I would like to propose and gather support for incorporating a tool called TiggerScript (see http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.htm) into Wikipedia. TiggerScript is a Javascript app that allows the reader to instantly toggle between table of contents and the current position in the article. TiggerScript is incorporated into this article about it :) and into some other articles on my website.
I believe that this user interface invention will significantly improve reading comprehension of webpages, including in Wikipedia and other wikis run on MediaWiki, and hence deserves widespread adoption to make the web a more readable place. Incorporating TiggerScript into MediaWiki, as I explain in the article, is very straightforward.
Please read the article, play around with TiggerScript, and tell me what you think on the matter.
Best regards,
Michael
Michael Lyubomirskiy wrote:
I would like to propose and gather support for incorporating a tool called TiggerScript (see http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.htm) into Wikipedia. TiggerScript is a Javascript app that allows the reader to instantly toggle between table of contents and the current position in the article. TiggerScript is incorporated into this article about it :) and into some other articles on my website.
I believe that this user interface invention will significantly improve reading comprehension of webpages, including in Wikipedia and other wikis run on MediaWiki, and hence deserves widespread adoption to make the web a more readable place. Incorporating TiggerScript into MediaWiki, as I explain in the article, is very straightforward.
Please read the article, play around with TiggerScript, and tell me what you think on the matter.
Best regards,
Michael
Isn't "ToC < >" a bit intruding? While i agree linking back to the Toc is useful, i can do it with the "back" option at my browser.
How does the hotkey interact with input fields? I answer myself, you tell down that it needs another hook to skip them.
Platonides <Platonides@...> writes: ....
Isn't "ToC < >" a bit intruding? While i agree linking back to the Toc is useful, i can do it with the "back" option at my browser.
How does the hotkey interact with input fields? I answer myself, you tell down that it needs another hook to skip them.
Yes, with input fields we can either track what kind of object got the keystroke inside Javascript or we can insert extra hooks for the input fields. For MediaWiki purposes both approaches are equivalently straightforward since we can automatically format articles' html whichever way.
In terms of the Back button, yes, you can do it this way, but compare the amount of effort:
1. if you use scroll rapidly through with mouse and use it for clicking, then you would need to move it across half the screen on a regular basis.
2. if you scroll through with Page up/down keys (which is a situation I have considered both for desktop and laptop keyboard), you have to put the hand on the mouse and THEN move it across the screen. Or you can memorize the Back hotkey shortcut which requires both hands.
One way or the other, I do not believe that people do this on any regular basis. The whole point of TiggerScript is to make this toggling become popular, so simple as to become second nature whenever people browse text-rich articles.
By contrast, my method can be done entirely from keyboard with a single keystroke. People can learn it to do it as instinctively as Page up/down. Note that I located some of the hotkeys next to Page up/down to keep fingers there. It will require no extra thought or effort.
In fact, to reduce the thinking involved even further, TiggerScript could be rewritten to use a SINGLE hotkey for both toggle up and toggle down. That is, if ToC is visible, the hotkey toggles down, and if text visible, it toggles up. The reason why I have the hotkey pair right now is because this version of TiggerScript is supposed to support documents with "child" ToC inside some sections, so that from child ToC you can toggle up to master ToC and down to the text. My http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/LoggingDebugger logging debugger UI article has such nested ToC, although I have not yet TiggerScript'ed it.
The basic functionality is interesting. I think it could use a bit more work, but I also think it would potentially be very useful for large articles. A UI teaching issue so people would understand it, but potentially nice.
Out of curiosity, it works fine for me with the "a" / "s" and "]" / "" keypairs. The "5" / "6" keypair doesn't work. I have a desktop with numeric keyboard, neither the numbers above the letters nor the separate numeric keypad (with num lock on or off) work. Any ideas what might be up?
George Herbert <george.herbert@...> writes:
The basic functionality is interesting. I think it could use a bit more work, but I also think it would potentially be very useful for large articles. A UI teaching issue so people would understand it, but potentially nice.
Out of curiosity, it works fine for me with the "a" / "s" and "]" / "" keypairs. The "5" / "6" keypair doesn't work. I have a desktop with numeric keyboard, neither the numbers above the letters nor the separate numeric keypad (with num lock on or off) work. Any ideas what might be up?
ok, (5,6) over letters is not supposed to work (because nobody knows how to reach them anyway). On my computer the right numeric pad works without NUMLOCK. With NUMLOCK it does not work, this needs to be fixed.
Part of the problem may be with the browser. The keys on the right numeric pad have nonstandard codes across browsers, and at present TiggerScript uses only codes that work in Firefox and Explorer. So if you use something like Opera (dunno about Safari), that would not work.
