This tool is doing the same job that the Reference Tooltips gadget has done for years. And it does it better. This one has that same horrible Visual Editor design style that is infecting Wikipedia and is too big with too much borders.
Topic on Help talk:Reference Previews
I meant "Reference Tooltips does it better" but can't seem to edit my own comment. This comment system is using that horrible style too.
Thanks for your feedback.
Yes, Reference Previews are pretty similar to the Reference Tooltips gadget. Because the gadget doesn't work well on all wikis, e.g. the German Wikipedia, there was a community vote to have the functionality inside of a MediaWiki extension.
There are some differences between the gadget and the beta feature, though. For instance:
- more visual consistency with Page Previews
- the titles of the popups make it easier for readers to estimate if the source is trustworthy
Please note: The feature is now in beta phase. The point of this phase is to find out what is working well and what is still needed to make this a well usable feature. If you have specific feedback, you're very invited to share it, as it helps us improve the feature.
Thanks!
Muchas gracias por esta herramienta tan útil. Saludos ~~~~
How does it not work well on the German Wikipedia? I have found no specific discussion of this in English and I even translated the German version of the Reference Preview article and it doesn't say there's any specific problem due to it being the German Wikipedia, just that they use an fork of the reference gadget there instead of the reference gadget itself. So what specifically is the problem on the German Wikipedia? Is it a technical issue? Something else?
Hello! This is the page on dewiki where the feature was wished for (Technical Wishes survey 2017, in German): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Umfragen/Technische_Wünsche_2017/Lesen#Vorschau_von_Einzelnachweisen
It describes that there are several problems with the version on dewiki, amongst others:
- accessibility issues
- small font size
- irregular clicking behavior, e.g. you sometimes can't copy content from the preview
The page above links to another page (also German), which mentions more problems:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verbesserungsvorschläge/Archiv/2012/August#MouseOver_bei_Einzelnachweisen (end of the section)
Hope that helps,
Johanna
I too like the old tooltipp more - and I use it on "de" too.
The problem "small font size" is right now - to me - a strength, since I get to see the full text (with comments and citations). Whereas in the new extension I sometimes can't even see all the important infos.
Maybe the new extension could be made configurable? At least with css-hacks described on a help page.
The new tool, as most of the tools based on the new design, is much worse than the previous tool. For long citations, the tool display an ugly and awkward scrollbar, while wasting a lot of white space on the sides. The old tool on the other hand is much more space efficient and user-friendly.
I, too would be very unhappy if this replaced Reference Tooltips. It's bigger and more obtrusive, and adds a header and footer which serve no purpose.