Talk:Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading

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Discussions: Desktop Improvements • Accessibility for reading. If you would like to follow our technical work closely, this is what we're doing now.

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You can comment in any language. We are especially interested in:

• Feedback on the functionalities we have already deployed. (Please see Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Known issues before reporting bugs.)

• Expanding the list of existing gadgets and user scripts that are related to providing a better desktop experience.

We are discussing with many volunteers and communities at the same time. It may take some time for us to reply here. We apologize for that.

Thank you!

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Automatic image adaptation

There is a site called https://invertornot.com/ that could be useful in automatically adapt images. It uses a small neural network (16MB) to classify images into whether they should have their hues inverted (for graphs or images of text, for example) or instead just be slightly darkened (for photographs of people or natural landscape). The API and model are open source and can be self-hosted - see https://github.com/mattismegevand/invertornot.

Found out about it on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39821632 today, which also has other useful tips, including using the CSS `filter: hue-rotate(180deg) invert();` for inverting images instead of having the API invert them for you. Telotortium (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing! I imagine this will be useful at some later date.

For the first release we will not be altering images in the night theme and deferring to editors as our concern is that any kind of image alteration could lead to misguiding readers by changing meaningful colors. There is more on this can be found on Reading/Web/Accessibility_for_reading/Frequently_asked_questions. Jdlrobson (talk) 03:25, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

"void" displays on translated pages

hej @SGrabarczuk (WMF):  ! Forma void jakos dziwnie wyskakuje na stronie FR oraz inne strony tlumaczone. Mozna poprawic ? Dzieki.

..wasze pomysły wdź i podziel się z nami swoimi przemyśleniami! 2 Wprowadzenie# {{void|1= === Dlaczego nasza praca nad tym jest ważna ===}} W ciągu ostatnich kilku

--Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 17:45, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Zebra tables

Hi! I’m working on improving some templates on dewiki for the night mode. I was wondering: tables using the class ‘zebra’ seem to automatically get a zebra scheme also in dark mode, but templates using individual variations of zebra (through TemplateStyles) with different class names don’t. Is there an easy way to imitate the dark mode zebra styles also for templates? XanonymusX (talk) 06:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Hey could you file a ticket on Phabricator with an example? If you can I will look at this over the weekend but right now am not 100% sure what you are referring to. Jdlrobson (talk) 03:20, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I think I have figured it out (there is no universal solution, as we are talking about individual TemplateStyles). Basically, Zebra in night mode switches between --background-color-base and --background-color-neutral-subtle. I am using those variables for my night mode styles now. XanonymusX (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Extension:Score

Another thing I noted: music written with the score extension (Lilypond) is unreadable in night mode, see e.g. en:99 Bottles of Beer. XanonymusX (talk) 07:30, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

thank you for the report! Phab:T363964 Jdlrobson (talk) 03:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Fixing w:en:Module:RoundN

Out of ideas for fixing this. Most of the colors can be inverted, except for the gold, silver and bronze colors of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place boxes that can be enabled. Is there a way to determine with Lua whether night mode is enabled? If that's possible it could be used to set bgColor.head andbgColor[4]. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 20:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

This dark mode stuff has made me despise modules that throw all their CSS straight into the Lua. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 20:34, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

thanks for flagging! I (and others) can take a look over the next few days! Jdlrobson (talk) 03:28, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

With regards to detecting night theme: Associating the module with a stylesheet and adding classes to difficult to style elements will probably give a lot more control here. Jdlrobson (talk) 03:30, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@User:Snowmanonahoe I was going to suggest adding the notheme class but the template doesnt seem to be accessible in the standard theme (e.g. blue links on gold background). Is fixing this in the normal theme also a goal here? Jdlrobson (talk) 10:28, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

• Where is the notheme class added, the whole template? What would that do?
• I wasn't aware of the blue-on-gold being inaccessible. It seems like fixing the problem would require making the gold quite a bit lighter so I'm unsure. Does #FFED7A still look like "first-place gold" to you?

