Reading/Web

The Mobile Web experience of MediaWiki sites including Wikipedia compromises many components, at the core of which is MobileFrontend, an extension which provides the foundations of the mobile web experience. This page aims to describe some high level concepts of what this mobile web experience is, how we going about building this and how you can get involved.



About
The mobile interface of a Wikimedia project can be reached by visiting langcode.m.X.org (where X is the name of a Wikimedia project)

For instance:
 * pl.m.wikipedia.org
 * [//en.m.wikinews.org en.m.wikinews.org]
 * [//en.m.wikisource.org en.m.wikisource.org]

Alternatively, any user going to a domain without .m will automatically be redirected to the mobile interface.

When a user loads one of the above urls they'll be presented with a screen layout that is appropriate for their device. Articles will be automatically reformatted but the home page will not. In order for a homepage to be mobile friendly it has to be configured with the appropriate selectors.

Beta/Alpha Features
To see additional features of the mobile site that are not 100% production ready, on many of Wikimedia's sites we provide a beta and alpha experience which you can opt in. If you opt in, be aware that there is a higher likelihood of experiencing bugs or other weird issues than when you use the stable version of the site. Features in the beta version of the site are generally more stable and polished than those in the alpha. So, consider yourself warned!

To opt in, tap on the main menu (hamburger icon) next to the search bar to open the navigation menu. Tap 'Settings'. Then, tap the toggle next to 'Beta' from 'off' to 'on'. Note that you can only enter the alpha if you're already opted into the beta.

Install it on your own wiki
Other users help make this product generic and ensure quality. Visit the extension page for information on how to do this.

Install Nearby
MobileFrontend provides the Special:Nearby page with a little configuration. To get this to work a few optional steps are required: Alternatively you can use an alien MediaWiki instance for Nearby with the following 2 lines in your LocalSettings. The nearby endpoint will be used to find related content to a given location.
 * Install GeoData
 * Run update.php
 * in LocalSettings.php add $wgMFNearby = true
 * Add data to your articles to one or more pages   see the documentation for GeoData for syntax details

Talk

 * Come join us in irc.freenode.org #wikimedia-mobile and get involved and talk about our current projects
 * Start a conversation around one of the existing feature requests or suggest a new one.
 * Use the beta version of the mobile site and get involved with development of features, giving the extension feedback and reporting bugs.
 * Install this Chrome extension and force yourself to always use mobile on desktop and help us identify things that need mobilizing

Translate

 * Join the team of translators on translatewiki and help translate the extension. No coding skills necessary!

Design
Buggy Transitions, errors or strange ux? Leave us a note on this page. Before commenting bear in mind how best to give design feedback.

Find out more about how we work with designers and how you can get involved here.

Code

 * Try out the code on github or gerrit!
 * Fix a bug
 * Fix a bug in beta

Features and design
Find out more about our current features and stay up to date with our design work on the Mobile web projects page.

QA
Help us write automation tests to keep things working smoothly!
 * Mobile Web/Selenium tests
 * Mobile Web/Automation CheatSheet - some tips on writing automation tests.

Communications

 * Notifications launch on mobile, Wikimedia blog, August 30th 2013
 * Edit Wikipedia on the go, Wikimedia blog, July 25th 2013
 * Go on a Wikipedia scavenger hunt with Wikipedia Nearby, Wikimedia blog, May 2013
 * Help illustrate Wikipedia: uploads now live on mobile web, Wikimedia blog, March 28th 2013
 * Call for testers on our new Mobile gateway prototype, Wikimedia blog, June 10th, 2011.

Meet the team
Help the Wikimedia mobile engineering team as a volunteer member. This team builds the mobile web and mobile app experience.