Michael
Michael Lyubomirskiy <michaelpundit@...> writes:
George Herbert <george.herbert <at> ...> writes:
The basic functionality is interesting. I think it could use a bit more work, but I also think it would potentially be very useful for large articles. A UI teaching issue so people would understand it, but potentially nice.
Out of curiosity, it works fine for me with the "a" / "s" and "]" / "" keypairs. The "5" / "6" keypair doesn't work. I have a desktop with numeric keyboard, neither the numbers above the letters nor the separate numeric keypad (with num lock on or off) work. Any ideas what might be up?
ok, (5,6) over letters is not supposed to work (because nobody knows how to reach them anyway). On my computer the right numeric pad works without NUMLOCK. With NUMLOCK it does not work, this needs to be fixed.
Part of the problem may be with the browser. The keys on the right numeric pad have nonstandard codes across browsers, and at present TiggerScript uses only codes that work in Firefox and Explorer. So if you use something like Opera (dunno about Safari), that would not work.
Michael
ok, I just fixed it so you can now use right numeric pad (5-6) with NUMLOCK on in Explorer and Mozilla.
Note also my comment about possibility of cutting down hotkeys to just a single one, with the app figuring out by itself whether to toggle up or down (based on which section is currently displayed).
Michael
I'm sorry, I'm not at all convinced of the utility of this. All these shortcuts are, it seems to me, are more limited versions of back/forward. Users already have many ways of going back or forward, and if they're interested in accelerating that, they can simply define a new hotkey for it that's whatever they please. What advantage is there in trying to create our own Wikipedia-specific system rather than (should there be a need for improvement here at all) informing users of back/forward shortcuts on their browsers so they can use them for *all* websites? This is the kind of thing that's the responsibility of the browser, not the website, to handle on a technical level, and for uniformity of experience it should remain that way.
On 8/30/07, Michael Lyubomirskiy michaelpundit@gmail.com wrote:
- if you scroll through with Page up/down keys (which is a situation I have
considered both for desktop and laptop keyboard), you have to put the hand on the mouse and THEN move it across the screen. Or you can memorize the Back hotkey shortcut which requires both hands.
Two hands? Depends on your setup. Backspace works as a hotkey for back in many browsers. It's also located near the page up and page down keys on many keyboards.
Platonides <Platonides@...> writes:
....
Isn't "ToC < >" a bit intruding? While i agree linking back to the Toc is useful, i can do it with the "back" option at my browser.
How does the hotkey interact with input fields? I answer myself, you tell down that it needs another hook to skip them.
forgot to say :) TiggerScript does not just toggle you back to ToC like the back button does. It also highlights the currently read (visible) section's link inside ToC in green. So that way when you have toggled up and are studying the big picture in the ToC, you can clearly see where you have been reading before. IMHO this is a major improvement, especially if you have a long, detailed ToC, pretty essential for understanding the context better from ToC.
as far as the article with two levels of ToC, that's http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/LoggingDebugger.htm, I misspelled it in the previous message.
Michael
On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 08:40:53PM +0000, Michael Lyubomirskiy wrote:
forgot to say :) TiggerScript does not just toggle you back to ToC like the back button does. It also highlights the currently read (visible) section's link inside ToC in green. So that way when you have toggled up and are studying the big picture in the ToC, you can clearly see where you have been reading before. IMHO this is a major improvement, especially if you have a long, detailed ToC, pretty essential for understanding the context better from ToC.
That's the browser's job; all of them do it these days.
Had someone not noticed?
Cheers, -- jra
Jay R. Ashworth <jra@...> writes:
....
That's the browser's job; all of them do it these days.
Had someone not noticed?
Cheers,
No, not at all. You see, the browser just changes color of visited hyperlinks. So if you visit 3 hyperlinks, they all get highlighted as visited. By contrast, TiggerScript highlights in green JUST the link to the currently read section (whichever it is at any given time). In fact, note that in my TiggerScript article ( http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.htm ) as well as in other TiggerScript-ed articles the ToC has all links colored in black to make them easier to read and to avoid the color mess that comes from visited link highlighting.
Now, I am not arguing against visited link highlighting per se. It obviously has its uses in other contexts. I am saying that in this particular context the visited link highlighting is the wrong approach, whereas the TiggerScript way of highlighting just the currently read link is better.
Obviously it can be further extended, to have separate highlighting for visited (maybe even with classification by how long ago it was visited) and separate for currently read. But I do not think it will make any real additional contribution to readability.
Michael
On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 08:52:24PM +0000, Michael Lyubomirskiy wrote:
Jay R. Ashworth <jra@...> writes: ....
