⚓ T54750 VisualEditor: Make each reference editable where it appears in the reference list as well as on the edit surface

⚓ T54750 VisualEditor: Make each reference editable where it appears in the reference list as well as on the edit surface
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T54750
VisualEditor: Make each reference editable where it appears in the reference list as well as on the edit surface
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Assigned To
ppelberg
Authored By
Thryduulf
Aug 12 2013, 1:49 PM
2013-08-12 13:49:00 (UTC+0)
Tags
VisualEditor-EditingTools
(Backlog)
VisualEditor
(Freezer)
VisualEditor-MediaWiki-References
Community-Wishlist-Survey-2023
(Backlog)
WMDE-References-FocusArea
(Done)
WMDE-TechWish-Sprint-2023-03-14
(Watching / Epic / Stalled)
Editing-team (Kanban Board)
Verified
User-notice-archive
(Backlog)
MW-1.41-notes (1.41.0-wmf.25; 2023-09-05)
Referenced Files
F36934546: obraz.png
Mar 30 2023, 6:35 PM
2023-03-30 18:35:24 (UTC+0)
F36934544: obraz.png
Mar 30 2023, 6:35 PM
2023-03-30 18:35:24 (UTC+0)
F36934541: obraz.png
Mar 30 2023, 6:35 PM
2023-03-30 18:35:24 (UTC+0)
F36929314: image.png
Mar 27 2023, 1:19 PM
2023-03-27 13:19:22 (UTC+0)
F36929306: en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Holcocera_immaculella_veaction=edit (3).png
Mar 27 2023, 1:19 PM
2023-03-27 13:19:22 (UTC+0)
F36929304: en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Holcocera_immaculella_veaction=edit (2).png
Mar 27 2023, 1:19 PM
2023-03-27 13:19:22 (UTC+0)
F36866803: image.png
Feb 23 2023, 4:02 PM
2023-02-23 16:02:23 (UTC+0)
F36865505: image.png
Feb 22 2023, 5:53 PM
2023-02-22 17:53:10 (UTC+0)
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Subscribers
Aishik_Rehman
Aklapper
DLynch
Esanders
Jdforrester-WMF
Lectrician1
Lena_WMDE
View All 18 Subscribers
Description
At
it has been proposed that it would be helpful to editors if they could edit references in the reference list, as well as where they appear inline.
"As just about every object you see on a page is directly editable with the VE, of course having the reflist not editable is counter-intuitive. "
This proposal would make
T54736
either unnecessary or just a "workaround"/interim measure, depending on the timescale to implement.
#2 in the 2023 wishlist:
Details
Reference
bz52750
Related Changes in Gerrit:
Subject
Repo
Branch
Lines +/-
Don't warn that reference list is uneditable
mediawiki/extensions/Cite
master
+1
-1
Fix ref list click-to-edit on mobile
mediawiki/extensions/Cite
master
+3
-1
Launch reference editors from ve.ce.MWReferencesListNode
mediawiki/extensions/Cite
master
+72
-5
Customize query in gerrit
Related Objects
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Task Graph
Mentions
Duplicates
Status
Subtype
Assigned
Task
Resolved
Feature
ppelberg
T54750
VisualEditor: Make each reference editable where it appears in the reference list as well as on the edit surface
Open
None
T76550
Provide true nested, inheriting surfaces
Open
None
T49344
Internal nodes should eventually be in a separate document ("sub-documents")
Resolved
Esanders
T336865
Reference list numbers don't match the reference numbers in article text until you start editing, when template-generated references present
Mentioned In
T390288: Reflists of template-generated references show as interactive but aren't
T54736: Show a message explaining how to edit references when user selects a references list
T365490: [Regression or Feature improvement?] Being able to click through a selected reference list and open the reference listed
T350064: References defined in templates disappear or render differently in Edit mode compared to Read mode
T329274: Screen and watch Community Wishlist proposals related to reusing references
T242516: VE: allow to edit template which contain references list
T183170: Some users seem to think that editing the references group is the way to add references
Mentioned Here
T330216: 1.41.0-wmf.10 deployment blockers
T183170: Some users seem to think that editing the references group is the way to add references
T54736: Show a message explaining how to edit references when user selects a references list
Duplicates Merged Here
T329847: Allow citations to be edited in the references section with VisualEditor
T281477: Provide a more convenient way to edit references
T186419: Allow editing references from the reference list
T151297: Provide a way to edit a reference easily from the reference list in VE
Event Timeline
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Trizek-WMF
subscribed.
Jan 26 2016, 9:48 AM
2016-01-26 09:48:11 (UTC+0)
Trizek-WMF
added a comment.
Jul 13 2016, 4:11 PM
2016-07-13 16:11:32 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
New feedback from a user
(a beginner) who wants to change a reference rom the reflist while editing with VE.
Jdforrester-WMF
merged a task:
T151297: Provide a way to edit a reference easily from the reference list in VE
Nov 22 2016, 8:09 PM
2016-11-22 20:09:17 (UTC+0)
Jdforrester-WMF
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Elitre
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Jan 9 2017, 8:41 PM
2017-01-09 20:41:41 (UTC+0)
Jdforrester-WMF
mentioned this in
T183170: Some users seem to think that editing the references group is the way to add references
Jan 31 2018, 8:49 PM
2018-01-31 20:49:41 (UTC+0)
Krinkle
unsubscribed.
Feb 2 2018, 6:22 AM
2018-02-02 06:22:37 (UTC+0)
Deskana
merged a task:
T186419: Allow editing references from the reference list
Feb 13 2018, 7:55 PM
2018-02-13 19:55:13 (UTC+0)
Deskana
added a subscriber:
Nux
Pols12
mentioned this in
T242516: VE: allow to edit template which contain references list
Jan 11 2020, 4:50 PM
2020-01-11 16:50:31 (UTC+0)
Aklapper
changed the subtype of this task from "Task" to "Feature Request".
Feb 4 2022, 11:13 AM
2022-02-04 11:13:40 (UTC+0)
Aklapper
removed a subscriber:
rmoen
matmarex
merged a task:
T281477: Provide a more convenient way to edit references
Feb 16 2023, 9:38 PM
2023-02-16 21:38:52 (UTC+0)
matmarex
merged a task:
T329847: Allow citations to be edited in the references section with VisualEditor
matmarex
added a project:
Community-Wishlist-Survey-2023
matmarex
added subscribers:
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ppelberg
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DLynch
DLynch
added a comment.
Feb 16 2023, 10:06 PM
2023-02-16 22:06:34 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
Copying my comment in from the other ticket, since I think it remains relevant here:
The major hangup on this is that it's going to expose the challenges with VE seeing references that're defined within templates. (Because of the current lack of a centralized way to edit references, this is only really visible to users from the "reuse citation" part of the cite dialog, where such references don't appear.) I suspect that if we accept having those ones greyed out in the list with a "this can't be edited here" tooltip, the rest of this should be fairly simple to do -- unless I'm not thinking of something, it's "just" hooking up a few bits of already-existing functionality and doing some UI work to expose them.
thiemowmde
mentioned this in
T329274: Screen and watch Community Wishlist proposals related to reusing references
Feb 20 2023, 9:00 AM
2023-02-20 09:00:16 (UTC+0)
thiemowmde
added a project:
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Feb 21 2023, 11:47 AM
2023-02-21 11:47:54 (UTC+0)
Esanders
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Feb 22 2023, 5:53 PM
2023-02-22 17:53:10 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
Following on from David's point, there are two ways the the reference list is rendered in the VisualEditor surface:
Using the HTML of the ref list supplied by Parsoid
: This will include all references, included those defined inside templates (e.g. infoboxes), but the numbers will not necessarily map to those in VE's data model, so mapping from these references to editable references will be hard.
