcome to comment here or on VPT, whatever you prefer. Thanks, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:58, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Mobileview became worse at MW 1.41.0

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354076

Hi! I have had MW 1.40 and upgraded to MW 1.41 and use this skin as well for mobile view. At MW 1.40 all was fine, but after upgrading the mobile view became worse. See the difference here below before and after upgrading:

• 
• 

As you can see, that at MW 1.41 there is a gap. When will it be fixed? Fokebox. The views is from iPhone (Safari) (talk) 13:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @Fokebox for reaching out and for creating a Phabricator task. As I can see, our engineers have noticed your report and are working on it! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Great! Hope it will be fixed with next 1.41 MW version. Fokebox (talk) 20:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Configuring Main menu pinned as default

Hi, I am looking to configuring main menu pinned as the default behaviour for both logged in and anonymous users. I was able to find "vector-main-menu-pinned" config option but it doesn't seem to actually do anything (it is already default to be true as well). This is also the case for "vector-page-tools-pinned".

TOC does seem to respect the "vector-toc-pinned" if I toggle the option between true and false. Are the other two configs not implemented? Or is there a different way we can control main menu default behaviour?

MW and Vector version REL1_41. Any guidance is greatly appreciated. Laoweek (talk) 22:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Big images in user namespace can overlap right-hand menu

I hope this is the right place to report this. On dewiki we've noticed that images can block the view of the right hand menu on user pages (see, for example: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzerin:Zartesbitter&oldid=241381938, screenshot here: https://imgur.com/Uc4kRxA). As it only seems to concern user pages it isn't a huge problem, but should probably still be fixed. Best Polibil (talk) 09:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

move interwiki links to top on main page

Is there a simple way to configure this option for a non-wikimedia wiki? I tried changing the value in skin.json

       "VectorLanguageInMainPageHeader": {
            "value": {
                "logged_in": true,
                "logged_out": true
            },
            "description": "@var When `VectorLanguageInHeader` is enabled, determines whether the Main Page's language button should be at the top or bottom of the content. The default position on the main page is at the bottom."
        },

but that didn't do the trick, I still see the interwiki links at the bottom of the main page.

May I kindly ask for instructions on how to implement this change for a non-wikimedia wiki? Lwangaman (talk) 01:10, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

sorry about that, I guess this can be archived... There must have been some kind of cache that didn't allow the change to take place. It now seems to be working... Lwangaman (talk) 02:12, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

WHY WAS THIS ADDED?!

I friggin' hate the new look and it being the default for every project. The old look has become somewhat iconic, and disabled preferences for IPs have taken it away from them. To put it simply: NOT COOL. IPs are people too (talk) 18:34, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello @IPs are people too. Thanks for coming here. I hear you; although we think the change is positive in general, it isn't necessarily better for each person with their specific needs. I presume you have selected Vector legacy as your default skin, haven't you?

Indeed, the lack of preferences for not logged-in means that this audience can't change the skin they see. But over time, they will be able to customize more and more things about the interface. Is that something you'd like to be informed of every now and then? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 21:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Agree this change makes it useless... would like to see statistics for how many users who actively disable the new look - Salgo60 (talk) 23:20, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I've had my account set to vector legacy ever since the new look rolled out, because I also supremely dislike the new look. this has been pretty much fine so far because I'm always logged in, but today vector legacy stopped working, keeping me constantly on the new look, and I've been trying for half an hour to turn it off and have no idea how. I'd just like to be able to put vector legacy back on. Apelcini (talk) 00:52, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello! How exactly did V10 stop working? Aaron Liu (talk) 22:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Originally I disliked the new one but it has grown on me and i now use it 2601:3C0:C100:42C0:5903:DBB5:415F:17AD 23:59, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

There were multiple RfCs, and sometime last year there was a an long thread about removing it as default. There more in favor of returning the old one, but the wiki staff just dismissed it with 'you argument is weak' and stuff.

