Beta Features - MediaWiki
Jump to content
From mediawiki.org
Translate this page
Languages:
Bahasa Indonesia
Bahasa Melayu
Cymraeg
Nederlands
Tiếng Việt
Türkçe
dansk
galego
italiano
kurdî
magyar
norsk bokmål
polski
português
português do Brasil
română
sicilianu
slovenčina
suomi
čeština
Ελληνικά
български
русский
українська
עברית
العربية
بهاس ملايو
سنڌي
فارسی
کوردی
अंगिका
मराठी
हिन्दी
বাংলা
മലയാളം
ไทย
ქართული
中文
閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gí
한국어
For the extension, see:
Extension:BetaFeatures
This page is
outdated
It was written for an older version of MediaWiki and may not apply to the most recent version. If you have checked or updated this page and found the content to be suitable, please remove this notice. See the
talk page
for a possible discussion on this.
(2023)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Wikimedia Beta Features
Beta Features
are a way for you to test new features on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites before they are released for everyone.
Go to
your preferences
to enable Beta Features for yourself; remember, enabling features works on a per-site basis.
Please let us know what you think of this program on
this discussion page
Purpose
The primary purpose of Beta Features is to allow for Wikimedia designers and engineers (from the Wikimedia Foundation and community alike) to roll out technical improvements in an environment where large numbers of users can test, give feedback, and use these features in real-world settings. The secondary purpose of Beta Features is to provide a path so that helpful, well-designed gadgets and other community code can be integrated into core after vetting, testing, and reviewing by Wikimedia Design and Engineering.
The code to provide features like this is in an extension,
BetaFeatures
. Beta Features' preferences are available in a
Preferences
tab, accessible via the personal bar at the top of the page for all logged-in users.
Functionality
Right now, users can:
manually opt-in to individual features
automatically enroll in all additional features as they are subsequently released
issue 1
To use either function, users should select the appropriate checkbox, then click
, which will save their Beta Features preferences (like with other preferences).
Every now and then new features are made available to users, as outlined at
Beta Features/Roadmap
Current Beta Features
Here are the current beta features which we are testing with this system:
⧼codemirror-beta-feature-title⧽
– ⧼codemirror-beta-feature-description⧽
These features are only available on some wikis:
Content translation
– A tool to quickly translate pages into your language with side-by-side editor.
These features are beta features on some wikis while enabled for everyone on all others:
Discussion tools
(lead:
Ed Sanders
) – Enable certain features of the DiscussionTools extensions that are not yet enabled for everyone (the list varies by wiki).
Paragraph-based edit conflict
(lead:
Lea Voget
) – Show the edit conflict view using a more advanced paragraph-based view.
We invite Wikimedia product teams and community volunteers who want to test out new features, or significant changes to existing features, to do so through this project.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Beta Features icons
Current features gallery
New wikitext editor
(lead:
Dan Garry
Enable the new wikitext mode inside the visual editor.
Reference Previews
(lead:
Johanna Strodt
⧼popups-refpreview-beta-feature-description⧽
Content translation
(lead:
Amir Aharoni
A tool to quickly translate pages into your language with side-by-side editor.
Paragraph-based edit conflict
(lead:
Lea Voget
Show the edit conflict view using a more advanced paragraph-based view.
Deployed features
Media Viewer
(lead:
Fabrice Florin
View images in large size.
Typography refresh
(lead:
Steven Walling
Make text more readable.
VisualEditor Opt-in
(lead:
James Forrester
Edit pages without having to learn wiki code.
VisualEditor Formulæ
(lead:
James Forrester
Edit algebra or equations on your pages.
VisualEditor language tool
(lead:
James Forrester
Tool for marking the language in which text is written.
Completion suggester
(lead:
Dan Garry
Uses a new algorithm for search as you type, that is tolerant to small typos.
Other projects sidebar
(leads:
Tpt
Lydia Pintscher
Adds section to the sidebar for sister project links, based on Wikidata site links.
Enhanced notifications
(lead:
Roan Kattouw
View and organize notifications more easily. Includes cross-wiki notifications, which lets you see messages from other wikis.
ORES
(lead:
Amir Sarabadani
ORES is an AI-based tool that highlights probably damaging edits in recent changes and watchlist.
RevisionSlider
(lead:
Lea Voget
Adds a slider interface to the diff view, so that you can easily move between revisions.
Page Previews (previously Hovercards)
(lead:
Jon Katz
Give readers a short summary of an article whenever they hover over a link to it.
AdvancedSearch
(lead:
Lea Voget
Enhances Special:Search through an advanced parameters form
Compact language links
(lead:
Pau Giner
Show a shorter version of the language list, with just the languages that are more relevant to you.
