Topic on Talk:Edit Review Improvements/New filters for edit review

In this thread I exposed my use case for filters, and requested as a feature the possibility to "pin" active filters to the "Active filters" bar so that each user can have their most commonly used ones always available.

A pinned filter should work just like the current active filters, except that pressing "X" to disable a pinned filter would not hide it, only show it as disabled; and a second click would re-activate it.

As I explained, this would greatly enhance my use case, allowing increased flexibility in my usage of filters and requiring much less clicks.

Has this feature request been taken into consideration in your discussions about the evloution of the design?

Thanks for this interesting idea. Our designer @Pginer-WMF will have thoughts about this I'm sure. I can see how pinning would have advantages, but I'd have a concern about adding more complexity to an already complicated interface. It would be helpful if you could give an example of how you use the filters, and how this feature would assist you.

I assume you've discovered the ability to bookmark filter sets to the Saved Filters menu, and given it a try. Was that helpful for your use case?

> I can see how pinning would have advantages, but I'd have a concern about adding more complexity to an already complicated interface.

This feature also has the advantage that it can be configured to work exactly like the old interface, so it would support all the workflows that every user had in the previous version.

After doing this initial setup, users could usually ignore every feature that they don't have a use for, (e.g. drop-downs, colors, bookmarks...) making the interface much simpler to use for them than the current one, yet still occasionally benefit from these new features.

Veteran users would be glad that they could keep using the filters in exactly the same way they did before, without the need to change their years-old habits.

I've already answered those same questions in the linked thread...

As I explained, the current interface to select filters may be acceptable if you activate a filter or two every other day, but is too much grinding when activating a dozen or so of filter combinations in fast succession, several times a day, like I do.

An example of my routine could be, in a single session over the Watchlist:

-show only articles,

-show articles and their talk pages,

-show only Wikipedia pages,

-show Wikipedia pages and Wikipedia talk,

-show only Wikipedia talk,

-show Draft and Draft talk.

Every day I may try these views in any order, or create different combinations of these and other filters (at any step in the above routine, I could apply over the current filter one of these: hide bots, hide minor edits, reverse the value of any filter...)

I can do all the above in the previous filters interface very fast, only with the mouse, with just one to three clicks per step, never reaching for the keyboard. With the new filters, when I de-select a filter it disappears from view, and to re-enable it I need to search for it in the long hidden list of available filters.

Every step might either add the new filter to the previous one - e.g. adding the "associated namespace", or remove the previous filter first, clearing all filters by re-loading the Watchlist page, and adding new filters.

> I assume you've discovered the ability to bookmark filter sets to the Saved Filters menu, and given it a try. Was that helpful for your use case?

Again as I explained, this partially supports my flow, but in a cumbersome and inefficient way; I'd rather stick to the old filters interface if this "pinned filters" feature is not implemented. In the previous thread you can read my explanation on all the ways the new interface is painful to use for the above case.