On 5 September 2013 17:46, Steven Walling <swalling@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Question: can we just merge References and Reference list tools, making the list function a secondary option under references?

You mean like Microsoft Word's "insert list on click" vs. "show list insertion menu on click-and-hold"? Yeah, we've considered this (and also for other interface components like lists), but we've not built that widget yet.

I've been dogfooding VE for quite some time, and I am continually confused by the distinction between these two, including by the very similar icons.

Yeah, the icons are confusing. Better icons or icon ideas always appreciated, of course. :-)

Now that the icons are labelled (see the toolbar for the VE test page), it may be clearer; I can foresee the reference button ending up in the main toolbar, with the reference list button being in the "Insert" long-menu, for example.

We've considered automatically just inserting a reference list at the bottom of the page if there isn't one in the page already (though this is complicated to detect thanks to {{reflist}} and its friends), or warning on save ("Hey, you've added references but no reference list - would you like to add one automatically? Add | Continue"), though this only lowers the need, not removes.

--
James D. Forrester
Product Manager, VisualEditor
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforrester@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester