Talk:Crosswatch: Difference between revisions

Suggestions:

• Make "Show only the latest change per page" the default. Otherwise it is chaos, and many people will instantly never come back.
• Same format as regular watchlist. 2 columns. 1 for time. 1 for all else. All else on one line, not putting author on second line.
• New 3rd column on the left for symbols of each wiki: Wikipedia, Commons, etc..
• Make that new 3rd column sortable. So people can easily separate the edits for the different wikimedia projects.
• Make the table expand to the full width of the page. Makes it much easier to scan the watchlist when there is only one line per item.
• Use actual times (UT) since it is for wikis across the globe. Watchlist as close as possible to format of regular watchlists.
• GUIs work best when they build on previous GUIs. Graphical user interfaces. Old watchlist as model to build on. With as few changes as possible.

--Timeshifter (talk) 06:55, 26 June 2015 (UTC) Reply

@Timeshifter: Thanks very much for the suggestions and sorry for the late reply.

• The latest change per page only is now the default
• I started with the current mediawiki watchlist format of having everything in one line but I strayed away from it because of several problems:

• the columns currently (time and project name) might be longer than expected and might need to overflow (depends on wiki/language) or the page titles might not be on the same horizontal line
• I've tried it and it didn't looked very good. It looked very crammed, I'll try to experiment some more to get a clean look
• I want to add the ability to show a diff of the edit when clicking on a watchlist event, this is kind of difficult if everything is in one line with not whitespace area

• I would like to improve "scannability" very much, but I am not convinced that one-liners are the solution. I've always thought that the current mediawiki watchlist needs an overhaul (e.g. I like the mobile watchlist much better) as it very packed with links.

• I'll try some things to make the second line less eye-catching.

• Generally I don't want to be to bound too much to the current mediawiki watchlist GUI, I consider crosswatch to be more a kind of experiment to do things a bit differently

• I know that deviating from a design that has been used extensively for years is hard, but it is limited and hinders the addition of more features and crosswatch, beeing external, has the luxury to try some things out.
• I would hope very much that one day MediaWiki supports cross-wiki watchlists natively, but I would like crosswatch to be useful even when this happens.

• The time shown is relative for now because because it is much easier to do it this way than converting it to the appropriate local time and add separators for daychanges. I'll look into it.

Thanks very much again, --Sitic (talk) 16:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Reply

PS: The ability to split the watchlist into the indivitual wikis (similar to Luxo's gWatch) is planed, but I'll look into it when some other features are done. --Sitic (talk) 16:06, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Reply

(unindent). Wikia has an interesting format. See:

• http://cannabis.wikia.com/wiki/Special:RecentChanges

Recent changes can be grouped. Arrows drop them down. Have to check the box for "Use advanced recent changes" in the "Under the hood" tab in my preferences in order to group them.

Crosswatch now has 3 lines for some entries. 3 lines in the left column:

 20 minutes 
 ago
 English

Why not allow the table to expand to the full width of the page? It solves most problems. I don't have a mobile device, and so I can't see that format. At least not at the link you left. Wikia tried multiple lines per watchlist entry. Many people, myself for instance, did not like it, and stayed with the standard watchlist. So I guess it is a matter of preference. Maybe put the choice in the preferences. I suggest the default though be what people are currently used to. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:41, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Reply

@Timeshifter: it only should be two lines (see e.g. File:Crosswatch.png). I've tried to fix this (I assume it's some font size issue) and also added an experimental oneline option ("traditional watchlist layout") to the settings. Can you try it out? --Sitic (talk) 15:04, 1 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

You fixed the triple line problem. It is now 2 lines.

You don't have to ping me. I have my Meta watchlist set for email notification. I have very few pages on Meta on my Meta watchlist anymore. Due to the lack of a cross-wiki watchlist I really like. So I normally avoid the Meta wiki. You might create a crosswatch page on Wikipedia if you want more discussion, feedback, and ideas.

The "traditional watchlist layout" did not help. Because it is still impossible to quickly scan the list. Since one is alternating between titles and edit summaries, one can not stay focused on just the titles.

I like the Commons watchlist:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist

The font is small, and so everything fits on one line. Also, bold is used to show what items have changed since my last visit.

The English Wikipedia watchlist does not have any bolding unless one chooses it in gadget preferences: "Display pages on your watchlist that have changed since your last visit in bold".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist

The text size is small enough on both of those watchlists that there is nothing wrapping to 2 lines in my 20 inch monitor set to 1920 x 1080. I think that is the key to all the problems. The overly large text size, and the fact that the crosswatch table does not extend to the full width of the page.

For some reason the bolding in crosswatch irritates me. Maybe because it distracts from quick scanning of the watchlist. I think that may be why English Wikipedia does not do that by default. Editors did not like it, I believe. I don't remember. I suggest making bolding a preference too.

I have a Firefox extension installed for increasing or decreasing font size instantly. It remembers my last setting. So all new pages I open up to that text size too. Until I change it again. Depends on how my eyes are working at the moment. Most of the time the smaller font size on the other watchlists is fine for me. Especially since I don't stay on that watchlist page much during a session. I use it to get somewhere else. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:32, 2 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

Hey, sorry for the late reply (I have spend some time to implement other features, like notifications and a diff when clicking on a edit).

I've revised some issues you have addressed. The font smaller (sorry for the delay, there was a rendering issue) and the container is now wider with the tradional watchlist option. This should make it a lot better for large displays. Can you check if it improves things (especially with the bolding)? --Sitic (talk) 00:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

It would be very useful for the tool to respect the "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist", or to have a similar setting in the preferences. In areas with many edits per page per day, anything else is almost useless when you want to see what was actually changed. Julian Herzog (talk) 18:06, 1 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

Quick additional note: It would also be pretty cool to be able to exclude the edits one has made, as in the normal watchlist's "Hide my edits". Julian Herzog (talk) 21:08, 13 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

@Julian Herzog: Hey, the group changes by page is indeed very useful, but not very easy to implement. I've created phab:T105978, but it might take some time until I find a solution and have the time to implement it.

I've just added a "Hide my own edits" option to the settings (like mediawiki, not set by default). Thanks for the suggestions. --Sitic (talk) 00:37, 16 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

Thank you very much. Hiding my edits works as expected, and I hope you find a relatively simple solution for the grouping implementation. Julian Herzog (talk) 16:37, 16 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

Another way to increase the width available to the list would be to provide a preference to hide the sidebar on the crosswatch page. See discussion here:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Sidebar - the section currently titled "Proposal: Ability to hide the Sidebar".

The javascript used there might be adapted to use for the crosswatch option to hide the sidebar. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:20, 2 July 2015 (UTC) Reply

It would be no problem to have a option for the line to be 100% (oder any other value) wide if wished, is this still the case? Best wishes and thanks --Sitic (talk) 00:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)rReply