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Icon for switching between languages missing in Indic Wikipedias
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Description

Few of the issues which are interconnected and need immediate action:

In all the Indic Wikipedias the icon for switching between English and Indic languages is missing. There should be also few more features enabled:
A) Webfont enable/disable option should not be a four layer process: Click on the keyboard icon -> Gear icon -> Display -> Font. It should be a simple dropdown like it was earlier because that makes it simple for a new user.
B) How someone would learn how to enable the language typing for the first time? There is no icon. To understand this user experience I showed Odia Wikipedia to few old and young people. Most of them could not figure out a way to enable it. It looks great and is interactive but takes a users in many layers to enable a simple thing like enabling the language typing tool or disabling the web font.

Because I know Ctrl+M is a shortcut for enabling typing tool I do that out of practice. A first time user would never click on a floating keyboard icon and then notice the shortcut and use it, it should be somewhere on the top near the username or Log in link; a simple Enable/Disable (Press Ctrl+M to type in XXX language) would be simpler and easy in addition to the interactive UI for ULS.

Most importantly there is no simple manual/guide for the wikipedians to switch between languages. I have made one small guide for Punjabi Wikipedia (https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Typing) and the link is on the site notice. So, someone who is landing on Wikipedia for the first time could also notices it and go through the guide to enable his/her language.

Many of the transliterated spelling for the typing scheme are wrong. Please involve the community to transliterate such vital parts of a tool. Thousands and millions of users would be facing problems everyday to figure out what exactly that gibberish word and failing to click to enable the tool they want to use.


Version: unspecified
Severity: normal

Details

Reference
bz49634

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Needs Triage.Nov 22 2014, 1:54 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz49634.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

Please see [[bug:49560]] also. :-)

Please read https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug before submitting your next bug. All in one bug reports does not help.

(In reply to comment #0)

Few of the issues which are interconnected and need immediate action:

In all the Indic Wikipedias the icon for switching between English and Indic
languages is missing.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/FAQ#How_can_I_change_the_Display_language

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector has more documentation with screenshots.

There should be also few more features enabled:
A) Webfont enable/disable option should not be a four layer process: Click on
the keyboard icon -> Gear icon -> Display -> Font. It should be a simple
dropdown like it was earlier because that makes it simple for a new user.

The design was tested with users from many languags and we had public call for participation in that tests. We had multiple designs, we chose based on user's feedback. Of course there will be users who don't like the design. But it is a reality that we cannot satisfy everybody.

B) How someone would learn how to enable the language typing for the first
time? There is no icon. To understand this user experience I showed Odia
Wikipedia to few old and young people. Most of them could not figure out a
way
to enable it. It looks great and is interactive but takes a users in many
layers to enable a simple thing like enabling the language typing tool or
disabling the web font.

To type something users always go to a text box, not to somewhere else in the page. If you goto an editable area, you see a keyboard icon that helps to choose input method.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/FAQ#I_would_like_to_change_the_keyboard_for_the_language_that_I_have_chosen._How_can_I_do_that

It is true that people who were using old input method tool will search for the Narayam menu.

Because I know Ctrl+M is a shortcut for enabling typing tool I do that out of
practice. A first time user would never click on a floating keyboard icon and
then notice the shortcut and use it, it should be somewhere on the top near
the
username or Log in link; a simple Enable/Disable (Press Ctrl+M to type in XXX
language) would be simpler and easy in addition to the interactive UI for
ULS.

The UI was based on the feedback from users *participated* in design testing.

Most importantly there is no simple manual/guide for the wikipedians to
switch
between languages. I have made one small guide for Punjabi Wikipedia
(https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Typing) and the link is on the site
notice.
So, someone who is landing on Wikipedia for the first time could also notices
it and go through the guide to enable his/her language.

Without help from community, we cannot write user documentation in all languages we support. I wrote it for my mother tongue. Please consider writing it for your language.

Many of the transliterated spelling for the typing scheme are wrong. Please
involve the community to transliterate such vital parts of a tool. Thousands
and millions of users would be facing problems everyday to figure out what
exactly that gibberish word and failing to click to enable the tool they want
to use.

