WMDE Technical

Wishes/RevisionSlid
er
< WMDE Technical Wishes

The RevisionSlider helps

navigating through
revisions
The RevisionSlider adds a slider view to the diff page. All revisions are shown as bars on a
line. The RevisionSlider helps editors navigate through revisions without having to go back
and forth between the diff and history pages. Hovering over the bars shows details (such as
the edit summaries and authors), and dragging and dropping the knobs selects the revisions
to be compared.

The goals of the RevisionSlider are to save time and page loads, as well as to make it easier
to navigate through edit summaries from the diff page.
Background
Wish #16 on the German Technical Wishes Survey was to easily navigate through all edit
summaries when comparing revisions on the diff page.

Inspired by DerHexer's revisionjumper gadget, the Community Tech team built a

RevisionSlider prototype in the beginning of 2016. During the Wikimedia hackathon 2016 in
Jerusalem, the prototype was picked up by the WMDE's Technical Wishes team and brought
home to Berlin to fulfill the wish from the wishlist.

Development

Community Tech development

An overview of the work of the Community Tech team can be found here. They also asked for
a first feedback on the prototype from the international community, which was positive in
general.
WMDE's Technical Wishes team
development

RevisionSlider prototype 0.1, after the

hackathon 2016

The RevisionSlider, as built by the

WMDE's Technical Wishes team, as it
was on May 31st 2016

Screenshot Revision slider in the

latest version, May 2017

Workboard on Phabricator
Extension manual on Mediawiki.org
Central feedback page on
Mediawiki.org
 Kick-Off at the Wikimedia Hackathon
2016
WMDE's Technical Wishes team started working on the RevisionSlider during the Wikimedia
Hackathon in 2016. They added to the feature that the bars that are representing revisions
are colored depending on the section that is highlighted.

Building a Mediawiki extension

Between May 2016 and the release as a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew
Wikipedia in November 2016 the Technical Wishes team has been working on the following
tasks:

The RevisionSlider Mediawiki

extension has been set up
The first version to be released as a
beta feature has been defined and
scaled down into many different tasks
The coding work for the first version
has been done
The extension successfully passed
security review and all
 recommendations after the security
review got adressed
The functionality got optimized for the
usage in Left-to-Right and Right-to-Left
languages (see also:
mw:Extension:RevisionSlider/Developi
ng a RTL-accessible feature in
MediaWiki - what we've learned while
creating the RevisionSlider
With in house user testing, the usability
of the RevisionSlider got further
improved
All critical bugs could be fixed and
suggestions for improvements got
adressed or identified as new feature
options for a possible version 2.0
An overview on all technical details and tasks can be found on the workboard on Phabricator.
Test phase and gathering feedback

The RevisionSlider has been available

for testing as a Beta feature on all Beta
Wikipedias by June 15, on German
Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia and
Arabic Wikipedia by July 22 (T140232,
T140551, T140545), on Polish
Wikipedia by August 4 (T141974) and
on all wikis by September 13
(T143421).
Many users from different Wikis have
tested RevisionSlider and helped
improving the feature by reporting
bugs and suggesting improvements.
mw:Extension talk:RevisionSlider
turned out to be the main feedback
page for the RevisionSlider.
RevisionSlider as a default feature

As of November 15, RevisionSlider is

enabled as a default feature for all
users on MW.org
As of November 22, RevisionSlider is
enabled as a default feature for all
users on German, Hebrew and Arabic
Wikipedia
At the same time, RevisionSlider still is
available as a beta feature on all other
wikis
As of May 17, RevisionSlider is enabled
as a default feature on all wikis
A more user-friendly user-interface
("UI")
While testing the old User Interface with different users the team noticed that it took most
users quite a while to understand how the slider works. This is why the team was working on
making the way of moving between the revisions more intuitive. The slightly different
interface got very positive feedback and therefore got deployed on May 11, 2017. The new
user interface was the last task the team aimed to finish before RevisionSlider could leave
the beta status on all wikis.

Maintenance and further

improvements

Please see the Workboard on

Phabricator for detailed infos on
current/upcoming tasks.

Usage
When on a diff page, the slider is collapsed by default and only a narrow bar labelled
"Browse history" is visible at the top of the page. Click on that bar to expand the
RevisionSlider.

Once expanded, the RevisionSlider fetches data about the revisions and allows you to
navigate and compare revisions on the diff page.

Each bar represents a page revision.

Bars on the top show growth in size of the page, bars on the bottom show a reduction.

In the image, revision 1 represents added content, while revision 2 represents removal
of content.

To select the revisions you want to compare, use the yellow and blue knobs. The blue
knob controls the newer revision, the yellow knob maps to the older revision.

There are several ways to do this:

You can drag and drop the knob to
the desired position on the slider.
You can click on the desired position
on the slider line. To select the
newer revision, click on the blue line,
and for selecting the older revision,
click on the yellow line. To indicate
which revision you’re about to select,
 a preview of a blue or yellow knob
appears and the bar turns blue or
yellow.
You can click into the bar above the
middle line (to select the newer
revision) or below the line (to select
the older revision). This also gives
you a preview of the knob on the
middle line.

If you move the blue knob to a position

left of the yellow knob, the yellow knob
is automatically moved along, and vice
versa if you move the yellow knob to a
position right of the blue knob.

Use the backward and forward arrows to move through revision history and show older
and newer revisions.
Improved clicking behavior
Since the RevisionSlider left its beta status, the team received several ideas on how to
improve its clicking behavior. Based on this feedback, they worked on a solution to make the
feature more intuitive. The following changes have been made:

In the example the cursor is

positioned in the second bar from the
left, above the middle line. The bar
appears blue above the slider line and
a preview of the blue knob is visible.
Furthermore, it can be seen that the
yellow knob is being automatically
moved along next to the blue one.

Clicking above and below the slider lines is possible

So far, in order to select a revision you had to click on the blue or yellow slider line or drag the
sliders on the line. Now, a revision can also be selected by clicking above and below these
lines. For example, in order to determine the newer revision, you can position the cursor
above the slider line. The bar where the cursor is at then turns blue above the line, and a
preview of the blue knob appears on the slider line. With this preview, it is clearly indicated
which revision will be selected when you click. Accordingly, the older revision can be selected
by positioning the cursor below the slider line. In this case, the bar below the middle line and
the preview of the knob turn yellow. (phab:T172092)

Knobs can be moved more easily

So far, it wasn't possible to move the yellow knob on the slider line past the blue one and vice
versa. For example, if you wanted to move the yellow knob past the blue one, you had to first
move the blue knob and then the yellow one. With the new update, you can now move a knob
directly to the desired position and the other knob automatically gets moved along next to it.
(phab:T173566)

These changes are expected to be available on the August 31.

Opting Out
If you are not using the RevisionSlider at all and also don't want to see the collapsed
RevisionSlider bar at the top of the diff page, you can opt-out by checking Don't show the
RevisionSlider in your preferences under Appearance → Diffs.

Deployment Roadmap

July 22, 2016: Deployment as a beta

feature on German, Arabic, Hebrew
Wikipedia
August 4, 2016: Deployment as a beta
feature on Polish Wikipedia
September 13, 2016: Deployment as a
beta feature on all Wikis
November 15, 2016: Deployment as a
default feature for all users on
Mediawiki.org
 November 22, 2016: Deployment as a
default feature for all users on deWP,
arWP, heWP
May 11, 2017: Deployment of the
slightly different user interface to all
wikis
May 17, 2017: Deployment as a default
feature on all wikis

Feedback
Feedback is very welcome! So far most people have used mw:Extension talk:RevisionSlider
to get in touch.

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08:37. •
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