Help talk:Reference Previews

Central feedback page for Reference Previews.

Related work with Wikidata as target project

Hi there,

First, thanks for this effort, it looks promising! I just wanted to mention a related tool for Wikidata, which previews the textual content of a given reference URL in a Wikidata statement: m:Grants:IEG/StrepHit:_Wikidata_Statements_Validation_via_References/Renewal/Midpoint#Reference_preview It is currently in its very first version, and doesn't use MediaWiki OOUI, but I think it can be of interest for the next steps of Reference Previews.

Hope this helps! Hjfocs (talk) 13:27, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Nice Tool, thanks for pointing us to it! I think there's no overlap or competition between the two since they have similar but different targets. If you see it any different let us know!

And if you are stuck with developing your tool or have any questions to mediawiki fulltime-devs feel free to visit the Technical Advice IRC Meeting. Michael Schönitzer (WMDE) (talk) 13:54, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I totally agree with you.

Are there any plans to include the textual content of a reference in Reference Previews?

I would love to hear your thoughts on possible implementations.

Cheers! Hjfocs (talk) 14:02, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Hello! Have you heard of this new feature yet? https://blog.archive.org/2019/10/29/weaving-books-into-the-web-starting-with-wikipedia/

These links to external books are also shown in the Reference Previews popups. Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 10:33, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

No, this is not planned – at least not for the near future. Michael Schönitzer (WMDE) (talk) 14:11, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Extracting text from a PDF and other Postscript-based docs is non-trivial. Many single column science papers are easy, but a fancy multicolumn layout can be very difficult. Jeblad (talk) 17:15, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

No type

Bad idea to spend much of the popup area for ref type, which is not fully adopted by other than english wikis and sometimes doesn't match real type of ref. --Igel B TyMaHe (talk) 13:33, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. The headline, as it is designed right now, serves two purposes: It allows to identify the contents of a popup as a "Reference", in contrast to a page preview. This is especially relevant because not all readers know what the little ^[1] numbers are. And the headline identifies the type of reference, if one is provided. With the types being more visible now adoption might increase. How this can be done is described on mw:Page Content Service/References#Example 3: Various citation types.

Via phab:T221555 we are working on a minor style improvement, which might help as well. Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 09:24, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Popup is too big

If this is of course a useful feature, the popup is really too big. The scrollbar that appears when the height limit is reached may be a problem: all the text should be visible without any further action from the reader. Maybe the font size should be a little smaller and so should the padding. Perhaps the shape of a flattened rectangle is more appropriate and discreet.

One last remark: the popup should appear either on click or on hover. So there are just a few details to change in my opinion and that would be perfect. Lofhi (talk) 19:25, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @Lofhi, I'll pass your remarks about the design on to the team.

About your last remark: Could you explain why having the popup either on click or on hover would be important for you?

Best,

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 09:02, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

It depends of the preferences of the user. Some don't want to be distracted by an unwanted pop-up because the delay before the popup appears is too short (since it's can't be modified). So they may want a click option to avoid this case! Lofhi (talk) 15:12, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Other remarks:

• If an internal link is present in a reference and you click on it, it opens a new tab... even if the internal link points to an anchor on the article itself.
• As a result, bibliographic references don't work. This is the case, for example, with the references generated with the Sfn template on Wikipedia in French. The bibliographic reference should also be displayed just below. 

I don't know if that's clear. You can try with the article "Alain Madelin" on frwiki. Look for the 9th reference and click on "Lamy 2016". Lofhi (talk) 18:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Reimplimentation of Reference tooltips gadget

This tool is doing the same job that the Reference Tooltips gadget has done for years. And it does it better. This one has that same horrible Visual Editor design style that is infecting Wikipedia and is too big with too much borders. 220.255.140.147 (talk) 07:30, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I meant "Reference Tooltips does it better" but can't seem to edit my own comment. This comment system is using that horrible style too. 220.255.140.147 (talk) 07:32, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback.

Yes, Reference Previews are pretty similar to the Reference Tooltips gadget. Because the gadget doesn't work well on all wikis, e.g. the German Wikipedia, there was a community vote to have the functionality inside of a MediaWiki extension.