Snowmanonahoe (talk) 11:37, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Well actually, the link color could be changed to Vector's #0645ad. Surprising that makes so much of a difference. Color contrast is weird. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 11:44, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

appearance sidebar keeps popping up every time i refresh or open a new page

it used to not do that, i would hide the sidebar once and never see it again Brawlio (talk) 01:27, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

You can click "hide" next to appearance to collapse it. That should then close it for future page views. Jdlrobson (talk) 07:19, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

that's how it used to work, but not anymore, it reappears every time i open a new webpage or refresh the current one Brawlio (talk) 17:58, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Extension:Math

...doesn't work with night mode (example). Snowmanonahoe (talk) 02:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T360691

(still need to open a dedicated ticket for this one. Jdlrobson (talk) 00:11, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Font size slider

Would you please consider adding a font size slider (see how wikiwand.com did it) with a few more values between small (0.88rem) and what you call "standard" (1rem), and save the values separately for m.wiki. 1rem on all my devices looks way too big. Something around 0.93rem would be perfect - for me. Large is ridiculously large, esp. when it comes to infoboxes and alike, I don't understand what made you go that high. pon_or (talk) 12:25, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

The more customization options are added for you the reader, the harder it becomes for you the editor to make a well-formatted content page. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 20:24, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Dark mode parity with Android app

Hello! I want to ask a question about the dark mode that A4R is implementing. Currently, the A4R Minerva dark mode looks different to the Wikipedia Android app's dark mode. For example, A4R dark mode's background color (#101418) looks darker than Wikipedia Android dark mode's background color (#212121). Would the planned dark modes for Minerva and Vector 2022, when they are finished, resemble the dark mode for Wikipedia Android/iOS? If not, why? LightNightLights (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I hope the apps then finally stop doing their own (undocumented) thing and use the same styles as the website. hgzh 10:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Night mode checker not updated for non-en wikis

Hi, it seems like the night mode checker hasn't been updated since a week, for example for dewiki, and is only showing 50 pages. hgzh 09:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging! I will look at this today! Jdlrobson (talk) 18:11, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I am still looking into this. I got a new request to run the checker for all wikipedias which is proving more difficult than expected :) Jdlrobson (talk) 00:09, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

How to disable the dark mode

How can I disable the dark mode, without disabling Vector 2022? Vestrian24Bio (talk) 02:42, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@Vestrian24Bio: Hello, you can change from dark mode to light mode from the "Appearance" menu on the right (it look like this). Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 03:11, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay, Thanks! Vestrian24Bio (talk) 03:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Night mode on mobile and desktop

Why there is different options of night mode on mobile and desktop? KuldeepBurjBhalaike ^(Talk) 06:38, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Kuldeepburjbhalaike, thanks for reaching out. What difference between night mode on mobile and desktop do you mean? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

thanks for the reply @SGrabarczuk (WMF): if i turn on dark mode on desktop it applies only for desktop site of that wiki and i need to turn on the dark mode for mobile web in settings and vice versa for turning it off. will it be good option to turn on/off at once from desktop site or mobile site? KuldeepBurjBhalaike ^(Talk) 13:23, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Kuldeepburjbhalaike. Our team has discussed this and this is what we think:

First of all, we do see the value in making connections between different options. See #Global preferences for dark mode.

Mobile and desktop devices may be used in different environments and in different ways. For example, mobile devices are sometimes used in very low-light environments. It makes sense not to assume that best settings for mobile would be best for desktop and vice versa. Alternatively, if we did connect those, the user would have to switch the color scheme each time they would refresh a page on a different device. That's where the team sees the core problem with that scenario.

Yes, it may be painful to change settings for mobile and desktop separately. But according to the team, this is less painful than having to change the settings back on either device.

Tell us what you think. Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

hi @SGrabarczuk (WMF): , i have been using dark mode (gadget) on pawiki, enwiki, and wikidata for a long now and i think this thing is very useful to turn on or off dark mode from a single button across devices and sites (desktop and mobile). it's very handy to me maybe not to other users. yeah, i know the dark mode works different on different sites (desktop and mobile) but it could be turned on and off from a single click thats what i'm thinking :) KuldeepBurjBhalaike ^(Talk) 01:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I typically use dark mode on my phone but not on my computer, because they have different types of display and I use them under different lighting conditions. An ability to toggle it across sites makes some sense but not across devices. Nardog (talk) 10:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Night Mode issue on "Accessibility for Reading (Vector 2022)"

Hello,

I was using the beta version of Vector 2022. But today when I was checking Wikipedia (main page and some internal pages) I noticed that "night mode" is activated there, without the option of night mode (or dark mode) being activated in Preferences/Gadget!

