Help:Paragraph-based Edit Conflict Interface



The Two Column Edit Conflict View is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page. It displays colliding text passages in pairs next to each other, making it easier to merge your text with the one that’s currently online.

A first beta feature was provided in February/May 2017, and it was replaced with a new beta feature on November 8, 2018.

Background
The Two Column Edit Conflict View aims to fulfill a wish from the German-speaking community's technical wishlist and is developed by WMDE's Tech team. More information can be found on the main project page on Meta.

Usage
 Enabling the new view: 

To enable the new view for edit conflict resolution, you have to be logged in and tick the checkbox for the Two Column Edit Conflict feature on the special>Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures|beta-features preferences page. If you had already activated the first beta feature, you will automatically get the new view.

In a nutshell
The edit conflict interface wants to help you merge your text with the one that’s currently online. It breaks down the differences between the two text versions visually:


 * Text passages that differ are displayed in pairs next to each other: The current version of the page is shown in yellow and your version in blue. Inside, text that was changed is highlighted.


 * Text passages that are identical in both versions are displayed as a grey bar, spanning the whole width.

How to solve an edit conflict


 * 1) For each pair of text, select the version you want to keep.


 * 1) Edit the selected text, if needed.


 * 1) Click Publish changes. A new page version is created, combining all of the text you selected and the grey boxes.

Step by step
''' 1. Get oriented. '''

A tutorial guides you through the interface the first time you encounter an edit conflict. You can open it again by clicking on the help icon (?).

In order to help you solve the edit conflict, the interface breaks down the differences between the two revisions like this:


 * Text passages that differ are displayed in pairs next to each other: The current version of the page is shown in yellow and your version in blue. Inside, text that was changed is highlighted.


 * Text passages that are identical in both versions are displayed as a grey bar, spanning the whole width.

''' 2. Build a new version by merging your text with the one that’s currently online. '''


 * Select the passages you want to keep by clicking on the radio buttons next to them. By default, all texts from the other person are selected, so if you publish immediately, none of your text changes are saved.


 * Edit passages, if needed.


 * Click on the black pencil to open the editing mode for a text passage. If the pencil is grey, it means you need to select the text passage first. Otherwise, this version won’t be saved when you click publish.


 * You can also edit text passages that are identical in both versions.


 * The highlights that indicate the differences between the versions disappear when you edit a text passage.


 * You can integrate parts from other text passages by copy and paste, either with the copy and paste function on your keyboard or with a right click.


 * Click on the check mark to apply changes to a text box and to close its editing mode.


 * If you want to discard your changes and reset the contents of the text box to what it was when the edit conflict occurred, click on the back arrow. This also restores the highlighting.

''' 3. Publish a new page version. '''

When you’re done selecting and editing all of the passages, click “Publish changes”.

This composes all of the text passages you selected and the grey boxes into a new page revision.

As on all wiki pages, you can preview the changes first via the Preview button.

On clicking Cancel, you return to the current version of the page.

Non-JS version
If you’re not using JavaScript, the look or behavior of the feature will be as follows:


 * All text passages are shown in editor boxes.


 * There are no buttons within the editor boxes.


 * Text passages that are identical in both versions are always expanded.

Deployment roadmap
First beta feature:
 * MediaWiki.org: 2017-02-06 ✅
 * Meta: 2017-02-13 ✅
 * Dewiki: 2017-02-14 ✅
 * Arwiki: 2017-02-21 ✅
 * Hewiki: 2017-02-23 ✅
 * Fiwiki: 2017-04-12 ✅
 * On all other wikis: 2017-05-10 ✅

New beta feature:
 * The switch from the first to the new beta feature on all wikis: 2018-11-08 ✅

Help with translation
The translatewiki>translatewiki:Special:Translate/ext-twocolconflict|software messages for the feature can be translated on translate wiki. Any help is much appreciated!