That's the browser's job; all of them do it these days.
Had someone not noticed?
No, not at all. You see, the browser just changes color of visited hyperlinks.
In other words: no, you hadn't noticed.
So if you visit 3 hyperlinks, they all get highlighted as visited. By contrast, TiggerScript highlights in green JUST the link to the currently read section (whichever it is at any given time). In fact, note that in my TiggerScript article ( http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.htm ) as well as in other TiggerScript-ed articles the ToC has all links colored in black to make them easier to read and to avoid the color mess that comes from visited link highlighting.
Exercise:
Go to a web page with an unnumbered list of linked test items. Click on a link. Click BACK. Note that there's a *visible highlight* on the link you most recently clicked, usually a dashed blue box outlining it.
On inspection, I see that while IE still does this, FF appears not to anymore. I wonder if that's my settings, or a general thing. Hmmm...
As for "the color mess that comes from visited link highlighting", how dare you presume to know whether I prefer to be able to see where I've been? What happens if I'm reading the articles pointed to in a long list of links over several days?
If you think visited link highlighting is a Bad Thing, we haven't much to say to one another...
That's as bad as the "TARGET=_NEW" contingent...
Cheers, -- jra
On 29/08/2007, Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
[Sorry to hijack your posting, Jay, but I just caught this...]
http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.htm ) as well as in other TiggerScript-ed articles the ToC has all links colored in black to make them easier to read and to avoid the color mess that comes from visited link highlighting.
Links coloured in black? As in, not styled anything like the rest of the links on the page? So I, as the user, can't tell they're links?
Good shit.
Rob Church
Rob Church <robchur@...> writes:
On 29/08/2007, Jay R. Ashworth <jra@...> wrote:
[Sorry to hijack your posting, Jay, but I just caught this...]
http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.htm ) as well as in other TiggerScript-ed articles the ToC has all links colored in black to make them easier to read and to avoid the color mess that comes from visited link highlighting.
Links coloured in black? As in, not styled anything like the rest of the links on the page? So I, as the user, can't tell they're links?
Good shit.
Rob Church
you can color it whatever you want. If you enjoy reading ToC with blue links, TiggerScript can be trivially configured for that. Then you would get blue links normally and green link the current one. And whatever the color, links are always styled with underlines.
Michael
Michael Lyubomirskiy wrote:
you can color it whatever you want. If you enjoy reading ToC with blue links, TiggerScript can be trivially configured for that. Then you would get blue links normally and green link the current one. And whatever the color, links are always styled with underlines.
Michael
Not on (some) wikipedias. They decided the underline was the superflous.
On 8/29/07, Platonides Platonides@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Lyubomirskiy wrote:
you can color it whatever you want. If you enjoy reading ToC with blue
links,
TiggerScript can be trivially configured for that. Then you would get
blue links
normally and green link the current one. And whatever the color, links
are
always styled with underlines.
Michael
Not on (some) wikipedias. They decided the underline was the superflous.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Yes, you are right, Wikipedia does not use link underlining. Well, as I already noted, link coloring is up to the appropriate authorities to decide on. As long as we: 1. highlight the currently read section's link in a distinct color (I like green because it is unobrusive, legible and distinct) 2. provide for quick toggling (without jumping through the usual browser hoops)
I think some readability improvement will be achieved. If under the new setup Wikipedians decide to change ToC links styling, that can happen in due process of time, and if they don't, they don't.
Michael
"Michael Lyubomirskiy" michaelpundit@gmail.com wrote in message news:91ed0b7e0708291534h5d65719v53118ce0948f09e9@mail.gmail.com...
I think some readability improvement will be achieved. If under the new setup Wikipedians decide to change ToC links styling, that can happen in
due
process of time, and if they don't, they don't.
Personally, I don't like it. I find the links at the start of each section intrusive, and to be honest I just don't read articles in that way. If I want to browse using the TOC, I tend to Ctrl-click to open the section I want to read in a new tab and then close the tab when I'm done. Most of the time though, I read through or browse by sight.
If this ever makes it's way into MW then make sure users can turn it off through their preferences!
As a separate note - is there any reason why can't this just be added to your user space, which people can include in their User.js if they want to?
- Mark Clements (HappyDog)
On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 06:34:37PM -0400, Michael Lyubomirskiy wrote:
I think some readability improvement will be achieved. If under the new setup Wikipedians decide to change ToC links styling, that can happen in due process of time, and if they don't, they don't.
To be clear, because, oh, just *lots and lots* of people don't get this:
*Any readability improvement you pick up by breaking the standard browser link behaviour is not made up for by the fact that users have to stop and think how to use your site.*
If you don't believe me, go ask Jakob.