There are some differences between the gadget and the beta feature, though. For instance:

• more visual consistency with Page Previews
• the titles of the popups make it easier for readers to estimate if the source is trustworthy

Please note: The feature is now in beta phase. The point of this phase is to find out what is working well and what is still needed to make this a well usable feature. If you have specific feedback, you're very invited to share it, as it helps us improve the feature.

Thanks! Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 08:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Muchas gracias por esta herramienta tan útil. Saludos ~ Lourdes Cardenal (talk) 17:14, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

How does it not work well on the German Wikipedia? I have found no specific discussion of this in English and I even translated the German version of the Reference Preview article and it doesn't say there's any specific problem due to it being the German Wikipedia, just that they use an fork of the reference gadget there instead of the reference gadget itself. So what specifically is the problem on the German Wikipedia? Is it a technical issue? Something else? 220.255.140.147 (talk) 01:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello! This is the page on dewiki where the feature was wished for (Technical Wishes survey 2017, in German): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Umfragen/Technische_Wünsche_2017/Lesen#Vorschau_von_Einzelnachweisen

It describes that there are several problems with the version on dewiki, amongst others:

• accessibility issues
• small font size
• irregular clicking behavior, e.g. you sometimes can't copy content from the preview

The page above links to another page (also German), which mentions more problems:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verbesserungsvorschläge/Archiv/2012/August#MouseOver_bei_Einzelnachweisen (end of the section)

Hope that helps,

Johanna

Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 12:37, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I too like the old tooltipp more - and I use it on "de" too.

The problem "small font size" is right now - to me - a strength, since I get to see the full text (with comments and citations). Whereas in the new extension I sometimes can't even see all the important infos.

Maybe the new extension could be made configurable? At least with css-hacks described on a help page. Mirer (talk) 01:15, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

The new tool, as most of the tools based on the new design, is much worse than the previous tool. For long citations, the tool display an ugly and awkward scrollbar, while wasting a lot of white space on the sides. The old tool on the other hand is much more space efficient and user-friendly. Ita140188 (talk) 11:16, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

I, too would be very unhappy if this replaced Reference Tooltips. It's bigger and more obtrusive, and adds a header and footer which serve no purpose. Danbloch (talk) 06:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Beta not automatically enabled

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi,

I have enabled the "Automatically enable all new beta features" option, globally. So, I thought the "Reference previews" beta feature would be automatically enabled. But when I checked the Preferences page in Wikipedia, the features was not enabled.

Why isn't the feature enabled automatically? Kaartic ^[talk] 06:11, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Kaartic,

thanks for letting us know. Which Wikipedia did you check?Y

You mean that the checkbox for Reference Previews wasn't checked in your preferences, right?

If it was checked, but the feature itself isn't showing, one reason might be that you have the Navigation Popups gadget enabled.

Best,

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 08:48, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

> Which Wikipedia did you check?

English Wikipedia

> You mean that the checkbox for Reference Previews wasn't checked in your preferences, right?

Yes, I had to enable it manually. Kaartic ^[talk] 09:56, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I've created a Phabricator task for this (T236780) and we'll look into the issue.

Best,

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 11:56, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Suppresses ability to click citation marker to jump to reference?

Without this feature enabled, I can click citation markers (^[n]) and my browser will jump down to the relevant footnote in the references section. With the feature enabled, I cannot do this. Clicking the citation marker does nothing, though I can get the same behaviour by clicking on the "Jump to reference" link in the preview pop-up. I hope this is just a bug rather than intended behaviour, because I think it's a problem for a number of reasons:

• For users who have previously relied on this behaviour, it breaks their expectations and forces them to learn new muscle memory.
• It breaks user expectations with respect to how web pages are supposed to work. These citation markers look like links - they're blue, when I hover on them my cursor turns into a pointer and my browser shows a url in the bottom-right. And that's because they are links - they're <a> elements, they have an href. Using javascript to subvert this basic behaviour is hella confusing.
• Even if I can retrain myself to stop trying to click these links, the new method of getting to the reference is slower and more error-prone. I need to position my cursor on the citation marker, wait for the pop-up to appear, then carefully move the cursor into the tooltip (which is possibly above, or possibly below), and to the "Jump to reference" link. God help me if my cursor drifts a pixel outside the bounds of the pop-up or I need to start the process again.

