Erik wrote:
I'd be more interested in hearing ways to make it more intuitive than "turn it off for these browsers".
The 2) toobar is fatally flawed; as I said before it is a word processor-like toolbar that doesn't do what such a toolbar is expected to do. A static HTML table outside the wiki text area of an edit window with just the basics:
Bold ''' '''' Italics '' '' Heading == ==
Would be far better than the 2) toolbar.
I see no need to confuse newbies of non-mainstream browsers when there is an already existing link to editing help on every page.
I suspect that your reaction is more the result of already knowing that the selection+click feature works in some browsers, so I'd like to see some broader usability results (i.e. having it on by default with the current setup for a couple of weeks) before I draw any conclusions.
I got that expectation from the bar itself.
Still plenty more I've already wrote on this here:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-January/013838.html
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Daniel-
The 2) toobar is fatally flawed; as I said before it is a word processor-like toolbar that doesn't do what such a toolbar is expected to do.
All I see is a row of buttons and a line under it that says "Click a button to see an example for this formatting" - that seems fairly obvious to me. Let's judge this feature based on more feedback than just yours. I think your arguments smack of techno-elitism, "I learned wiki markup the hard way, so everyone else has to as well!" I would have loved to have even such a simple help toolbar when I started using Wikipedia. Yes, wiki markup is simple, but it's good to have learning aids.
Regards,
Erik
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Erik wrote:
I'd be more interested in hearing ways to make it more intuitive than "turn it off for these browsers".
I like the toolbar, but I think it should only appear on browsers where it works as supposed (and of course expert users should be able to switch it off in their prefs).
The 2) toobar is fatally flawed; as I said before it is a word processor-like toolbar that doesn't do what such a toolbar is expected to do. A static HTML table outside the wiki text area of an edit window with just the basics:
Bold ''' '''' Italics '' '' Heading == ==
Would be far better than the 2) toolbar.
I think, this would clutter up the edit page too much. Most newbies grasp the "easy" editing options very quickly, problems appear if they want to do something more complicated - and this is stuff you can't present on the edit page directly. My other concern is that with the present learning model, newbies learn far more than just "how do I make a text bold". they learn: with these chars I make the '''article title''' in the introduction bold.
I see no need to confuse newbies of non-mainstream browsers when there is an already existing link to editing help on every page.
Sansculotte of the German wikipedia recently proposed an improved editing help. Instead of linking to one big page, he split it in several links to our help pages on specific topics: * text formatting * creating links * inserting images * tables * formulas with TeX
He placed these links on the right of the text box (maybe it better goes in the navigation bar on the left side to save space). Ideally these links open in an extra, smaller window with just the relevant help text in it (please, no debates about "but they can use the back button").
In the long term we need IMO an own help-namespace with just the technical stuff in it. This should be available for download and import for other projects which use mediawiki.
greetings, elian
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org