Mobile/Release history

This details mobile release history on mobile and the current features we are working on.

Mobile Web
The mobile web version of Wikipedia makes use of three modes - alpha, beta and stable. Stable mode is the default experience for all users, however users can opt into other modes where they get additional features at the expensive of slightly less stability. Beta is generally bug free or close to bug free and is where we stage features and tweak them to perfection before releasing them to the wild. Our experimental (alpha) mode is as it suggests - very experimental. There are lots more features here and a higher probability of bugs. Developers are encouraged to submit new feature ideas for alpha testing as long as there is no other feature which tries to solve the same problem. Alpha features will be assessed based on user feedback as well as through the use of  EventLogging and the best ones will be moved to beta.

The purpose of this page is to explain what features you can expect in both alpha and beta modes, how long these experiments/projects have been running and who has been working on the code.

Beta
Features being promoted in Iteration Narhawk:
 * UX improvements
 * New overlay designs, new chrome header for all pages

Currently sitting in beta
 * Performance
 * Language overlay is loaded when needed and no languages are served up in default HTML
 * Accessibility improvements
 * Revision / Diff improvements:
 * Diffs - show cleaner diffs based on word changes. Originally introduced into alpha in April 2013 by User:jdlrobson
 * Next and previous buttons on diff pages. First introduced by User:jdlrobson 28th May 2013.
 * A view source button when viewing old revisions (see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54484)
 * UX improvements
 * Larger resolutions viewing mobile site see all sections expanded by default (Tablet styling)
 * Overlay redesign for search, uploads, notifications, languages, editing, issues.
 * Last modified bar at top of page
 * Nearby improvments
 * Navigate here on Nearby ( (begun in June 2013 by User:Jdlrobson)
 * Article preview on nearby (begun in May 2013 by User:jdlrobson)
 * New features
 * Image lightboxes - clicking an image will open it up in a full screen lightbox. Introduced by Jgonera in September 2013
 * Talk page overlay (begun in June 2013 by User:Jdlrobson)
 * [Promoted in Grasshopper] Nearby pages to this page - an extension of Special:Nearby which takes article geo data and shows other articles near it with you actually not needing to be near it. Introduced in July 2013 by Jdlrobson
 * User Profiles
 * Mobile optimised History, Recent Changes and Contributions pages
 * User onboarding
 * Getting Started (1+ edits): https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/mobile/cards/1072
 * Editing
 * Red links are enabled. (Cannot be pushed to stable until we investigate user behaviour - do people get reverted? Do they need handholding etc?)
 * Special:UserLogin
 * Shows whether you are logged in or not
 * Captcha support on account creation page
 * Languages
 * Languages are lazy loaded when you click on the read another language button
 * Ability to refresh captcha on account creation page

Alpha

 * New features
 * Categories - introduced in August 2013 as volunteer patch by Linas Valiukas
 * UX improvements
 * Microtap - more responsive clicking to elements - introduced by JGonera in August 2013, moving to beta in Iteration L
 * Ajax page loading - added 23rd October 2012. First introduced by User:jdlrobson with input from User:jgonera
 * Random shows keep going CTA to save user having to open menu again to click - introduced October 2013
 * Main menu has a slides in and out animation
 * Visual Editor
 * Language overlay improvements
 * [Candidate for promotion/deletion] Favourite languages. Prioritise the list of languages with your most widely used ones first. First introduced by User:jdlrobson.

Scrapped Experiments
Some experiments don't make it to stable. The following features were dropped from alpha: [Removing from Alpha in I5c731661ea059f61a4cb6cb5ce0409e37115f68b] No main page special casing - in stable main pages are special cased. We'd rather they weren't. This provides an environment with additional styles which reduces the need.

Mobile Web Features
Here is a summary of what stable users get.

Wikipedia
See CHANGELOG.