Extension:InlineEditor/Prototypes/Prototype 3
This page is about Prototype 3 of the Sentence-level editing prototypes.
[edit] Design considerations
The third prototype adds a few things. First of all, it adds a basic editing feature: highlighting edited sentences. This is done in a yellow color, the same color the marker pen became famous for. Thus these sentences are recognized as being "marked".
The most important change, however, is the introduction of different modes of editing. The prototype shows how the editor could be enhanced, step by step. It also shows how a user can learn wikitext. By starting with "Text", the user gets familiar with basic concepts, like bold, italics, and links.
Note that the texts in the different tabs are just placeholders. In this case I haven't thought about them very deeply, and just copy-pasted text from pages on Wikipedia.
Slowly, the user can learn more concepts: references, images, templates. You can imagine other tabs here, too. For example "Sections", "Lists", "Tables", etc. When a user feels familiar enough with the wikitext syntax, it can try out the full editor. Note the wordings "full editor". Not "old editor" or "traditional editor". The goal is to give potential Wikipedians an easier path to becoming a frequent editor, instead of being thrown in at the deep end. For them to truly become skilled editors, they have to be able to work with the original editor, and this won't work if it is seen as "old".
Because the original guidelines have moved from the edit box to the "mode box", there had to be a replacement sentence, to keep the edit box visually appealing. I chose to direct the user to see the article below, in case the user simply didn't notice it was there, or has a low-resolution screen. Also, it briefly explains the concept of editing: "You can edit the article below, by clicking on blue elements in the article."
The limitations of this kind of editor also become clear in this prototype. In this page there is one inline template: a template to convert units. It's used in the sentence "At the time, it was located about 1,600 miles (2,600 km) east of Barbados." The middle part of the sentence is actually generated by the wikitext "{{convert|1600|mi|km}}". At this moment, I'm not quite sure if and how it will be possible to edit this sentence. In the next phase of my research I'll look into this.