Generating a reference list by iterating over references in the document model
: This will
exclude
references defined inside templates, but can easily be mapped back to the reference data in VE's data model. This list could be edited directly, or be used to launch a reference editor relatively easily.
(1) is used on the first load mostly for performance reasons (implemented in
) as it's a lot quicker to use the pre-generated HTML; rebuilding the reference list can be pretty slow on large pages. It also helps on wikis where most references are defined in templates, such as he.wiki.
Even if we switch to just using (2) this will mean that references are re-numbered when switching from read mode to edit mode.
From a UI perspective, we will need a way of showing the reference list context, probably by not embedding it but also thinking about where a user can click to show it (as clicking the reference list contents would now let you edit the list in some way)
DLynch
added a comment.
Feb 23 2023, 4:02 PM
2023-02-23 16:02:23 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
I was thinking that a quick path forward would be for the reference list to offer a button that opened up a variant on the reuse dialog. In its context item would be the easiest place.
DLynch
added a comment.
Feb 23 2023, 4:08 PM
2023-02-23 16:08:25 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
Even if we switch to just using (2) this will mean that references are re-numbered when switching from read mode to edit mode.
I think we're stuck with the references renumbering in the reflist if the user edits any of them anyway, so it might be better to do it up-front and have them stay consistent throughout the entire session.
Elitre
unsubscribed.
Feb 27 2023, 11:59 AM
2023-02-27 11:59:02 (UTC+0)
Esanders
added a comment.
Edited
Feb 28 2023, 5:07 PM
2023-02-28 17:07:27 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
In
T54750#8641368
@DLynch
wrote:
Even if we switch to just using (2) this will mean that references are re-numbered when switching from read mode to edit mode.
I think we're stuck with the references renumbering in the reflist if the user edits any of them anyway, so it might be better to do it up-front and have them stay consistent throughout the entire session.
It takes ~800ms to render the list on [[Barack Obama]], hence not doing it up-front. Also on he.wiki, the initial rendering is the only rendering with content.
Aishik_Rehman
subscribed.
Mar 19 2023, 4:08 AM
2023-03-19 04:08:06 (UTC+0)
Whatamidoing-WMF
subscribed.
Mar 26 2023, 5:00 PM
2023-03-26 17:00:24 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
Once it becomes possible to edit

, will editing through
{{reflist}}
require rich editing of templates?
matmarex
added a comment.
Mar 27 2023, 1:19 PM
2023-03-27 13:19:22 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
In
T54750#8727283
@Whatamidoing-WMF
wrote:
Once it becomes possible to edit

, will editing through
{{reflist}}
require rich editing of templates?
Probably not – we already have a special-case support for templates that generate a reflist. Since we already treat it like a "real" references list, any new features should work here as well. For example, note how in
(random article) the references are labelled like this:
…and not like this:
…despite being generated from a
{{Reflist}}
markup.
However, supporting references defined using
{{reflist|refs= ... }}
would require rich editing of templates. For example
. We already detect those and disable editing in visual mode, and presumably something similar woul happen inside this new feature:
Esanders
updated the task description.
(Show Details)
Mar 27 2023, 1:35 PM
2023-03-27 13:35:59 (UTC+0)
gerritbot
added a comment.
Mar 27 2023, 5:23 PM
2023-03-27 17:23:13 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
Change 903311 had a related patch set uploaded (by Esanders; author: Esanders):
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Launch reference editors from ve.ce.MWReferencesListNode
gerritbot
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Mar 27 2023, 5:23 PM
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Mar 27 2023, 5:24 PM
2023-03-27 17:24:34 (UTC+0)
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WIP UI:
Trizek-WMF
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Mar 27 2023, 6:32 PM
2023-03-27 18:32:05 (UTC+0)
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Esanders is a god
Nux
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Mar 28 2023, 1:36 AM
2023-03-28 01:36:10 (UTC+0)
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WIP UI:
Looks quite promising :-). One note: at the moment in the demo, after saving the changes, the script jumps to the link in the article. If it's not obvious, I think it would be good to stay where you started...
