Hi All,
The portal team has had some discussions about what browsers we support on the wikipedia.org portal over the past week. Currently, our browser support is all over the map (in regards to IE anyway, almost literally any other browser release in the past 10 years works fine).
- The typeahead suggestions work on IE6+ (but very slowly)
- The baseline event logging works on IE6+
- A/B test event logging works on IE8+ (requires localStorage)
- The JS language-picker works on IE9+ (requires CSS capabilities)
- The upcoming A/B test (localized top-links) work on IE8+ (hasn't been test on lower versions)
I think we should standardize on browser support. Currently our browser-usage from our dashboard http://discovery.wmflabs.org/portal/#browser_breakdown shows
IE7 at ~ 1%,
IE8 at ~1.5%
IE9 at ~ 1%
and IE6 isn't even on the map.
Mediawiki, and by extension wikipedia.org, *has* browser compatibility standards, published here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Compatibility
I think since the wikipedia portal is a gateway to the rest of wikipedia, it makes sense to follow the same guidelines as the rest of wikipedia. This would mean dropping JS support for IE8 and lower. We would still provide 'basic' support to IE8 and below, meaning the non-js version of the portal would still work for these browsers. This change would slightly change our dashboard metrics, but it would certainly speed-up our development time, allowing us to do more with our limited resources.
Any objections or concerns with this approach?
-Jan
I think staying with the same compat tables we use in on the mediawiki side makes the most sense.
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 9:16 AM, Jan Drewniak jdrewniak@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
The portal team has had some discussions about what browsers we support on the wikipedia.org portal over the past week. Currently, our browser support is all over the map (in regards to IE anyway, almost literally any other browser release in the past 10 years works fine).
The typeahead suggestions work on IE6+ (but very slowly)
The baseline event logging works on IE6+
A/B test event logging works on IE8+ (requires localStorage)
The JS language-picker works on IE9+ (requires CSS capabilities)
The upcoming A/B test (localized top-links) work on IE8+ (hasn't been
test on lower versions)
I think we should standardize on browser support. Currently our browser-usage from our dashboard http://discovery.wmflabs.org/portal/#browser_breakdown shows
IE7 at ~ 1%,
IE8 at ~1.5%
IE9 at ~ 1%
and IE6 isn't even on the map.
Mediawiki, and by extension wikipedia.org, *has* browser compatibility standards, published here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Compatibility
I think since the wikipedia portal is a gateway to the rest of wikipedia, it makes sense to follow the same guidelines as the rest of wikipedia. This would mean dropping JS support for IE8 and lower. We would still provide 'basic' support to IE8 and below, meaning the non-js version of the portal would still work for these browsers. This change would slightly change our dashboard metrics, but it would certainly speed-up our development time, allowing us to do more with our limited resources.
Any objections or concerns with this approach?
-Jan
discovery mailing list discovery@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/discovery
It make sense to me as well to have the same compatibility everywhere. But I'm probably lacking context...
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 5:27 PM, Erik Bernhardson ebernhardson@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think staying with the same compat tables we use in on the mediawiki side makes the most sense.
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 9:16 AM, Jan Drewniak jdrewniak@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
The portal team has had some discussions about what browsers we support on the wikipedia.org portal over the past week. Currently, our browser support is all over the map (in regards to IE anyway, almost literally any other browser release in the past 10 years works fine).
The typeahead suggestions work on IE6+ (but very slowly)
The baseline event logging works on IE6+
A/B test event logging works on IE8+ (requires localStorage)
The JS language-picker works on IE9+ (requires CSS capabilities)
The upcoming A/B test (localized top-links) work on IE8+ (hasn't been
test on lower versions)
I think we should standardize on browser support. Currently our browser-usage from our dashboard shows
IE7 at ~ 1%,
IE8 at ~1.5%
IE9 at ~ 1%
and IE6 isn't even on the map.
Mediawiki, and by extension wikipedia.org, has browser compatibility standards, published here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Compatibility
I think since the wikipedia portal is a gateway to the rest of wikipedia, it makes sense to follow the same guidelines as the rest of wikipedia. This would mean dropping JS support for IE8 and lower. We would still provide 'basic' support to IE8 and below, meaning the non-js version of the portal would still work for these browsers. This change would slightly change our dashboard metrics, but it would certainly speed-up our development time, allowing us to do more with our limited resources.
Any objections or concerns with this approach?
-Jan
discovery mailing list discovery@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/discovery
discovery mailing list discovery@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/discovery
Thanks for writing this up, Jan. I've updated the Portal Improvements page with the info that we'll be following the Mediawiki compatibility guidelines.
I've also added a phabricator ticket https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T130027 to group our Portal visitors by supported browsers, basic and unknown browsers.
Cheers,
Deb
-- Deb Tankersley Product Manager, Discovery Wikimedia Foundation
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 10:32 AM, Guillaume Lederrey < glederrey@wikimedia.org> wrote:
It make sense to me as well to have the same compatibility everywhere. But I'm probably lacking context...
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 5:27 PM, Erik Bernhardson ebernhardson@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think staying with the same compat tables we use in on the mediawiki
side
makes the most sense.
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 9:16 AM, Jan Drewniak jdrewniak@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
The portal team has had some discussions about what browsers we support
on
the wikipedia.org portal over the past week. Currently, our browser
support
is all over the map (in regards to IE anyway, almost literally any other browser release in the past 10 years works fine).
The typeahead suggestions work on IE6+ (but very slowly)
The baseline event logging works on IE6+
A/B test event logging works on IE8+ (requires localStorage)
The JS language-picker works on IE9+ (requires CSS capabilities)
The upcoming A/B test (localized top-links) work on IE8+ (hasn't been
test on lower versions)
I think we should standardize on browser support. Currently our browser-usage from our dashboard shows
IE7 at ~ 1%,
IE8 at ~1.5%
IE9 at ~ 1%
and IE6 isn't even on the map.
Mediawiki, and by extension wikipedia.org, has browser compatibility standards, published here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Compatibility
I think since the wikipedia portal is a gateway to the rest of
wikipedia,
it makes sense to follow the same guidelines as the rest of wikipedia.
This
would mean dropping JS support for IE8 and lower. We would still provide 'basic' support to IE8 and below, meaning the non-js version of the
portal
would still work for these browsers. This change would slightly change
our
dashboard metrics, but it would certainly speed-up our development time, allowing us to do more with our limited resources.
Any objections or concerns with this approach?
-Jan
discovery mailing list discovery@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/discovery
discovery mailing list discovery@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/discovery
-- Guillaume Lederrey Operations Engineer, Discovery Wikimedia Foundation
discovery mailing list discovery@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/discovery