Syntax highlighting
(lead:
Danny Horn
Adds colors and shade to wikitext to make it easier to visually separate article text from the code.
Edit Review Improvements
(lead:
Joe Matazzoni
Review edits on Recent Changes using new filters, user-defined highlighting and other improvements.
Template wizard
(lead:
Niharika Kohli
Constraint Suggestions
(lead:
Lydia Pintscher
FileExporter
(lead:
Lea Voget
Allows for easy exporting of files to Wikimedia Commons.
New video player
(lead:
James Forrester
⧼beta-feature-timedmediahandler-description-videojs⧽
Visual diffs
(lead:
Dan Garry
Show visual diffs on history pages
DiscussionTools
(lead:
Ed Sanders
Enables experimental talk page features:
Reply
to talk page comments in one click and
Add new topics
using an inline form.
Other features
This list may document extensions or features that are obsolete or dormant, or are still in planning. Do not rely on the information here being up-to-date.
Compact Personal Bar
(lead:
Jared Zimmerman
A simplified site header with quick access to primary tools and a flyout for the rest.
Form Refresh
(lead:
Jon Robson
Minerva
(lead:
Jon Robson
Give more attention to the mobile skin and use it as a vehicle for accelerating change in mobile and desktop.
Nearby Pages
(lead:
See what other pages are nearby.
Creating your own
Do you want to create your own Beta Feature? Great!
James
is happy to help guide you.
First, you should check that your code meets the following basic requirements:
Not significantly degrade site performance;
Not noticeably degrade perceived performance of the site, or the user's system;
Not crash the user's browser;
Not cause data loss, or corruption;
Pass basic interoperability with other Beta Features features; and
issue 2
Contribute positively to the user's experience of the site, and be additive in nature. E.g. Beta Features cannot be used to remove site features or functionality without adding features meant to replace what was removed.
You should expect to test your new feature on
the WMF pre-deploy beta server
for at least one week before deploying to production. This testing period is intended to catch any serious bugs before jeopardizing users on production.
If you're happy your code meets these requirements, you should write-up your proposal on the
New Features proposal page
As part of creating the Beta Feature, you will be asked for
some text copy and an image to represent your feature
in the user interface; the Design and Product teams can help you with this.
Appearance
The appearance of the
Beta features
tab in Preferences is purposefully different, to both inspire interest and propose a departure from the standard layout and complexity of the existing user preferences.
Here is a screenshot of the
Beta features
preferences tab:
Screenshot of the
Beta features
preferences screen in
Vector legacy (2010)
Known issues
Note that this currently doesn't enroll users until they visit the Preferences page. (
phab:T64815
This is not to say that interoperability is a blocker. Interoperability issues need to be surfaced, and blocker-ness will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
External links
c:Category:Wikimedia Beta Features
– category on Wikimedia Commons
Analytics dashboard
Retrieved from "
Categories
Outdated pages
Design
Beta Features
WMF Projects
Hidden categories:
WMF Projects 2013q2
WMF Projects 2013q3
WMF Projects 2013q4
WMF Projects 2014q1
WMF Projects 2014q2
WMF Projects 2014q3
WMF Projects 2014q4
WMF Projects 2015q1
WMF Projects 2015q2
WMF Projects 2015q3
WMF Projects 2015q4
WMF Projects 2016q1
WMF Projects 2016q2
WMF Projects 2016q3
WMF Projects 2016q4
WMF Projects 2017q1
WMF Projects 2017q2
WMF Projects 2017q3
WMF Projects 2017q4
WMF Projects 2018q1
WMF Projects 2018q2
WMF Projects 2018q3
WMF Projects 2018q4
WMF Projects 2019q1
WMF Projects 2019q2
WMF Projects 2019q3
WMF Projects 2019q4
WMF Projects 2020q1
WMF Projects 2020q2
WMF Projects 2020q3
WMF Projects 2020q4
WMF Projects 2021q1
WMF Projects 2021q2
WMF Projects 2021q3
WMF Projects 2021q4
WMF Projects 2022q1
WMF Projects 2022q2
WMF Projects 2022q3
WMF Projects 2022q4
WMF Projects 2023q1
WMF Projects 2023q2
WMF Projects 2023q3
WMF Projects 2023q4
WMF Projects 2024q1
WMF Projects 2024q2
WMF Projects 2024q3
WMF Projects 2024q4
WMF Projects 2025q1
WMF Projects 2025q2
WMF Projects 2025q3
WMF Projects 2025q4
WMF Projects 2026q1
WMF Projects 2026q2
Beta Features
Add topic