Here was it from last year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rollback_of_Vector_2022#c-GeebaKhap-20230412125400-Support_rolling_back_to_Vector_2010

Basically they made it and it will bo shoved into everyone's mouth no matter if it is good or not. Tarkalak (talk) 11:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Again, the closers were not part of the WMF, there was even a closure review that also got no consensus, and a ratio of fifty-something to a quite smaller fifty-something is a no consensus. What they did shove is the limited width by default, which was not the fault of the closers. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:05, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

That url's useless. IPs are people too (talk) 02:28, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

How so? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:24, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

The comment it links to was deleted. IPs are people too (talk) 01:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I mean, what's important isn't the comment, it's the "Why" Aaron Liu (talk) 13:01, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I like the new look. AX29 (talk) 17:22, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Same feeling- the 2010 version felt like you were actually reading an encyclopedia. The left side was the "binding" or margin which your brain naturally ignored it unless needed because of the contrast and because it was standard on every page and didn't scroll with you. It wasn't perfect but nearly so. It felt somehow different than almost every other site on the internet and had a kind of timeless, classy feel, which is now lost. The new one increases cognitive load by continually making you glance at the left bar. Now your mental map is constantly trying to navigate two hierarchies at once. It constrains the width, if you remove the sidebar it doesn't use the space and overall it makes you want to spend less time reading because it's annoyingly brighter. Just the slight amount of gray on the side did quite a bit to help. I mean, if this is the new direction just go all the way and add dark mode and make it look fully modern- kids will feel like they're on discord. We'll all adapt but this wasn't an improvement. Much respect and thanks to everyone involved in all sides of the project, so no lack of appreciation. 209.65.187.201 22:41, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

You don't have to continually glance at the ToC, and neither did one need to in V10.
You can unconstrain the width with the bottom-right button. If you don't do that, there is grey at the sides, and V10 also used white for the content so I'm not sure why you mean by that part. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:33, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, this kind of sucks. Menus that were previously visible are hidden and the areas they once occupied are now simply blank. The main menu is hidden behind that silly, nondescript icon with three small horizontal bars and the the right hand menu is likewise stuffed away. Prima facie, the interface makes no sense. It's the same regressive UI principle that seems to be applied everywhere now. AP295 (talk) 00:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

You can move the menus out. To make the areas not blank, click on the bottom-right button to unlimit the width. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I know that I can, but what was the point of hiding them in the first place? Even when they're moved out, the page content seems to be limited to a narrow, fixed area in the center instead of scaling to the width of the screen. It wastes a lot of space. Also, (and I know this is a minor complaint and applies to both but particularly the 2022 skin), its high-contrast icons and symbols are generally quite ugly. AP295 (talk) 19:05, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree that they probably should've automatically unhid the main menu when the screen is big enough. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• @IPs are people too, Salgo60, Apelcini, Tarkalak, AX29, and AP295, and anyone else who would like to, please consider expressing your opinions in the following RfC (the third one about V22 on the English Wikipedia): en:Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Evaluation of Vector 2022.--Æo (talk) 15:01, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  IPs are people too has been blocked indefinitely for ENGVAR trolling. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Wish I could, but this will have to do. I dislike the following: The menus are hidden by default. The high contrast icons/symbols are ugly and used in place of descriptive text. Much of the screen space is wasted. I like the old vector and don't see anything wrong with it. It might be a bit nicer if the background were slightly toned to a beige or off-white color to help eyestrain. AP295 (talk) 22:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think beige is going to help. IMO signpost.news, which does beige, gives way more eyestrain than white, which I have no problem with.
  You can un-waste the space if you really want to by unlimiting the width by clicking on the bottom-right button. That will make the page content unconfined to a narrow area in the center. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Seeing one page in vector 2022

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T336504

Dear Madam/Sir,

I use global preferences to enable vector 2010. For some reason I see my own userpage on nlwiki in vector 2022. It is the only page I see in vector 2022. My English userpage and any other person's userpages on nlwiki I see in vector 2010. What is going wrong here? Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 21:46, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Taketa, thank you for reporting this problem! Could you add ?safemode=1 to the URL, reload the page, and tell me if you still see the new skin? (?safemode=1 disables your customization. If you can see the old skin with it in the URL, it means that the problem is caused by your customized code.) SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:33, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The page has Special:PrefixIndex transcluded, so this must be the same issue as the one that's been reported ad nauseam and is being worked on. No need to ask such things. Nardog (talk) 00:39, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Adding ?safemode=1 removes the problem. Yay. Though I don't think I use any customized code. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 03:27, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Nardog, I didn't check that out. You're right, it's precisely T336504! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at w:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Adding_article_title_to_sidebar_table_of_contents

 You are invited to join the discussion at w:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Adding_article_title_to_sidebar_table_of_contents. Sdkb ^talk 17:16, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Where's The Talk Page Button?

I occasionally wish to got to the Talk page of an article, whether it's to see if there's any discussion or contribute to it myself. The Talk page is highly valuable for editors, and I have just one question:

The button to go to the talk page is there in both Vector (Legacy) and MinervaNeue. Why isn't it in Vector (2022)?