I didn't see an obvious advantage of this feature over the existing Reference Tooltips gadget, but I was willing to give it a try, until I hit this issue. Until this is fixed, I would consider this feature a clear step backward from the status quo. Colin M (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

@Colin M Thanks a lot for your feedback. I'll pass it on to the team.

Have a good week,

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 11:35, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Footnote lists

In a significant number of articles, certain reference lists indicate footnotes, not sources (notably, {{efn}} lists, which use the lower-alpha reference group). Would it be technically possible to display something like "Note" instead of "Reference" for such lists? "Reference" incorrectly implies that the note text indicates a source. Jc86035 (talk) 16:00, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jc86035Thank you for your feedback. We will discuss it in our team when we pick up work on this feature again. We're currently focussing on a different project. Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 10:51, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

How do I keep the Preview Window up even after leaving its 'area'?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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help me? Kennedy Domingos (talk) 16:33, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. As of now, this is not possible. I recommend clicking "Jump to reference". You will find the contents from the popup a second time at the bottom of the page. Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 10:38, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

You may try to use the tab button to navigate. Greatder (talk) 04:28, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

page preview in Wikipedia no longer works for me

About 2 days ago the showing of page previews has 100% stopped working. (I use Firefox) I have spent over an hour trying suggestions found by using google but nothing has worked. There is no option on any gadget I can see to alter this. I have been doing page refreshes after trying various chnages - don't ask me to tell you, it's too much for me to remember. Just what is going on? I have got used to this facility and it's not as though I don't contribute to Wiki. I do because I realise its value. Please can people who know how to do it get it working again? :-( I have just tried it in IE11 and it WORKS (I was trying to stop using that). JontheDuke (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. Unfortunately I currently can't reproduce the issue. I tried with Forefox 70 on the English Wikipedia, and both Page Previews (when hovering links to other articles) as well as Reference Previews (when hovering the numbered footnote markers) work. Note that both need to be enabled in your preferences. Additionally, the feature might be disabled via a cookie in case you are not logged in. Look for a link "Enable previews" at the bottom of the page and click it, if it's there. Cleaning your browsers cache (including the cookies) might as well be worth a try. --Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 90.187.22.233 (talk) 09:28, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Thiemo Kreuz, thanks for replying. Sorry my reply is late but I have been diverted to ther things. Using Firefox, I found an option in Wikipedia which allowed the showing of some text when I hover the cursor over a pale blue link, but it's not the same as I used to see. So I took photos of the same wiki page, using cursor hover over the same link, using Firefox, IE11 and Chrome. The latter two browsers displyed in the same way, (but differently to the way Firefox is displaying now) and in the way the Firefox used to do for me. I would like to send these photos to you but haven't found out how to, or if that's possible

I prefer the way that Chrome and IE11 display. Is there an option I can set to get Firefox back to the way it used to display for me?

Kind regards,

Jon JontheDuke (talk) 13:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I would love to see these screenshots. You can upload them on Commons, or on Phabricator when logging in with your wiki account. Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 12:34, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I have the same issue. The page previews only work if I am not logged into my wikipedia account. Anutrix (talk) 23:30, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Same issue here as well.... sort of... on Firefox 81.0.2 / ArchLinux. My suspicion is that for users who had created their accounts prior to the rollout of this feature may have it disabled by default. Page previews can be (re-)enabled through the "Appearance" section of your account preferences, under the heading "Reading Preferences." @Anutrix @JontheDuke Themathkid (talk) 23:17, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

@Themathkid I thought the same but there's no such option in "Appearance" section of account preferences. Anutrix (talk) 17:58, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Hey @Anutrix and thanks for you reply. The extension that allows the previews is not installed on mediawiki.org so the setting can't be used here. Please re-check on your local Wikipedia if you see the setting and if enabling it works. Thanks! Christoph Jauera (WMDE) (talk) 09:55, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

