The on-wiki version of this newsletter can be found here: https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Status_updates/2025-03-07 -- Recent Changes in the software
The most visible change this week is that now, as we announced previously, wikitext links to Objects like [[Z12345]] will no longer have the label shown and instead just show their ZID, except on Special pages (T343483 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T343483). This old feature led to bugs and cache problems, and was not compatible with the new direction MediaWiki is going. This change makes wikitext links to Objects less magical, but preserves the usefulness on Special:RecentChanges https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges and other important tools, similar to how Wikidata handles this.
In terms of smaller features, we're shipping a few this week, but very sweet ones: We have improved the collapsed view where there are calls using Types compounded of multiple inner values, like Z16683/Integers https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z16683, to use the display functions (T368324 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T368324). We have also improved the collapsed view of argument reference inside function calls, using the icon rather than the label for "argument reference" and so being more compact (T383883 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T383883). We now prompt Implementation writers that they can use Wikifunctions.Debug in their code to work out what's going wrong, and remind them to remove it before publishing (T355848 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T355848). We landed another keyboard accessibility improvement from User:Abbe98 https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/User:Abbe98, this time to make the ZID in the page title focusable, and allow its copy-to-clipboard feature to be triggered by pressing <Enter>. Thank you!
As part of our fixing bugs, we tweaked the styles of the short description input so that it doesn't overflow the column in narrower windows (T385993 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T385993). We fixed a bug that meant pressing the close button on the "in other languages" box didn't work; thanks to User:99of9 https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/User:99of9 for reporting that (T386315 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T386315). We replaced our custom code for the ModeSelector (move up/move down/delete control) with the newer Codex standard "MenuGroup" component, which will be more accessible and updated more consistently with the rest of the UX ( T384520 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T384520).
We also landed a major part of our code to integrate Wikifunction calls in wikitext with the visual and the 2017 wikitext editors, which we hope to show off soon!
In terms of engineering changes, we have expanded the testing for some of our critical code around setting up the page, as part of splitting this code up between 'client' code for Wikipedias and 'repo' code for Wikifunctions.org. This also allowed us to finally land a great patch from Aditya Kumar from late last year that use more robust tools to manipulate the URLs of pages we create links to, like history or edit pages (T360229 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T360229). We updated our front-end Pinia store code to replace anonymous getter functions with named functions, to help with profiling (T386188 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T386188). We fixed a bug in our logging that meant some monitoring didn't pass server-side validation (T385820 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T385820). We updated the selenium browser tests to adjust for the new Codex table usage we rolled out two weeks ago (T387540 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T387540), as part of wider work to run these tests in CI again. Recording of Volunteers' Corner https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/File:Abstract_Wikipedia_Volunteer_Corner_2025-03.webm
The recording of Monday’s Volunteers’ Corner https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/File:Abstract_Wikipedia_Volunteer_Corner_2025-03.webm is now available on Wikimedia Commons. We thank all volunteers who joined us, and wish you happy watching! Two talks by Denny Vrandečić in London on Wikifunctions
On Monday, 10 March 2025 14:00 UTC https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1741615200, Denny Vrandečić https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/User:DVrandecic_(WMF) will talk at King’s College London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_College_London on the topic of Knowledge in the Age of AI https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/knowledge-in-the-age-of-ai-tickets-1232817453189. Wikidata and Wikifunctions will be topics in that talk. The event will be hybrid. You can join either remotely or locally in London. Free registration via Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/knowledge-in-the-age-of-ai-tickets-1232817453189 is requested if you want to attend. The talk will be recorded.
On the same day at 7pm https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1741633200 local time, Denny will also speak at Newspeak.House https://newspeak.house/ and introduce Wikifunctions. This talk is on-site only and will not be recorded. Registration is requested https://lu.ma/4rtmw5ch. Fresh Functions Weekly: 61 new Functions
It has been a productive week regarding function creation! Thanks to the community. Here is a list of functions with implementations and passing tests to get a taste of what functions have been created. Thanks everybody for contributing!
