Topic on Talk:Page Previews/Flow

196.52.39.11 (talkcontribs)

I don't like this, too in your face, so disabled it.

Take a look at Google Earth. You can click on a little button by cities, towns, restaurants, places of interests, campsites, etc. and up pops a card (what you call page preview) with information about it.

Go to Paris and see all of the buttons you can click to find out about stuff. Now imagine browsing through Paris and every one of those little buttons can pop out a preview if you stay over one too long. It would be unbearable. That's what this is.

The user activated button is so much more user friendly than your mouse pointer happening to rest over a link or word and it pops up. The user has the control which is the way it should be.

CKoerner (WMF) (talkcontribs)

Interesting feedback. Thank you for the consideration. I think the crucial difference is that Page Previews activate on a hyperlink. Folks expect that when you click on a hyperlink it takes you to another page. Making the preview appear upon a click (or other interaction) would fundamentally change the way hyperlinks work. That seems counter to readers expectations on how hyperlinks should behave.

173.239.212.48 (talkcontribs)

Don't make the hyperlink a page preview, put a button next to the hyperlink to activate the page preview. The hyperlink would still function as expected and the button would give the user control.

You mention what readers expect. I'd bet a princely amount that what readers don't expect from hyperlinks is to scroll over them and have them pop out at you. That is not the way hyperlinks have ever worked. So you've fundamentally changed the way hyperlinks work compared to the entire rest of the content delivery world.

AnonymusGdpr (talkcontribs)

@173.239.212.48: That is not true. Having a small popup nearby e.g. an icon, or any other visual object on the desktop, is a well-known standard feature, existing since Windows 95. Look at what is shown on your browser when the extension is disabled and the mouse cursor hovers beneath a hyperlink: there IS a small popup window showing the address where the hyperlink will jump to. All this extension does is expanding that popup to an article preview. It is a cool and heavily used feature within our wiki; when editing an article, it enables us to check if the hyperlinks are correct without clicking all links, and it allows us to do so in the article preview, i.e. BEFORE saving the edit. The proposal of an additional button nearby the hyperlink is not a good idea because that will extremly disturb the reading process of the article text. The feature is cool. Anyone that doesn't want it, shall switch it off.

185.51.229.3 (talkcontribs)

Aizi24 - those are called tooltips and balloons help and you're right, they have been around for awhile. Balloon help first appeared in Apple's OS around version 7. Tooltips are usually a small bit of information related to a button, etc. Balloon help was more information again used for help, like how a function worked in MS Word.

Tooltips remain but balloon help has slowly faded away simply because it's too intrusive.

Wikipedia's implementation is not a tooltip, it's more like balloon help on steroids.

You're using your particular needs - having your own wiki and editing it - and applying it to Joe public. It's really not the same thing at all. Sounds like for your needs it is pretty handy but for someone who just wants to read an article it's intrusive.

"...button nearby the hyperlink is not a good idea because that will extremly disturb the reading process of the article text."

If you read the complaints that is exactly what people are annoyed with, how it extremely disturbs the reading process of the article text. Without focusing on your curser at all times (tracking your cursor changes the very way one is browsing through an article) these can popup by simply coming to rest over a link.

For the average user having control of that popup would give them control without having to turn it off if they're annoyed by it. A small button (like a ? button) would put control in the users hands. It's the only solution whereby the feature can be used by everyone.

People who don't want it don't necessarily think it couldn't be useful, they don't want it specifically because it's annoying. I can certainly see its usefulness and would use it but as is it's too annoying to use for me. I want to use it - and this is a key arguement - ONLY WHEN IT'S USEFUL. When it's not it's just annoying.

Wikipedia is saying it's either on or it's off.

And no other content delivery site functions like this. You wouldn't read a WSJ article and expect to have to focus on where your cursor is at all times so you can avoid things popping out at you.

AnonymusGdpr (talkcontribs)

Thanks for your answer. I just stated my own single private opinion because when browsing through the discussion topics, one can see lots of complaints but rare acceptance. I do not consider speaking for Joe everyone (as some of the local hypercritics do) nor did I intend to offend you. Sorry if you felt so.

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