@Christoph Jauera (WMDE) Thx. It worked. Anutrix (talk) 19:04, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello,

The solution is:

Go to preferences up on the top right close to your username on wiki then click appearance and then finally check the box for

"Enable page previews (get quick previews of a topic while reading a page)"

This is automatically on while not logged in. You must have accidentally un-checked it while logged in to your account. I must have done the same and this was the very easy solution. Affffee (talk) 08:16, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

"jump to reference" link is hard to reach

When you hover over a reference, you get a card with a "Jump to reference" link at the bottom. The problem is, when you move the mouse pointer from the current position to the link, if you go outside the boundaries of the card for more than a short time, the card is dismissed.

For people with impaired manual dexterity, getting the pointer to its desired location without deviating from the card boundaries can be challenging. On some devices (touch-screens, trackpads, etc), it may be challenging even for people with full dexterity.

One possible fix would be to increase the duration of the timeout. Another would be to move the link so it's closer to the initial cursor position. Another might be an option to have the card latch open until explicitly dismissed. RoySmith (talk) 01:46, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The new "Reference previews" feature: two previews appear

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hello! I have enabled the "Reference preview" in Beta. However, I've decided to remove it. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonna_galea. The problem: when I hover over a reference, two previews appear:

1. The first preview is the one that you could see earlier.
2. The second preview is the new preview from "Reference previews".

There should be only one preview, not two. All previews have the same content on them. The placement of the two previews is different. Sometimes you can see two previews and the first one hides the second one, sometimes you can see every preview.

(I've tested it on ru-wiki and on en-wiki).

Summary: there should be one preview, not two. ParticipantOfTheEncyclopedia (talk) 12:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Try separate explain-notes and ref-notes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T268967

This is, as well, the common flaw on Wikipedia, is that explanatory footnotes and references notes are being combined. They are not the same. Please consider separate them.

About the design overall, I think it is great. I think it catches up with state-of-the-art, elegant designs, and makes Wikipedia cleaner and less boring. Send my appreciation to the designer! Gerald Waldo Luis (talk) 16:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the positive feedback, that's very much appreciated! However, what do you mean when you say "separate them"? One popup typically shows a single footnote only. What needs separation, where, and how? Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 08:19, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I mean to let it able to distinguish between explanatory footnotes and references footnotes. So let's say there is an explanatory footnote, instead of marking it as 'References,' let it be marked as 'Footnote.' References are sources that supports the statement, so having an explanatory footnote marked 'References' is going to be confusing for non-Wikipedians. Gerald Waldo Luis (talk) 09:39, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I see. So this is mostly about the heading that currently says "⧼popups-refpreview-reference⧽", and possibly the "⧼popups-refpreview-jump-to-reference⧽" link at the bottom. I would love to make these more context-sensitive. Unfortunately there is currently no way to distinguish explanatory footnotes from actual references. Do you have an example article? Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 11:46, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but consider the en:Interstellar (film) article. There are explanatory footnotes, but was titled 'References' when I hover on them. Gerald Waldo Luis (talk) 11:52, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Gerald Waldo Luis Thanks for your feedback! Our team is currently adding a class which can be used to specify references as notes. When used, the pop-up title will then say "Note" instead of "Reference".

Best,

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 16:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Mentioned in Community Wishlist Survey 2021. Steven Sun (talk) 01:28, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Page Preview Stopped Working When Logged In

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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For some reason the page preview (ie the popup) function has stopped working for me when I'm logged in. It works fine when I'm logged out. I have the proper settings selected in my preferences. I have cleared my cache and cookies and restarted, but the problem persists. I've only just noticed this today. I'm on Windows 10 x64 laptop using the latest version of Chrome (as of 07/19/2020). Has anyone else experienced this, and if so, could you please let me know how to resolve the problem? Thank you in advance for any help. Mpaniello (talk) 21:19, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Not useful !