The Talk page is a really important function. A good place to put it would be right before or after the "Edit Source" button. Gordinator (talk) 10:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The talk page button is there, it was simply swapped with the article title compared to Vector 2010 (“legacy Vector”). —Tacsipacsi (talk) 21:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Well that solves it. Thanks! I didn't see it because I was used to Vector (Legacy) so much. (Redacted) 00:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Nothing like leaking my IP address to the Internet. Well, it's not like you can do much with an IP anyway. Gordinator (talk) 00:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Gordinator, I'm pretty sure User:Wikimedia Stewards (Oversight) might be able to help if you'd like it, but I'm not certain. Novo Tape (talk) 01:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

How to disable Vector 2010 legacy, and keep only Vector 2022 in settings ?

... Mystrixo (talk) 13:36, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Mystrixo: Hello, you can follow this instruction to enable Vector 2022 on either one or all wikis. SCP-2000 (talk) 06:39, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello @SCP-2000, Thank you very much I really appreciate your help!,

but I am referring to a mediawiki settings to disable Vector 2010 for users (on my personal wiki) Mystrixo (talk) 08:05, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Can you help us understand why you want to do this? There may be an easier/better way, depending upon the reason. Safety Cap (talk) 15:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@Safety Cap We are moving toward a more responsive mediawiki skin, I guess. Although I am yet unable to observe any responsiveness in Vector 2022, I assume that this is planned and that I should discard the old skin because it is not mobile-friendly. Thank you for your inquiry. Mystrixo (talk) 01:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Ahh, makes sense. Interestingly, Wikipedia appears to use Minevera when in "mobile mode" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org). I ran some tests and both Vector 2020 and 2022 are not responsive, as you indicated. Safety Cap (talk) 19:55, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

The Vector 2022 is not designed for the mobile device. You can use Minevera for the mobile device, or using other skin like Timeless / Citizen. Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 16:38, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, MediaWiki need to create a single, uniform skin that combines the classic UI of the Vector2010 skin with a contemporary, mobile-friendly UI to provide a uniform user experience. This would eliminate the need for many confusing skins. Mystrixo (talk) 11:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

You may be interested in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T106463 to track improvements to Vector 2022 on mobile.

Note you can use Manual:$wgSkipSkins to disable Vector as a skin. Jdlrobson (talk) 03:11, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

cant go to 2010 legacy

everytime i try to change from the vector 2022 to the vector 2010 it dosen't work, it says its change but its just locked into the 2022 version, anyone else having this problem and have a fix? Purpetic (talk) 00:21, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Purpetic, thanks for coming here to ask this question. What option do you use to change the skins? Is it the link in the sidebar, or do you go directly to preferences? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:41, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

To update to the 2010 legacy, go to Settings -> Preferences -> Aspect. Select your preferred version (i.e. Vector legacy (2010)) and click on the save button. Refresh the page or clear your browser data to apply the changes. 49.236.20.80 18:08, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Common.css and Vector.css are loaded too early

Hi. I am trying to make some modifications in the CSS for the entire site (a small private wiki), more specifically setting a washed out backdrop picture for the site. It should be easy with CSS from Common.css or Vector.css but it appears that both are loaded quite early and overwritten by the skin's own CSS (I presume @media screen... comes from the skin).

I would expect Common.css and Vector.css to be loaded last, so we have a chance of modifying the "final" CSS before displaying. Steff-X (talk) 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

What version of MediaWiki are you using? Jdlrobson (talk) 14:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

How to sharpen the font

After 2022, when it was imposed on us, I'm again back to Vector 2022 temporarily. There has been a regression with XfDCloser on enwiki with Vector 2010, so I have to be on Vector 2022 until that is fixed (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:XFDcloser#XFDCloser_not_showing_up_in_Vector_2010 )

How do we make the fonts same as Vector 2010. In 2010 the fonts are sharp and easier to read. In Vector 2022, the fonts are faded/jaded/less black/blurred and makes it harder to read. Any customizations we can do? Jay (talk) 09:13, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

CSS issue

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T366314

The right sidebar goes underneath the main content in small screens

Hello! I'm an interface admin from SqWiki. Can someone help me fix an issue on it with the 2020 Vector skin? The screenshot shows what I currently get in there if the window is not large enough. The tools sidebar on the right side goes underneath our page, instead of pushing it to change the layout (like the toolbar on the left does). This should be related to our layout but still don't understand properly why the right sidebar behaves differently from the left one and how to target and modify it so they behave the same. - Klein Muçi (talk) 08:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Klein Muçi, thanks for coming here. I believe T366314 should solve the problem. We'll be rolling it out in the coming weeks - it's difficult to tell when exactly because there may be blocking bugs. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