Hm... And I think double click is not working correctly. When I click [64] and then click [66] the edit window opens. I assume 1st click should only select as with other templates. I assume that is part of the WIP, but reporting just to be sure :)
thiemowmde
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Mar 29 2023, 7:54 AM
2023-03-29 07:54:49 (UTC+0)
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Edited
Mar 30 2023, 2:37 PM
2023-03-30 14:37:41 (UTC+0)
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Looks quite promising :-). One note: at the moment in the demo, after saving the changes, the script jumps to the link in the article. If it's not obvious, I think it would be good to stay where you started...
Yes - this will require some more upstream changes to fix.
I assume 1st click should only select as with other templates
These aren't real focusable templates, it's just a CSS hover and JS click handler. It could be changed to double click, but there is nothing to show after a single click (or any other interaction to be had, e.g. drag/drop).
We have previously implemented this single click -> dialog interaction with the categories list.
Nux
added a comment.
Mar 30 2023, 6:35 PM
2023-03-30 18:35:24 (UTC+0)
Comment Actions
Currently it works like that (both in Chrome and FF):
1. before click
2. first click
3. second click
So first click could just change highlighted ref. That would work similar to tables and templates I guess.
but there is nothing to show after a single click (or any other interaction to be had, e.g. drag/drop).
You could always show an edit button like with templates.
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Apr 28 2023, 12:11 PM
2023-04-28 12:11:49 (UTC+0)
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Test wiki
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Patch demo
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Adams?veaction=edit
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May 17 2023, 12:52 PM
2023-05-17 12:52:40 (UTC+0)
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This will also supersede
T54736
and
T183170
matmarex
added a subtask:
T336865: Reference list numbers don't match the reference numbers in article text until you start editing, when template-generated references present
May 17 2023, 1:36 PM
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Change 903311
merged
by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Launch reference editors from ve.ce.MWReferencesListNode
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Change 922153 had a related patch set uploaded (by Esanders; author: Esanders):
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Fix ref list click-to-edit on mobile
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Change 922153
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[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Fix ref list click-to-edit on mobile
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Quiddity
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For Tech News, please confirm if this is an accurate summary, below?
Citations and footnotes can now be edited directly in the references section using VisualEditor. This feature request was voted #2 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
And confirm the timing: Will it be on the deployment train next week, or live on Monday, or other/later?
And is there a documentation page that it should link to, or just plaintext?
Thanks.
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Citations and footnotes can now be edited directly in the references section using VisualEditor.
I wouldn't describe it like this (which I think is how the wish was described). You can't edit the citations in-place, like you can a image caption, but you can launch the editing dialog for each reference from the list. Maybe:
Citation and footnote editing can now be started from the reference list when using the visual editor.
The changes are in wmf10 which is on mediawiki.org (e.g.
) and would already be on Wikipedias but for the train being blocked at the moment (
T330216
).
There is no documentation at the moment, just the text description.
EAkinloose
closed subtask
T336865: Reference list numbers don't match the reference numbers in article text until you start editing, when template-generated references present
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Change 950231 had a related patch set uploaded (by Novem Linguae; author: Novem Linguae):
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Don't warn that reference list is uneditable
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Change 950231
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[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Don't warn that reference list is uneditable
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T350064: References defined in templates disappear or render differently in Edit mode compared to Read mode
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T365490: [Regression or Feature improvement?] Being able to click through a selected reference list and open the reference listed
May 22 2024, 2:26 PM
2024-05-22 14:26:36 (UTC+0)
matmarex
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T54736: Show a message explaining how to edit references when user selects a references list
Aug 20 2024, 2:26 PM
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Esanders
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T390288: Reflists of template-generated references show as interactive but aren't
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I have not been following all of the details, but I do want to note that:
this will mean that references are re-numbered when switching from read mode to edit mode.
really is untenable. I can't tell you how much time I've wasted trying to fix existing references because the numbering changes when you go into the editor.
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