Topic on Help talk:Paragraph-based Edit Conflict Interface

This is totally confusing

4
RoySmith (talkcontribs)

I just got the new beta interface for the first time. To be honest, I find it totally confusing. Some of it makes sense. There's two text boxes, highlighted in yellow and blue. I get that. The blue one on the bottom is what I wrote, the yellow one on the top is what somebody else wrote. So far, so good.

Then, there's a button with up and down arrows which flips those two. I don't understand this. It switches which is on top, but other than this trivial layout change, I don't see that it performs any useful function.

My text has two controls on it, a checkmark and an X. Again, I have no clue what these do. The checkmark has a tooltip, "Apply your changes to this text". I don't understand what that means. Does it mean, take this change and automatically merge it into the other text? The X tooltip says, "Discard all your changes to this text". I'm afraid to even click that one because I don't know what it'll do. Discard permanently with no way to recover the text?

Sorry, this is just totally mystifying. And I say that as a software engineer with many years of using merge conflict resolution tools.

RoySmith (talkcontribs)

PS, I did what I usually do. I copied my text to the clipboard, opened up the same page in another window, and redid my edit there. That seems much simpler and understandable than any of the automatic merge tools I've seen tried.

Max Klemm (WMDE) (talkcontribs)

Hi @RoySmith:, we have seen your feedback and need some more time to discuss it with our team. I will come back to you at the beginning of next week. -- For the Technical Wishes Team

Max Klemm (WMDE) (talkcontribs)

Hi @RoySmith:, thanks for your constructive feedback. Your comments are helpful for understanding where usability improvements could be made to the interface. To explain what the controls you mention should do, both symbols (the check mark and the X) only appear if you decide to edit your post (click into the textbox) in the talk page edit conflict interface. By clicking the check mark, you save any changes you’ve made to your post in the interface. By clicking on the X, every change you made in the talk page edit conflict interface is discarded and you will see the text of your initial post (which resulted in the initial edit conflict). --For the Technical Wishes Team

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