You are welcome. You had contributed to jquery.ime in the past. Thanks for that. Please continue.

I am closing this bug, because there is no actionable item in this. If you want to get something fixed, please file bugs as explained at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug

(In reply to comment #2)

Please read https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug before
submitting your next bug. All in one bug reports does not help.

(In reply to comment #0)

Few of the issues which are interconnected and need immediate action:

In all the Indic Wikipedias the icon for switching between English and Indic
languages is missing.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/
FAQ#How_can_I_change_the_Display_language

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector has more
documentation with screenshots.

There should be also few more features enabled:
A) Webfont enable/disable option should not be a four layer process: Click on
the keyboard icon -> Gear icon -> Display -> Font. It should be a simple
dropdown like it was earlier because that makes it simple for a new user.

The design was tested with users from many languags and we had public call
for
participation in that tests. We had multiple designs, we chose based on
user's
feedback. Of course there will be users who don't like the design. But it is
a
reality that we cannot satisfy everybody.

B) How someone would learn how to enable the language typing for the first
time? There is no icon. To understand this user experience I showed Odia
Wikipedia to few old and young people. Most of them could not figure out a
way
to enable it. It looks great and is interactive but takes a users in many
layers to enable a simple thing like enabling the language typing tool or
disabling the web font.

To type something users always go to a text box, not to somewhere else in the
page. If you goto an editable area, you see a keyboard icon that helps to
choose input method.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/
FAQ#I_would_like_to_change_the_keyboard_for_the_language_that_I_have_chosen.
_How_can_I_do_that

It is true that people who were using old input method tool will search for
the
Narayam menu.

Because I know Ctrl+M is a shortcut for enabling typing tool I do that out of
practice. A first time user would never click on a floating keyboard icon and
then notice the shortcut and use it, it should be somewhere on the top near
the
username or Log in link; a simple Enable/Disable (Press Ctrl+M to type in XXX
language) would be simpler and easy in addition to the interactive UI for
ULS.

The UI was based on the feedback from users *participated* in design testing.

Most importantly there is no simple manual/guide for the wikipedians to
switch
between languages. I have made one small guide for Punjabi Wikipedia
(https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Typing) and the link is on the site
notice.
So, someone who is landing on Wikipedia for the first time could also notices
it and go through the guide to enable his/her language.

Without help from community, we cannot write user documentation in all
languages we support. I wrote it for my mother tongue. Please consider
writing
it for your language.

Many of the transliterated spelling for the typing scheme are wrong. Please
involve the community to transliterate such vital parts of a tool. Thousands
and millions of users would be facing problems everyday to figure out what
exactly that gibberish word and failing to click to enable the tool they want
to use.

You are welcome. You had contributed to jquery.ime in the past. Thanks for
that. Please continue.

I am closing this bug, because there is no actionable item in this. If you
want
to get something fixed, please file bugs as explained at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug

There is still some unsolved problems. The language Wikipedias don't have the option for choosing the languages unlike Meta or commons. That'd be a useful feature especially for the Indic language wikipedias.

Ctrl+M is not working for the first time. It works only after one particular language is selected.

Created attachment 12562
Screenshot of commons with a Language selection menu on the top of the page

Attached:

Screen_Shot_2013-06-17_at_11.10.47_AM.png (322×790 px, 45 KB)

(In reply to comment #4)

Created attachment 12562 [details]
Screenshot of commons with a Language selection menu on the top of the page

Yes. That's called the "personal" position for ULS, while Wikipedias use the interlanguage position. So it's not a bug, please read what was linked above.
If there's consensus on wiki, you may file a request for configuration change to enable the Commons-like position instead: I don't know if it's possible but it could be considered.

Attached:

Screen_Shot_2013-06-17_at_11.10.47_AM.png (322×790 px, 45 KB)

(In reply to comment #5)

If there's consensus on wiki, you may file a request for configuration change
to enable the Commons-like position instead: I don't know if it's possible
but it could be considered.

This is not something we're planning to facilitate.