[Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] [X-POST] Universal Language Selector(ULS) Deployment - Phase 1

[Siebrand Mazeland (WMF)]

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:58 PM, Peter Coombe <thewub.wiki at googlemail.com>wrote:

> What is the rationale for moving ULS from the personal toolbar to the
> interlanguage links on some sites? I find this change odd:
>
> * makes location and appearance of ULS inconsistent between sites
> * personal toolbar seems the conventional place for per-account settings
> and tools
> * features it is replacing like WebFonts live in the personal toolbar
> * interlanguage links are something rather different, taking the user to a
> wholly different site


Thanks for asking, Peter. The options we considered are described in detail
at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/Design#Location_for_the_selector
.

When we tested the top-right position for language settings, it generated
confusion for users on wikis with inter-language links. The top-right area
was a new language-related area and they expected content language to be
changed from there. We were never really satisfied with the UI elements
that WebFonts and Narayam added, so those are implemented in Universal
Language Selector.

In short, depending on the context, language selection may have different
purposes:
* For contexts where the language of content can be modified, the language
list will be shown by default, and the trigger will contain a list of
likely languages.
* For contexts where the content language cannot be modified, the settings
view is provided instead as default. Since inter-language links are not
being initially replaced by the language selector for monolingual wikis
such as Wikipedia, the Universal Language selector will not be used to
change content language.

Cheers!

Siebrand