Regards Mrt.rahimzade (talk) 08:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Mrt.rahimzade. That's correct. Yesterday evening European time, we introduced the color options (Automatic, Light, and Dark) as part of the Accessibility for Reading beta feature. Anyone who was using the beta feature was supposed to see the new color options.

Originally, our intention was to make Light the default (and anyone who'd want to change that could select Automatic or Dark). But apparently, we made Automatic the default. This got many people confused, and we'd like to apologize for that.

At the same time, we encourage everyone to try out dark mode on different pages. Here you will find detailed instructions on how to make templates and other community-written code dark mode-friendly. (In particular, focus on the part "If you want to identify problems beyond the top 100 articles.")

Thanks, and apologies again! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:22, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Mr. Grabarczyk, for taking the time to explain this matter, your work is wonderful and I hope you will do well! Regards. Mrt.rahimzade (talk) 17:25, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Updates structure change?

It was unusual to see new updates being added to the Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Updates itself rather than transcluded as before. Is it how it will be from now on? I rather like to have chunks of news on separate subpages. Ата ^(talk) 17:18, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Ата. Some updates were put on separate pages because we were posting them as messages on village pumps. The latest update is directly on the /Updates page because we didn't meant to post it on village pumps, and we have posted/will post other (longer) messages instead. I hope this makes sense. What makes you think sticking to the subpage "model" is better, though? I'm curious. Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:47, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

It's a pleasant moment when the page reaches 100% of translation, and if there is new content added later, percentage falls and it feels as if someone has just ruined my achievement 😅

Thank you for explanation, I'm ok with any model. Ата ^(talk) 11:51, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Night mode checker: "mobile" and non-default vector skin

Starting today, the night mode checker seems to be using the vector dark mode and not the minerva night mode. This has two problems. First, the section header still reads "Mobile", and it should either be changed to "Desktop", or there should be a separate section for mobile. Second, pages are opened with ?vectornightmode=1, but that doesn't do anything if vector22 is not the default skin, which is the case for (at least) itwiki, ruwiki, and dewiki. Adding &useskin=vector-2022 to the query string should be enough to fix this. Daimona Eaytoy (talk) 21:30, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging the legacy Vector default skin. I am overhauling a few things with the checker here and hopefully will be up and running again by the end of the week. Jdlrobson (talk) 00:07, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Global preferences for dark mode

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T365373

As a steward, I'm operating across a lot of different projects. I need to change the color settings on each project individually, because I want to use the light color while using WMF projects, while my browsers settings trigger the automatic color selection (which seems to the default?) to activate the dark mode. There should be an option to globally select light/dark/automatic instead of having to customise it on every wiki I'm using. Johannnes89 (talk) 16:18, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Johannnes89, that's a good idea. We don't know yet how feasible it would be, but I've created a phab ticket. Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:32, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Dark mode is broken on Ukrainian Wiktionary and partially on the Wikisource

The side panels are partially in black, but all of the main text on pages is still in the light mode. Black colored text becomes white while the background is still white, so basically it is unusable. I've also tried viewing pages on Ukrainian Wikisource, it works better, but there are still issues with some templates display.

Browser: Firefox 125.0.2

OS: Linux Mint 21

Pages from Ukrainian Wiktionary to try: https://uk.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%BE

https://uk.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%96%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B0

Wikisource https://uk.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8_%D0%93%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%9A%D0%B2%D1%96%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%B8-%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B0/I/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%8F Bicolino34 (talk) 13:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi there, given we have hundreds of wikis, it's not possible for us to fix every single wiki. We have provided a page to assist updating these templates to work with the dark mode and we recommend you share it on your wikis community portal to identify editors who can help with these efforts mw:Recommendations_for_night_mode_compatibility_on_Wikimedia_wikis. They can also ask specific questions here. For the Ukrainian Wikitionary page you point to for example there looks like there are various site styles defined in https://uk.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css#L-23 that are conflicting with dark mode. It looks like User:Ahonc was the last editor of that page so they would be a good person to reach out to!