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T234204

Template:Bonjour

I already use Navigation popups, so its useless to use this tool. And 99% of wikipedians that saw "Reference preview" already know the existence of "Nav. popups"... Nicolas de Bourgoing (talk) 09:30, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I completely disagree with your opinion, Nicolas.

I was always annoyed that the popups were available in mobile version of Wiki but not in desktop version. When I looked at the Beta-Features for the first time now I was very happy that it exists and instantly activated it.

Although I'd consider myself a "Wiki power reader" I realize now that I was never a power user since I never heard of "Nav.popups" nor of Wiki-Skins at all.

So I forcefully question that 99% and assume that you are in a type-of-user bubble were you might feel that way.

In addition we must not forget that beta features are intended to become standard one day and in that stage they will reach a lot more people than any skin features ever will.

And this is one feature I think will make "wikiing" much more comfortable even to those users that aren't aware that they are missing out this comfort at the moment. So did I: as mentioned above as soon as I got used to that feature in mobile version of Wiki I strongely missed it in desktop version.

Just not enough to google it, I suppose, since I just didn't think there was any possibility to adjust Wiki's look and feel at all.

So on the whole I suggest you just consider this beta feature to be the navigation popups feature on it's way to getting a standard feature. Which it truly deserves, I think. WikiUser1018 (talk) 10:57, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I see. In fact you more right than what I thought, because "Nav popups..." is very unlovely...

Thanks !

Nicolas de Bourgoing Nicolas de Bourgoing (talk) 18:22, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Wow, I just found out another big thing (ultimately outing myself as noop user): I prefer to read Wiki without logging in with my account and just use the account to edit things.

So I would be very happy if that feature would be available without logging in. That makes me the day it becomes standard very urgently! :-) WikiUser1018 (talk) 11:07, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Is it correct when I assume you are talking about the French Wikipedia? According to fr:Special:Gadgets the gadget is not enabled by default. Users must opt-in. The same is true for Reference Previews, as they are still in Beta. If you accidentally enabled both (which can easily happen when you subscribed to "Automatically enable most beta features") you can disable one again, either on the "Beta features" or the "Gadgets" tab.

That said, we are aware of the issue and not happy with the current behavior either. We track it in phab:T234204 and will definitely do something about it before the feature goes out of Beta. Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 09:57, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Reference Previews on fr.wikiversity

Hello, just a message to know if it's possible to enable Reference Previews on fr.wikiversity ? Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact.} 15:58, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Lionel Scheepmans, thanks a lot for your interest! So far, the Popups extension which is the basis for Reference Previews and Page Previews is only running on Wikipedias and a few Wikivoyage projects. We're currently investigating if we can change that, so that more wikis could use Reference Previews. I'll let you know what comes out of the investigation.

Have a good day,

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 13:34, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for this replay. Here is The consensus on Wikiversité about the acceptation of beta fonctionnalities by the community. We are look forward to see the installation of reference Previews in our project. Have a nice day to ! Lionel Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact.} 14:28, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Should Reference Previews work when logged in?

I keep seeing conflicting information. Reference Previews work fine on my wiki for logged out users, but when logged in they stop working. Page Previews are enabled by default and also enabled in the user's preferences. I've seen a thread or two on this forum as well as this post in the project hub (T278739).

It's not clear to me if they should work, if they conflict with something else, or just don't work for logged in users (not sure why?). My wiki is just local testing and is basically a stock configuration with a mobile skin. 72.65.50.80 (talk) 19:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Hard to tell. Maybe the skin? Popups might work different in the Minerva skin a.k.a. on mobile. Do logged in users see the regular page previews? Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 15:42, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Disabling popups for pages, but leaving them for references [1]

Hello, I can't seem to find any definitive information on this. I'm looking to disable the preview popups when you hover over a page link, but I still need the reference preview popup to work.

Is that possible? Ericwhatchaneed (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

That should be possible. On most Wikimedia wikis there are two options in your user preferences: "Enable page previews (get quick previews of a topic while reading a page)" and "⧼popups-refpreview-user-preference-label⧽". Disabling the first should do what you want. Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 17:42, 7 January 2024 (UTC)