Wikimedia Engineering/Report/2014/July/summary


 * This content is prepared for inclusion in the report>m:Wikimedia Foundation Report, July 2014|July 2014 Wikimedia Foundation report. It is a shorter and simpler version of the full engreport>:mw:Wikimedia Engineering/Report/2014/July|Wikimedia engineering report for July 2014 that does not assume specialized technical knowledge.

HHVM

Mobile Apps -- In July, the Mobile Apps team launched the new native iOS Wikipedia app, following on from the successful launch of the Android app in June. The app has the same feature set as the Android app, including the ability to edit both anonymously and logged in, saved pages for offline reading, and your recently visited pages. The iOS app also contains an onboarding screen which is displayed the first time the app is launched, asking users to sign up. An update to the Android app was released, containing the Android version of onboarding screen mentioned previously, as well as a a night mode for reading in dark environments, a font size selector, and a references display that makes browsing references easier. Next month the team plans to continue improvements to page styling, and begin designing a dialogue that displays the first time a user taps edit to help them make their edit successfully.

Mobile web

Flow -- In July, the Flow team built the ability for users to subscribe to individual Flow discussions, instead of following an entire page of conversations. Subscribing to an individual thread is automatic for users who create or reply to the thread, and users can choose to subscribe (or unsubscribe) by clicking a star icon in the conversation's header box. Users who are subscribed to a thread receive notifications about any replies or activity in that thread. To support the new subscription/notification system, the team created a new namespace, Topic, which is the new "permalink" URL for discussion threads; when a user clicks on a notification, the target link will be the Topic page, with the new messages highlighted with a color. The team is currently building a new read/unread state for Flow notifications, to help users keep track of the active discussion topics that they're subscribed to.

VisualEditor

SUL finalization -- In July, the SUL finalisation team worked on developing features to ease the workload that the finalisation will place on the community, and to minimise the impact on those users that are affected. A feature is being developed that allows users to log in with their pre-finalisation credentials, so that everyone who is affected is still able to access their account; this feature is mostly complete from a backend engineering standpoint but now needs design and product refinement, and will hopefully be completed by late August. A feature to globally rename users in a manner that does not create clashing accounts was completed and deployed. A feature is being developed to allow accounts to be globally merged, so that clashing local-only accounts that were globalised by the finalisation can be consolidated into a single global account; this feature is in the early stages of implementation and no estimate is possible at this time. A feature is being developed to allow local-only account holders to request rename and globalisation before the finalisation, and also feeds these rename requests to the appropriate community processes in a manner that reduces the workload of community; this feature is in the design phase, and will likely be ready for implementation in early August.

Phabricator migration

MediaWiki core front-end libraries

Metrics and dashboards standardization (from Analytics/Editor Engagement Vital Signs and Analytics/Research and Data)

Content API