Technical Updates: March 22, 2024

Hello hello! It’s time for a new Technical Update. You can read our previous blog post here. And as always, we remind you this is just a snapshot of the work done during the last weeks. We don’t include all the minor fixes and tweaks because it would transform this blog post into something longer than the list of disintegrated lives after the Snap –why Thanos, why–

Recent Fixes[]

• Some fixes for FandomDesktop and FandomMobile including:
  • [FandomDesktop] The social icon tooltip in the user pages was using the wrong color.
  • [FandomDesktop] “Edited by” information in messages published on Walls, Blogs and Article Comments had contrast issues.
  • [FandomMobile] Collapsing a section including a list of references was breaking the individual references, not going to the collapsed section.
• Link suggest selection via keyboard was broken in both source editors.
• The special character menu was breaking other items in the 2017 Visual Editor; it wasn't possible to click on the right icons, and references couldn't be inserted.
• And we are putting the final touches to the CodeMirror release:
  • Line height with syntax highlighting enabled was reduced, so we have restored it to the previous height.
  • It wasn’t possible to expand editor screen when syntax highlighting was enabled.
  • We detected a problem that wasn’t allowing us to add new lines when we were in the last (or only) line in Firefox.
  • Using tab key was taking us out of the editor rather than to the edit summary field as it should do. It will be fixed too.

Development Updates[]

User-Generated Content (UGC) team[]

• [Experiment] Maps used for progress tracking: The experiment is still in progress. In the next few days we would be analyzing the results and thinking about new ways to improve the tool if we realize our additions are successful and useful for the users. In the meantime, we’re also working on some enhancements to the Interactive Maps extension, as a fullscreen option and also new ways to embed them into content pages.
• [New Experiment] Welcome messages on Message Wall for first-time editors: We’re currently preparing the last details and the planned date to launch the experiment is March 28.
• [Future Experiments] Structured Content: With the premise of having structured data as one of the hot topics for this year, we're currently thinking about what would be the best kind of content and templates we could use to classify and take advantage of this existing data. We're still in the early stages of the planning, but we've already performed today a roundtable with our Stars to know their initial thoughts and feedback about this.
• [Future Experiment] Tables used for progress tracking: As we’re doing with maps, we also want to experiment how we can use tables showing info about collectibles and other ways to show game progress, and make them useful for users to track their personal progress. Before starting the experimentation, we already asked Stars for their feedback.

UX Team[]

• [New Experiment] Global Nav redesign: After the first iteration we already tested back in January, and also a roundtable conversation with the Fandom Stars in February, we’re about to start a new experiment regarding a redesign of the Global Navigation. We’re adding an horizontal bar at the top with the search bar, the “Create a new wiki” and Notifications buttons, and the profile icon.
• [Future Experiment] Collapsed Table of Contents: We want to experiment with new ways to help users navigate better. We’re testing how the experience would be improved by collapsing the table of contents and making the content to be shown higher up on the page. This would also prevent the first content from being stuck under the first ad, usually shown at the bottom of the infobox, but now being wrapped around that ad as we're showing the header just under the first paragraph.
• [Future Experiment] Hyperlink Images: Previously known as “Pictures Near Paragraph”, we’re planning a new version of this experiment for the next few weeks, improving the design of the widget we already launched in February.
• [Future Experiment] Mobile Test: Collapsed Content Headers: Following what we already tested in February, we’re currently working on a new version of this test, supporting Google Featured Snippets to auto-open collapsed headers.

Traffic team[]

• Quick Answers: The four testing communities have been reviewing the unpublished QA they have in the dashboard, with the possibility of editing them and correcting them. All the unpublished answers on Avatar Wiki will go live next Saturday March 30. There are also around 100 wikis with a few QAs already included from the early tests, so we’re enabling the Dashboard for them to allow them their revision.

Thank you for all your support, and as always, if there is anything you think should be fixed, please contact us on our Walls/talk pages or send us a bug report!

Antonio R. Castro

Fandom Staff

Antonio R. Castro is part of Fandom since May 2007. He was helper for 3 years focused on ES community and since 2011 he is a member of the Fandom staff. He is working currently like Product Support Lead. Fan of wikis, videogames, Star Wars, Song of Ice and Fire and any TV series pre or post Breaking Bad.

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