- hex string as Byte (Z22800) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22800: take a two character hex string (00-FF) and return a byte - has substring (optional case-sensitivity) (Z22812) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22812: Returns true if a string contains a specified value. Otherwise it returns false. See also: Z10070 - compress list (Z22820) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22820: Filter list by a list of booleans. true = leave, false = exclude. - hex code point to string (Z22829) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22829: enter the hex code point of a unicode character and get it back as as string - first Object or default (Z22839) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22839: returns the first object in a list unless the list is empty, when it returns the specified default object - Gregorian Date to Julian Day Number (Z22844) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22844: converts a Gregorian calendar date to the corresponding Julian day number - Strings for function searches (Z22849) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22849: returns a list of Wikifunctions search strings for copying into the Search box or a Special:Search link - labels of Wikidata item (Z22853) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22853: no description - read Byte from string (Z22858) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22858: lenient default (language-independent) reader to convert user input to a Byte value - keep elements common with other list (Z22865) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22865: returns the first list in the same order but without any elements that are not on the second list - read Byte (Z22866) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22866: converts a string to a Byte according to the conventions most accepted for a language - list is duplicate-free? (Z22874) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22874: returns true if no two elements of the list are the same - Byte as prefixed hexadecimal string (Z22883) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22883: Prefix is "0x". Uses capitals for the hex digits. - display Byte (Z22887) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22887: converts a Byte to a string to display format for users of a particular language - Box-Muller Transform (Z22903) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22903: The Box-Muller transform is a numerical algorithm that generates normally-distributed random numbers, given uniform random numbers, as in most languages implementation of `rand()` - read Gregorian Year (Z22910) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22910: reader function to take a string with an associated language, and return a Gregorian year - Gregorian year to ISO 8601 year string (Z22920) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22920: Always returns at least 4 digits, per ISO 8601. Use expanded form to represent negatives or more than 4 digits. - display Gregorian Year (Z22925) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22925: display function to take a Gregorian year and a language, and return a string representation for that language - date as English "Month day" string (Z22933) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22933: no description - date as "--MM-DD" string (Z22937) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22937: This format was in the 2000 ISO 8601, but is now superseded. There is no longer a way of showing the month with the year omitted in that ISO. - display Day of Roman Year (Z22941) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22941: uses the language to determine which formatting function to use - binary string as byte (Z22946) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22946: reads an 8 digit binary string consisting of 0s and 1s as a byte - Italian indefinite article (Z22964) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22964: Get italian indefinite article as a string - String for function signature search (Z22973) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22973: returns a String that can be used in a Wikifunctions search for a function, given Type objects for its arguments and return type - value of claim from Wikidata item (Z22978) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22978: no description - Conjugate italian adjective (Z22997) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z22997: Conjugate italian adjective based on gender and number - Italian cardinal (Z23003) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23003: Converts natural number to italian cardinal - natural number to codepoint (Z23022) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23022: no description - digit string to codepoint (Z23028) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23028: converts a string of (western Arabic) decimal digits into the codepoint corresponding to the number in the string - codepoint from string leniently (Z23031) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23031: Converts a string to a codepoint with as little ambiguity and as much flexibility as possible. For digits only, map to the numerical codepoint number. Otherwise return first codepoint of character. - read code point (Z23041) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23041 : reads a string leniently with an associated language to return a code point - code point to digit string (Z23053) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23053: return the string of western Arabic digits representing the value of the code point - code point as character and digits (Z23056) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23056: verbose display, format: "c (nnn)" - codepoint to U+HHHH notation (Z23061) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23061: a string showing unicode hex - code point to natural number (Z23063) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23063: no description - function searches from Type (Z23072) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23072: given a single Type object, returns a list of strings suitable for finding functions using Wikifunctions searches - First plural Lexeme form for a Wikidata Item (Z23082) https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z23082: renvoie la forme plurielle d'un lexème correspondant à un élément Wikidata
A complete list of all functions sorted by when they were created https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Special:ListObjectsByType?type=Z8&orderby=latest is available on wiki.