User blog comment:MisterWoodhouse/The first Unified Community Platform release is now live for NEW wikis/@comment-26542627-20200312171300

This is my first feedback to a Fandom change blog, so I hope this format is acceptable. I wrote down specific input as I found it rather than an overview after I was done trying it out.


 * 1) The edit button doesn't utilize the setting in Settings:Preferences. I had to use the drop-down-menu to click Edit Source.
 * 2) Source Editor seems to take longer to load now. Is it also loading all the features for the Visual Editor too, so that switching between them will be quicker? Source Editor is the only editor mode I'll ever use.
 * 3) Save Changes button illuminates if you change anything on the page, even add a space. But if you delete the space, the button is still illuminated as if you've made a change even though it's now exactly the same as before. The Save Changes button only disables if you use the Undo button or keyboard buttons.
 * 4) The Preview button also becomes disabled if there are no changes made, but it doesn't change appearance to suggest it's disabled. I had to make a change again to use it; no visual cue or message that the Preview button is unavailable if no changes to the article were detected.
 * 5) The links button on the toolbar has a blue dot to indicate a notice. But even after I've seen and dismissed the notice, the blue dot appears each time I load the Source Editor.
 * 6) Iconography in general is a thumbs down, but the buttons don't even have mouse-hovers to indicate their purpose. What is the icon to the left of the Link button? Is it a signature button? It doesn't seem to work, at least not on mainspace pages.
 * 7) You added an underline button, which is nice. A strike-through button would be good too.
 * 8) The Symbols list takes a while to load. Are you importing the fonts (particularly "Rubik") using display:block (which waits until the font is completely loaded before it begins to render), or choosing swap or fallback (which temporarily use a fallback font until the font file is ready and then swaps the whole text at once or progressively)?
 * 9) By opening different sub-menus and drop-down-menus, I was somehow able to break the Symbols list. The whole sub-menu is faded. I can still scroll and click items in the left side, but scrolling through and actually selecting a symbol is impossible without closing the Edit page and reopening.
 * 10) I was also able to fix the Symbols list disabling itself by going to "Preview" the article and then "Resume editing".
 * 11) I preferred having the right pane on the Edit screen, which included a spot right there to add an Edit Summary, button to show code changes, view in-use templates, and view in-use categories.
 * 12) Edit Summary section only pops up when you go to Save Changes, which messes up my workflow. I often add to my edit summary as I progressively change the article. Or if I'm editing a number of articles at a time, I add the edit summary before actually making my changes. This now forces me to add the summary last, or to keep showing/hiding the popup.
 * 13) There were separate buttons to "Show code changes" and "Preview" the article. 1.) Now you can only "Review your changes" from the "Preview your changes" popup, 2.) which itself takes a while to load and will only get worse when a page is actually long or uses many templates. Separate buttons is better, and loading one view shouldn't also load the other view to make swapping views quicker. That would still result in slower loading of the code changes.
 * 14) Viewing in-use templates (and I believe categories) is only done through the Settings and another pop-up menu.
 * 15) "Preview your changes" (article preview) doesn't display edit summary, but "Review your changes" (code changes) does.
 * 16) You can't add/edit an Edit Summary there either.
 * 17) "Review your changes" window is pretty small in height and it's vertically aligned to the middle. It should be full height, like "Preview your changes" and the contents vertically aligned to the top. Or at the least, the mini-popup that it is should be vertically aligned to the top.

Summary: I don't care for it at all. Fandom tried to reinvent the wheel and it looks like we'll be in for a bumpy ride. I've been around the block a few times, and I'm not naive to think that my feedback will result in serious changes to the system. I know that the change is coming. With that being said, I still gave honest, hopefully detailed enough feedback to improve the system. When the time comes that the wiki here I enjoy switches over, like so many others before me, I'll move on. The "little things" really do matter.

P.S. We can't preview comments before submission?

Edit: Added missing note about viewing in-use templates list.