SGrabarczuk, oh, okay then. No problem. Thank you for letting me know it's being worked on. — Klein Muçi (talk) 09:31, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm back sooner than I was expecting to. Now our headers have gone completely out of proportions in Vector legacy. Can you point me on any way on how to address that? - Klein Muçi (talk) 07:18, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Was able to handle it with the instructions explained here: Heading HTML changes — Klein Muçi (talk) 23:54, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

TOC updates?

I'm back on Vector 2022 after an year and a half, and notice no improvement on the TOC. At /Archive7#TOC level we had discussed about maintaining the top level TOC only, but I still see the full expansion of multiple levels at en:Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#Current list making it unusable. At that discussion User:Shells-shells had tried explaining the issue to User:OVasileva (WMF).

At /Archive8#Old style TOC in Vector-2022 Skin, User:Jonesey95 had provided a FAQ entry (which I had tried without success), but now that entry is missing in the FAQ. User:SGrabarczuk (WMF) had said he would ask the developers in the team to update the script that will bring back the old TOC, but I see that was the last post of that discussion.

Also, since we are at TOC, is there a way to make the TOC (of talk pages) concise? I do not wish each entry to be on two lines, where the second line mentions the number of comments. Looking for a simple one line per entry kind of TOC. Jay (talk) 20:38, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Jay, thanks for the reminder! The reason why not much in the TOC has changed over the last 1.5 years is that since last year, we've been focused on a new project - Accessibility for reading. Before that, we did have some feedback about TOC, but I guess the direction wasn't clear enough for us to make more changes. Currently, we're revisiting tasks related to Desktop Improvements, and we'll definitely talk about the issues you're pointing at.

Regarding the TOC of the talk pages, that's actually part of the Talk pages project by a different team. The goal for introducing this second line was for junior contributors to be able to tell more easily that what they're seeing is a TOC of different discussions, and not a TOC of article sections. Because adding that second line was on purpose, I guess that the only way to disable it is by adding .ext-discussiontools-init-sidebar-meta {display:none} in your personal CSS.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter. We send messages whenever there's important news to share. You won't miss anything if you subscribe. Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

As with the Visual Editor, which was in beta for something like ten years, the WMF developers have for the most part moved on from development of Vector 2022. Straightforward fixes like making the sticky header consistent with the default top-of-page header (no progress since June 2023), or making the sticky header visible on all pages (no progress since February 2023), are stalled. See the task board for more status information. I recommend that you explore the various CSS adjustments that you can apply to your personal vector-2022.css file. See en:User:Jonesey95/common.css for the fixes that I have applied to make Vector 2022 usable on my computer. Jonesey95 (talk) 04:13, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Somewhat unrelated: I believe that the number of comments shown below each talk page heading in the TOC is provided by the Beta feature called "Discussion Tools". You can disable that Beta feature in your Preferences. I could be wrong about this. Jonesey95 (talk) 04:16, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 you're right, some tasks are straightforward from purely engineering perspective, but I wouldn't call these tickets "fixes" because there are product/design considerations at play. Enabling the sticky header in more namespaces wasn't done because the team decided that we wouldn't do that in namespaces where there would be few buttons in the sticky header. (Like in special pages, there's no talk page, edit, history, or watch.) In addition, these requests were triaged as "of low priority".

Having said that - if you'd like to point at more tasks or not yet documented issues, please let me know!

(And yes, you're correct, the the number of comments shown below each talk page heading in the TOC is provided by the Beta feature called "Discussion Tools". But within weeks, it won't be a beta feature - it will become a regular part of the skin. That's why I suggested to personalize this with CSS.)

Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Different Wikipedia look

Hello all, since yesterday, wikipedia is appearing a bit differently for me. The central content is more wider, and infoboxes appear weirder and different. When we use the main article thing, for eg, when I use the main article, there is a dark grey box around it which wasnt there before. Is there any way I can change the setting back?

