Input boxes such as Search should have a small typewriter icon that brings up a Language selector. This icon may have text "International Phonetic Alphabet".
This icon sometimes appears for users on beta labs but mostly does not. Right now I do not have a reliable repro for making this icon appear or not appear.
Version: unspecified
Severity: normal
The default state for input methods on English language Wikipedia production is disabled. That means that the "small typewriter icon" will not appear for first time visits. It needs to be enabled before the small typewriter icon appears for input fields. For the text "International Phonetic Alphabet" to appear next to the small typewriter icon, a user needs to enable the input method, either by selecting "International Phonetic Alphabet" in the small typewriter icon dropdown menu, or by using the shortcut key control+m.
From what I can see, the English language beta labs environment also has the input methods disabled by default. This possibly changed as ULS was deployed to English language Wikipedia last Tuesday. Is English language Wikipedia labs indeed taking most of its configuration from production?
I've checked German language Wikipedia in beta labs, and there input methods are enabled by default as expected.
Hypothesis: It looks like an assumption in the automatic tests running on English Wikipedia beta labs has changed, and tests should be updated accordingly.
Is English language Wikipedia labs indeed taking most of its
configuration from production?
Indeed, both environments are configured via operations/mediawiki-config.git . For labs all the configuration inherit from the production one and has some $wg overrides.
So Siebrand explanation for production applies to labs as well. I guess that marks the issue as working for us.