Hello, I would appreciate the option to turn off animations (for dialog boxes, etc.) in the 2017 wikitext editor. The animations slow down editing slightly, and more importantly, they make the editor feel less responsive.
Topic on 2017 wikitext editor/Feedback
Can you tell me what kind of computer you're using?
I've tried the 2017 wikitext editor in desktop browsers on different desktop and laptop computers across Windows, macOS, and Linux. The behavior is the same on every platform. The animations aren't a major performance issue, since they take less than a second. However, the 2017 wikitext editor is already slower than the existing wikitext editor, and these animations make the interface feel even slower (especially for editors who are used to the existing wikitext editor). It's a perception issue, and I think it might discourage editors from adopting the 2017 wikitext editor.
To clarify, I'm referring to the animation of the display of the "Find and replace" panel, the "Special character" panel, and the "Options" dialog box. In contrast, the display of the "Link", "Cite", and "Help" tooltips feel more responsive because they are not animated.
@JKlein (WMF): I think this discussion might interest you.
Our animations take 250ms, and help users keep oriented when the interface changes dramatically. Almost all of our transitions are implemented in CSS, which means the browser only updates during spare CPU cycles, so it shouldn't negatively affect actual performance.
Animations are built into our user interface library OOUI in many places in the JavaScript and CSS, so turning making them optional would unfortunately be an extremely complex undertaking.
Okay, I understand. Thanks for your consideration.
I also prefer not to have animations. My complaint is a bit more general - apologies if I am hijacking this thread.
When editing, I don't want to see the little keyboard icon appear in the lower-right corner, and then exactly two seconds later vanish by moving upwards. That happens every time I switch to the browser window in I3, and it's annoying.
Also, I found out how to keep the action tabs ("Edit", "View History") from "animating away": switch back to Monobook in Preferences. This animation occurs when I make the text large or the window small; the page tabs to "Edit" or "View History" or "Watch" animate their disappearance into the "More" menu, which is annoying since it slows the page loading and distracts me visually. I don't need a constant reminder that the "More" menu contains stuff.
I'm also annoyed by the fact that even when I enable "source editing" on this website, the result is apparently not a normal HTML text area, and so I can't use Itsalltext in Firefox to edit it with my preferred text editor (Emacs). I hope that this doesn't happen when Wikipedia and Wiktionary upgrade to the latest Mediawiki. I haven't tested it with Textern which is the modern replacement to Itsalltext. It would be annoying to have to copy and paste every edit I make, like I'm having to do now. I would basically stop contributing to those projects until I found a fix.
I got here by Googling "how to turn off mediawiki animations", please let me know if there are other places I should put this comment. Thank you.
I might be interested to know if there is a simple CSS hack which can turn off animations; although I would prefer something more accessible to users.
Which of the many editors are you using?
That's a useful list, thanks Whatamidoing!
I think the animations should simply go away. The submit popup, preview popup animates and this is annoying. I don't think that my browser is slow, the animation interrupts the work flow.