Main page: Wikipedia

Pharaoh496 (talk) 10:15, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I am seeing the same things. SimplyLouis27 (talk) 12:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Well then I would appreciate some help on how to revert back by someone Pharaoh496 (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Mine has changed back now. SimplyLouis27 (talk) 17:17, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

same Pharaoh496 (talk) 12:16, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@Pharaoh496 and SimplyLouis27: FYI: The message from the WMF web team regarding recent interface change. SCP-2000 (talk) 04:20, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Language links don't work in 2010 editor

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T367657

Probably it was already reported, but due to the yesterday's changes, I changed the skin to Vector (2010), and I didn't even remember that the language links do work while editing in the 2010 editor. With Vector (2022), it only works with 2017 and visual editor. Vinickw‍✉ 18:21, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean by language links? Nardog (talk) 18:00, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

The languages dropdown menu, in the top right corner. If you are editing using the 2010 editor it'll show "add languages", even though it's available in others wikis. Vinickw‍✉ 19:52, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that seems specific to live/realtime preview. Filed phab:T367657. Nardog (talk) 15:36, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Problem with infobox images that seems specific to Vector (2022) skin

Something about the implementation of Vector (2022) seems to be causing a problem with image size in the infobox for parliamentary elections on the Icelandic Wikipedia. Pictures of outgoing/incoming prime ministers appear tiny in the right and left bottom corners (see attached screenshots) or fail to show at all. It works fine when viewed in the older Vector skin. The template for the infobox (is:Snið:Þingkosningar) is implemented exactly the same as on the English version (en:Template:Infobox legislative election) but I don't have this problem on the English Wikipedia even when I use the Vector (2022) skin there. Bjarki S (talk) 12:29, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Apparently a known issue. Bjarki S (talk) 17:29, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

TOC is really distracting

The new skin makes sites that use MediaWiki really difficult to read. I can't read the page when the TOC keeps changing at the side of what I'm trying to read. Every time it changes, it grabs my attention and I automatically look over to see what happened. It's horrible and I usually close the tab and look for a less annoying site.

On my phone it's even worse, because the entire TOC flickers as I scroll, and the text keeps changing size and jumping about.

- Nikki (talk) 06:58, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Nikki! I'm sorry to hear that the TOC is distracting you. You can collapse it, and then it will be easier for you to focus on reading, I hope. If you're curious why it's visible by default, look at the page about the feature. Regarding your phone, have you tried the skin for mobile devices? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

can you record that, because im curious what is going on. It sound like either lack of graphics acceleration, or page size changes where scroll ars are popping in and out. Does it replicate in multiple browsers ? —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 12:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Workaround for MW 1.39 Wikibase users

// Only for Wikibase users with their own instance//

When using the new version of this skin with a MW 1.39 instance, the top search bar does not correctly find Items. This is absolutely not an official solution (I couldn't find any documentation on this), but modifying the code in red here worked for me. Anchardo (talk) 04:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

iPad font too big, zoom/scaling does not work

Even trying to use "small" font size results in a honestly ridiculously huge font size. Makes it feel not like I am reading on a nearly 13 inch tablet, but on a phone I am holding up way too close. The worst part is that trying to use the browser zoom/scaling feature does not work at all. Which I would put as an accessibility feature because it also does not work to make the interface larger either. Saphire Lattice (talk) 22:52, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I have missed entirely that this is "Desktop" discussion page, oops. Not sure where to move it specifically? This does happen in "desktop mode" of iPad, though it seems to make some assumptions there and here. The zooming is definitely fault of iPad Safari though, given the following info.

I poked around with the browser debug tools on iPad when Wikipedia was open in Safari, and noticed that there's no <meta> viewport tag in the HTML head. Which probably shouldn't have mattered, but the moment I added a generic one, the site properly started to utilize the full viewport size and did not look weirdly zoomed in. So it seems that Safari expects sites to have this, and defaults to a really weird way of rendering things when that's absent. Causing the site to look way too zoomed in, and not following the browser zoom. So uh, I suppose it's mostly the fault of Safari, plus what's basically an outright bug? But it can be mitigated on wiki side.