Rest assured, we will not be promoting dark mode on any wikis where the content becomes unusable. We also recognize for some wikis this may take longer to adapt to then others. Jdlrobson (talk) 01:30, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bicolino34 anything I can help with here? Jdlrobson (talk) 05:25, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the help. I thought that this was the bug with the dark mode, but didn't even think about local setting of wikis Bicolino34 (talk) 06:27, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Dark mode clashing with Preferences > Gadgets > Appearance > Dark Mode Toggle and Utilitiy modules > Core styling for dark mode gadget

I think there's been a lot of dark mode discussions and here's another one.

A few weeks ago I started having problems with dark mode. I have dark mode in preferences enabled. Since then all the article pages are inverted - showing white background with text links showing dark mode colours.

Watchlist and other wiki pages remain in black. it was driving me crazy.

I restored all preferences back to default and then was able to isolate the problem to the accessibility for reading beta feature. it appears that the two dark modes are clashing with each other.

i have since disabled this feature and dark mode now works perfectly in wikipedia. there is no dark mode in other wikimedia sites enabled. Adenosine Triphosphate (talk) 22:18, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Hey, thanks @Adenosine Triphosphate for reporting this. You're right, the gadget and our beta feature are in conflict. On English Wikipedia, our team member and technical editors are discussing the ways forward. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

In the meantime you can just disable one or the other... Nardog (talk) 04:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I should also add that disabling the preferences dark mode does not appear to work, it still shows the inverted colours. only disabling the accessibility for reading beta feature works. Adenosine Triphosphate (talk) 08:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

@Adenosine Triphosphate: Hello, did you both untoggle the "Dark mode toggle" and "Core styling for dark mode gadget" option? After you untoggle, maybe you need to clear the browser cache. SCP-2000 (talk) 08:36, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

yes I did, it was really weird. i noticed the problem was on the server side, i tried in incognito mode as well and still had the same problem, i then proceeded to delete my browser history, cache and cookies completely and still had the problem.

basically if you enabled dark mode, the watchlist appeared fine but inverted for normal articles. Adenosine Triphosphate (talk) 10:34, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Expansion icons invisible in dark mode

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T365951

I didn't see anyone report this issue, so I figured I'd put it in. The new font sizes are very useful, but the new dark mode appears to break some things. The expansion icons on the table of contents (the little ">" symbols) are black in the new dark mode and are invisible. It's also inconvenient to change the font size while reading if you have the controls moved to the goggles symbol, because you have to scroll all the way back up, but that's probably intended (unavoidable) behaviour. I'll likely use it anyways for the font sizes but hopefully this get fixed as the feature moves out of beta. Mrfoogles (talk) 06:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Mrfoogles for reporting the problem of the expansion icons. We'll be working on it soon.

As for the controls being moved to the goggles symbol, yeah, we are giving two options: you have a narrower content area but you can change the settings at any time, or you have a wider content area but you need to scroll to the top. Users can choose depending on their personal preference, width of their screen, etc.

We'll be working on dark mode for some time, and definitely, with the help of editors like you, we'll move the feature out of beta within a few months :) (The font options may be released sooner: for more details, see this announcement, and the paragraph below the line "Our works so far and next steps".) Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I think considering Standard font size as a default is a good idea: I turned it on a while ago leaning back from the computer and haven't switched it back since. May move the goggles back down, but I legitimately don't need to adjust things that much and it attracts attention with the solid-color radio buttons when it's on the bottom. Glad the dark mode is getting worked on: it works but will definitely be better fully functioning. Sounds like it might be a while. Are you also planning to change the font size of the UI elements in the sidebars, along with the content, eventually? It works, but it's a bit odd to have them different font sizes, and I think they would be easier to read. Thanks for the response. Mrfoogles (talk) 06:47, 29 May 2024 (UTC)