Dcljr

I hate "Flow" more than anything that's ever been inflicted on MediaWiki users. As a result, don't expect anything from my comments on this wiki's talk pages beyond plain text, bold and italics. If you get a link, consider yourself lucky…

Hello Dcljr, I am glad you are improving pages by better formatting them. I noticed there is very little activity in Konkani Wikipedia. Just two days ago there was less than 100 total edits in a month. I have been linking pages in the 3 scripts with each other for two days, there is yet more work to be done there.

I can only do the most obvious kinds of edits, since I don't know the language. I'm glad you approved of my changes, since I started to have second thoughts about making the English title on pages like ಹಾಬಾಕುಕ್ ಆಚೆಂ ಪುಸ್ತಕ್ a level-2 (==) header. (I'm still considering whether that's actually a good idea.) But I had changed so many pages by that point, I decided to continue doing the same thing to all the rest of them. They can be changed again later, if necessary.

Hello Dcljr!

The Discoverer told me that you experience(d) some issues concerning links on Flow. Can you describe the problem?

Thanks!

I've already reported them elsewhere. Basically, I've been told that every problem I have with Flow is not actually a "Flow problem", but a problem with the visual editor or the wikitext parser, or whatever else. Nevermind that I only have to deal with these problems on Flow-enabled pages....

• I once tried to create a link in a comment using an "old" namespace prefix (that had recently been changed on the wiki) to illustrate a point, and both Flow editors (visual and wikitext) changed the link to use the new namespace prefix, thereby completely "missing the point" of my post. I believe the wikitext editor should accept what the user submits with no changes (especially on pages outside of the main namespace), even if they're submitting what might be considered "incorrect" wikitext, since users often have the need to discuss incorrect wikitext on talk pages.
• I like to check links I've included in my comments before saving them. This is trivial on normal (non-Flow) pages (preview and then Ctrl-click on all the links), but on a Flow page when "previewing" (visual editor), a Ctrl-click is interpreted as wanting to edit the link. If I accidentally (out of habit) hit Esc to say I don't want to edit the link, I get kicked out of the entire editing process, losing all my work. So…
  1. Ctrl-clicks should not be interpreted the same as regular clicks, when clicking on links in the visual editor; and
  2. Hitting Esc while editing a link should only stop editing the link, not stop the entire editing process.

Ah, yes, I remember the one concerning namespaces now. There is nothing new about that. You can try it on a sandbox while using VE, you will have the same issue.

About that ctrl+clic problem, I've submitted the idea. At the moment, both on Flow and VE, you have to click on the link to open the inspector, and then do a ctrl+clic. I've been confused by that when I've started to use VE too, but now I'm used to it.

I would like to add a little to what Dcljr has said above:

If I'm editing in Flow in wikitext mode and I try to preview by using the double square brackets button to switch to VE mode and then return to wikitext mode, I almost never have the same wikitext that I began with (this could be due to a wide variety of reasons).

Flow should have a method of previewing wikitext that at the bare minimum returns the same wikitext to the user, that the user input in the first place. Most of these VE problems don't look like they are going to be solved soon.

One solution could be to have a preview function for Flow in wikitext mode that doesn't depend on VE, for example in a pop-up box, or something like how previewing happens in Phabricator below the editing window, but it need not be real-time like Phabricator.

Hi, I just now saw the message you sent me on translatewiki.net regarding the messages for gom not working on the Babel extension. I never noticed this anomaly, but you're right, I can never see gom messages regardless of whether I use the code gom or gom-latn or gom-deva. Even the examples that you said worked for you, don't work for me. And not just on gomwiki, but also on enwiki and on translatewiki. Did you learn any more about this?

I haven't looked into it any further. But I see that the gom-latn-0 and gom-deva-0 messages are no longer working properly. What changed? Try fiddling with the local system messages until you find something that works.

I've created this Phabricator request: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T144045

Hi Dcljr, it appears that you are facing problems with formatting in Flow. Did you know that Flow works in two modes: Visual Editor mode, and normal Wikitext mode. You can switch between the two by clicking on the double box brackets [[]] symbol in the bottom right corner.

Since you are more comfortable with Wikitext, you can remain in the Wikitext mode and in the end, you can switch to Visual editor mode to preview your text before submitting. Let me know if theres anything else about Flow that I may be able to help you with.

Thanks for the heads-up, but I already knew about the wikitext mode (didn't discover that until after I saved my first few Flow messages, however). I still have a hell of a time checking links in the "preview" mode (always end up editing the links instead of opening them in a new tab), which is why I don't include links in my comments anymore.

Maybe someday I'll be "over it" and start linking again, but if I do I will likely save the comment, check the links, and then fix any that need fixing in a second edit. Not that that's a problem, really, but it's not how I llike to do things.

Yes, that's also a good strategy. I know Flow isn't perfect, but Flow sometimes receives flak for problems which are actually Visual Editor problems. If you have suggestions about how Flow can be improved, you can help by getting in touch with the team that develops Flow, known as the 'collaboration' team. I've found them to be responsive, helpful and open to ideas.

I award you this barnstar for your tireless and dedicated work to improve the Konkani Wikipedia by reducing overlinking and correcting style and formatting errors. Thank you.