Edit: Correction, there is a meta element for viewport config, and it gets set to "width=1100px". Saphire Lattice (talk) 19:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Toggle the search field

Is there any way to toggle the search field in the new vector so that one doesn't have to click on the search icon everytime? I'm finding the additional key strokes necessary to open the search field rather annoying! Otherwise, new vector is largely ok for me. Keevtyne (talk) 21:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Looks like you're using a very narrow screen, otherwise there should be no additional steps. Maybe on a mobile. You can try the landscape position, it could possibly help. IKhitron (talk) 13:50, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

No, I'm using my MacBook Air. The field only appears after clicking on the looking glass icon. That's the time-wasting additional step I mean. I'm back on vector 2010 now, where the search box is always available. Keevtyne (talk) 16:44, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Weird. Maybe I'm wrong, but as far as I know it should not happen. IKhitron (talk) 23:42, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Vector 2022 kollidiert neuerdings mit "tabelle-kopf-fixiert"

In der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia mit Vector 2022 funktionieren sticky Tabellenköpfe nicht mehr; sie rutschen in die erste Datenzeile, verdecken dort Inhalte und scrollen in dieser Position mit, Beispiel: d:Liste der Kulturdenkmäler in Blumenthal (Bremen). Die Ursache vermute ich in einer jüngeren Änderung im JavaScript, Grund: Wenn ich im Browser JavaScript blockiere, funktioniert "tabelle-kopf-fixiert" einwandfrei. Quarz (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Quarz: Es ist nicht direkt JavaScript, sondern die CSS-Klasse noresize, die anscheinend durch JavaScript hinzugefügt wird. Siehe phab:T330527. – Tacsipacsi (talk) 10:09, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Das Beispiel ist de:Liste der Kulturdenkmäler in Blumenthal (Bremen) – Wikipedia (de:), nicht Wikidata (d:). – Tacsipacsi (talk) 10:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi: Danke! Die Disk. auf phab macht mir keine Hoffnung auf eine schnelle Lösung. Daher habe ich durch den Eintrag

.noresize{overflow-x: unset !important;}

in meiner common.css für mich Abhilfe geschaffen und hoffe, dass auch die Allgemeinheit bald die Tabellen in voller Funktion sieht. Quarz (talk) 11:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Changing the minimum width for showing the left sidebar

Is there a way to change the minimum width required to keep the left sidebar? I want it remain even when the browser window is narrower than 1120px, which looks like it's the threshold.

I tried copying all the CSS rules I could find mentioning that as min-width to my user CSS and changing to a lower min-width. That didn't quite work, though I may have missed something. You can see my attempt here. Sebastian Berlin (WMSE) (talk) 12:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The current default state of Wikipedia pages

I find it difficult to comment here, because I understand people invested a lot of their time into improving the default desktop theme. I thank them for their work and good intentions.

Having said that, the current default look of WP:EN articles in my browser (Safari), with my default window size, does not work for me, at all. It used to be fine.

When reading an article on WP, I see no announcement of these changes, link to an explanation, or invitation to supply feedback. I spent 20 minutes searching, and I am still not sure this is the right place to discuss.

For instance, when reading [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Bompiani]:

• The Contents sidebar (left) takes almost 1/4 of the page width, and is virtually empty.
• The Appearance sidebar (right) consumes another 1/4 of the page width.
• As a result, page content looks cramped, on a page that is almost half empty.
• The default font is weirdly large; the small font is too small for my eyes. My browser can zoom already, anyway.
• Switching Width (Standard/Wide) does nothing.
• Repositioning the sidebars is lost when cookies are flushed (which is done multiple times a day).
• One of the most important elements (for me), the Wikidata ID, is hidden in a popup menu. This has been the case for a while.
• Three sidebars (Contents/Appearance/Tools) each move to a different region when "hidden". I find this confusing.
• When doing research, I visit Wikipedia in multiple languages (EN, DE, IT, FR, NL, etc) every day. Increasingly those WP instances look and function differently.
• I know I can influence the look of WP through my profile, when I log in. But I do not want to log in unless I plan to edit WP.

This is what I think. Thank you for your time. Superp (talk) 13:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Superp:

• The font size options are based on the readability research and the community-proposed designs. Do you have any suggestions for these options?
• "Switching Width (Standard/Wide) does nothing." This may be due to the narrow screen (see phab:T366216). Could you please describe the problem you are experiencing in more detail?
• "Increasingly those WP instances look and function differently." Could you explain this issue in more detail?

Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 11:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I understand what you are trying to do is tough, I appreciate your effort.

To sum up, the design is good but suffers from Microsoft Office syndrome: too much space taken by tools, navigation, etc., too little space for content. The larger font for content causes further content vs tools imbalance.

To address your points:

• But this very page does not reflect those options. The font here is a bit smaller than it is on a default WP page, and the page more usable (for me) because of it. Suggestion: can we make the default font for body text a tad smaller?
• Yes, apparently it is due to my browser being "narrow". When I click the tool, a message appears to that effect. Why show the tool when we know it does not work? Suggestion: remove the "width" tool unless it actually works.
• Suggestion: redesign the appearance tool. Compact "text" to 1 line, 3 buttons, and "width" to 1 line, 2 buttons. Move it elsewhere. OR collapse the whole tool and move it elsewhere. 2 columns for tools etc. is too much (for me).
• I'll try. Compare [5] with [6].