Cheers, -- jra
On Aug 29, 2007, at 4:10 PM, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
<snip> Exercise:
Go to a web page with an unnumbered list of linked test items. Click on a link. Click BACK. Note that there's a *visible highlight* on the link you most recently clicked, usually a dashed blue box outlining it.
On inspection, I see that while IE still does this, FF appears not to anymore. I wonder if that's my settings, or a general thing. Hmmm...
Gee...maybe he did notice! I hate it when people expect everything to act like IE.
===================================== Jim Hu Associate Professor Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics 2128 TAMU Texas A&M Univ. College Station, TX 77843-2128 979-862-4054
On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 06:25:23PM -0500, Jim Hu wrote:
On Aug 29, 2007, at 4:10 PM, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
<snip> Exercise:
Go to a web page with an unnumbered list of linked test items. Click on a link. Click BACK. Note that there's a *visible highlight* on the link you most recently clicked, usually a dashed blue box outlining it.
On inspection, I see that while IE still does this, FF appears not to anymore. I wonder if that's my settings, or a general thing. Hmmm...
Gee...maybe he did notice! I hate it when people expect everything to act like IE.
I don't. I actually thought FF came up with it first as a) I know that it exists at all and b) I use IE once a month, to go to Windows update (and FF about ever 35 seconds, 12 hours a day or more).
So I have to assume that FF *userd* to do it, and either I've inadvertantly shut it off, or they turned it back off. I consider it a very useful feature, myself.
Cheers, -- jra
On 30/08/2007, Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
I don't. I actually thought FF came up with it first as a) I know that it exists at all and b) I use IE once a month, to go to Windows update (and FF about ever 35 seconds, 12 hours a day or more).
You'll enjoy being able to get updates through Firefox now, then, unless you're one of those poor souls forced to use the latest turd to come out of Microsoft...
Rob Church
On Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 07:33:34PM +0100, Rob Church wrote:
On 30/08/2007, Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
I don't. I actually thought FF came up with it first as a) I know that it exists at all and b) I use IE once a month, to go to Windows update (and FF about ever 35 seconds, 12 hours a day or more).
You'll enjoy being able to get updates through Firefox now, then, unless you're one of those poor souls forced to use the latest turd to come out of Microsoft...
Well, these days, with AU, it's not as much of a deal, but I have 2 or 3 98 machines left to babysit.
Windows update works on FF, now?
Cheers, -- jra
... note that in my TiggerScript article ( http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.htm ) ...
Just a minor quibble - there seem to be some proprietary HTML attributes on this page, which upsets HTML validators: ------------------------------ line 52 column 1 - Warning: <body> proprietary attribute "attranchornametopleveltoc" line 52 column 1 - Warning: <body> proprietary attribute "attrnumsections" line 67 column 1 - Warning: <div> proprietary attribute "attristoc" line 112 column 1 - Warning: <div> proprietary attribute "attridtoc" line 112 column 1 - Warning: <div> proprietary attribute "attridhlinktoc" ------------------------------
... and the http://www.michaelpundit.com/tech/TiggerScript.js script seems to rely on these: ------------------------------ //these are names of attributes that should be used for mark up of html document var ATTR_NUM_SECTIONS_IN_DOCUMENT = "attrNumSections"; var ATTR_ANCHOR_NAME_TOP_LEVEL_TOC = "attrAnchorNameTopLevelTOC"; var ATTR_ID_MATCHING_TOC = "attrIdTOC"; var ATTR_ID_MATCHING_HLINK_TOC = "attrIdHlinkTOC"; var ATTR_IS_DIV_TOC = "attrIsTOC"; ...... //correct number should be set as custom attribute to BODY element var numSections = document.body.getAttribute(ATTR_NUM_SECTIONS_IN_DOCUMENT); ------------------------------
... and I'm not entirely convinced that unilaterally making up new HTML attributes is the best approach.
Mark's suggestion of a custom User.js script is probably the way to go, if possible - that way it has to work with standard HTML, without requiring backend changes, and people who want it can enable it, and those who don't aren't affected - all of which are good things.
-- All the best, Nick.
On 8/29/07, Michael Lyubomirskiy michaelpundit@gmail.com wrote:
forgot to say :) TiggerScript does not just toggle you back to ToC like the back button does. It also highlights the currently read (visible) section's link inside ToC in green.
That's a separate improvement, if it is indeed an improvement. I don't find it to be a particularly compelling feature, but I don't think it's actually *bad* to add it, necessarily. Unlike, sorry, the main point of your suggestion, which I do think is just not a good idea at all.
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