Best. Superp (talk) 19:23, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Superp: Hello, thanks for your response! I am not the developer of Wikimedia Foundation:) I believe your suggestion can let them know more about your need and take it into consideration.

Regarding the font size, the research and testing showed that increasing the default font size can improve readability, and that users prefer a slightly larger font size. You can choose "small" option (which is the previous default font size), if you prefer smaller size. SCP-2000 (talk) 03:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

cc @SGrabarczuk (WMF) SCP-2000 (talk) 03:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

retest content separation wen

@SGrabarczuk (WMF) In the last update, you mention As we reported previously, the A/B test didn't prove that the color-based separation was an improvement.. However, that's not what the previous update really concludes. The previous update concluded that the prototype was flawed for small screen sizes and recommended Introducing improvements to Zebra, optimizing for narrower screens, and repeating the tests.. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Aaron Liu - thanks for the question! So we tested this idea in two contexts. The first was the prototype testing in a user testing context (testing with a small group of readers who give us feedback). The results of this test are available on this page. Here we found that, while there wasn't a noticeable different in readability that we could measure between the two versions, users did say they have a slight personal preference towards the newer version. Based on this, we decided to proceed testing this version on a larger scale. The second test, which was the A/B test on the feature is the one that showed us issues that showed us that, were we to proceed with this, we would need to go back to the drawing board. While this is still a possibility for the future, we haven't prioritized it yet as, based on the user testing, we don't have a strong proof that it would be significantly helpful to readers and editors. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 09:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @OVasileva (WMF), the A/B test on the feature seems to be the same one reported in the previous update. See my last sentence. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:38, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

retest content separation wen

@SGrabarczuk (WMF) In the last update, you mention As we reported previously, the A/B test didn't prove that the color-based separation was an improvement.. However, that's not what the previous update really concludes. The previous update concluded that the prototype was flawed for small screen sizes and recommended Introducing improvements to Zebra, optimizing for narrower screens, and repeating the tests.. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Aaron Liu - thanks for the question! So we tested this idea in two contexts. The first was the prototype testing in a user testing context (testing with a small group of readers who give us feedback). The results of this test are available on this page. Here we found that, while there wasn't a noticeable different in readability that we could measure between the two versions, users did say they have a slight personal preference towards the newer version. Based on this, we decided to proceed testing this version on a larger scale. The second test, which was the A/B test on the feature is the one that showed us issues that showed us that, were we to proceed with this, we would need to go back to the drawing board. While this is still a possibility for the future, we haven't prioritized it yet as, based on the user testing, we don't have a strong proof that it would be significantly helpful to readers and editors. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 09:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @OVasileva (WMF), the A/B test on the feature seems to be the same one reported in the previous update. See my last sentence. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:38, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

CSS issue with category infoboxes

Screenshot of a category infobox in dark mode using the Vector skin

Using the Vector skin in dark mode makes the title link in category infoboxes completely invisible. The infobox in the screenshot has the title "Organised labour" but the color of this title is black against a black background Other links are perfectly readable. Etothepi16 (talk) 16:18, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Etothepi16: Thanks for flagging this. I have reported this issue on the Reading/Web/Accessibility_for_reading/Reporting/en.wikipedia.org#Labour_movement_dark_mode_error. SCP-2000 (talk) 04:38, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Zur Seite in anderer Sprache verlinken | Link to a site in another language

In Vector 2010 ist es einfach möglich im unteren linken Bereich auf „Links hinzufügen“ zu gehen, dann kam so ein Popup-Fenster, man trug das Ziel ein und fertig. Falls es schon mindestens ein Eintrag gibt, steht da stattdessen „Links bearbeiten“ und man wird auf Wikidata weitergeleitet, was ja in Ordnung ist.

Bei Vector 2022 habe ich die erste Möglichkeit nicht. Entweder ein Fehler oder es ist woanders... Sven792 (talk) 22:23, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sven792: Hello, it is not the bug. Here is the previous discussion and the relevant phab ticket for your reference. Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 04:06, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. It is just somewhere else. You need to make a new Wikidata item yourself though, it seems? Sven792 (talk) 12:19, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

@Sven792: Yes, if there is no Wikidata item, then you have to create a item on Wikidata manually or by the gadget (if any). SCP-2000 (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

You've made it harder to add interwiki links

As an unregistered user, I used to be able to easily link articles on two wikis. I could do this from the Wikipedia article itself, from the pencil icon on the sidebar, typing in the language code, typing in the article title, then done! Added to Wikidata, whether or not a Wikidata item previously existed! Now, there's a nice looking box that says "Add languages", but if I click it, there's no way to add a link to another Wikipedia page! The only way to do it is by going to Wikidata. You've decreased functionality here! Please fix this; it is very irritating. 2601:644:9083:5730:3875:489:C235:7014 23:16, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Expand table of contents

Is there a way for the table of contents to always be expanded? Some articles have the table of contents expanded but others don't. Thanks. Along517 (talk) 00:24, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@Along517: Hello, generally your preference would be remembered, and thus the table of contents should always be either expanded or collapsed. Which pages have this issue? Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 04:21, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for responding. Sorry if this is the wrong place but I meant for the normal Wikipedia. This happens whether I'm logged in or not. An example is if I go to Lionel Messi's page, all the contents on the left are expanded while Cristiano Ronaldo's table of contents is not expanded. Along517 (talk) 21:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Along517: Hello, thanks for the information. Did you see the ToC like this screenshot https://ibb.co/frqJkDP or this one https://ibb.co/VmJYCKd? If it's the second one, it may be due to the narrow screen. If it's the first one, have you tried using another browser or device to visit that page? SCP-2000 (talk) 04:43, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the first one more. (https://ibb.co/nzYSTF6). Here's what it looks like not expanded (https://ibb.co/CPXcxwR). I've tried other browsers (Firefox and Safari) and it has the same results. Along517 (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Along517: Thanks for your reply. I apologize for my misunderstanding, and I thought you meant the entire part of the ToC was not expanded. Nevertheless, it seems that sections are not expanded by default if there are 28 (or another value) or more sections regardless of level. You may use the userscript listed in this post on Special:MyPage/vector-2022.js to expand all section on ToC. SCP-2000 (talk) 16:26, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! Along517 (talk) 01:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Infobox section display error on mobile

Infobox display error on Mobile

This error appears on infoboxes on the mobile web version of Wikipedia, where double lines appears below section headings (such as Government, Formation, etc. as shown below) and single lines appear seperating every single line. This error appears on the mobile as well as the desktop layouts in the mobile version of Wikipedia (one where the links start with en.m.wiki [...]), but does not appear on the desktop web version (en.wikipe [...]). I'm not sure if this is the correct spot to report this error, and I'd be glad if someone could tell me what to do in this situation. PadFoot2008 (talk) 08:09, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

This is an error in the template generating the infobox, where the infobox is emitting an empty row. That causes problems like this. P.S. Next time, please link to pages where you see a problem, so that we don't have to type over the content of a screenshot into a google search, in order to find the article. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 10:21, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

retest content separation wen

@SGrabarczuk (WMF) In the last update, you mention As we reported previously, the A/B test didn't prove that the color-based separation was an improvement.. However, that's not what the previous update really concludes. The previous update concluded that the prototype was flawed for small screen sizes and recommended Introducing improvements to Zebra, optimizing for narrower screens, and repeating the tests.. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Aaron Liu - thanks for the question! So we tested this idea in two contexts. The first was the prototype testing in a user testing context (testing with a small group of readers who give us feedback). The results of this test are available on this page. Here we found that, while there wasn't a noticeable different in readability that we could measure between the two versions, users did say they have a slight personal preference towards the newer version. Based on this, we decided to proceed testing this version on a larger scale. The second test, which was the A/B test on the feature is the one that showed us issues that showed us that, were we to proceed with this, we would need to go back to the drawing board. While this is still a possibility for the future, we haven't prioritized it yet as, based on the user testing, we don't have a strong proof that it would be significantly helpful to readers and editors. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 09:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @OVasileva (WMF), the A/B test on the feature seems to be the same one reported in the previous update. See my last sentence. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:38, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Bumping this to avoid archiving before resolution. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:51, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Inappropriate images shown in search results

When I look for w:Scroll on enwiki in vec2022 (i made the switch a few days ago), the infobox image for w:Scrotum shows in the tentative search results as I type. While I get that Wikipedia is not censored, I do find it a bit odd that we show inappropriate images to users who have expressed absolutely no interest in seeing them. Like, if I actually navigated to the latter page, that's on me, but users should have the ability to choose their UX and this is not that. Theleekycauldron (talk) 06:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)