Mobile theming is now available!
Happy Friday!
I know, I know - Technical Updates are supposed to be every other Friday, and we just did one a week ago, so what gives? Well, we decided to do one today because earlier this week, mobile theming became available to admins to begin opting in to. That means that they can now apply their wiki’s desktop theme to mobile. That’s a big deal! We promised we’d build mobile theming capabilities at Community Connect back in May, and we’re thrilled to make good on that and provide that option.
So the bug-related section of this blog will be specifically about mobile theming, what the community caught as bugs, and what we’ve been fixing and will be fixing. We’ll have our regular, broader bug updates next week, but this week we’ll also give you another update on non-theming related development updates as well.
Notable Changes[]
Here are the mobile theming bugs that have been fixed since Wednesday’s release:
- Discarding changes makes the contrast warning on the theme tab (where you can switch between light and dark mode customizations) disappear.
- .theme-fandommobile-light is present on dark mode when mobile theming is enabled, causing issues for wikis using mobile CSS.
- For some wikis, the default Theme Designer preview page URL is not generated correctly and an error shows instead.
- When a background image is used, the background and header nav colors should not trigger a contrast warning.
Known Issues[]
Here are the current known issues with mobile theming that we’re working on:
- The contrast error message causes the color picker in the Theme Designer to jump around.
- There should be a line separating the Fandom heading with the local nav bar.
- The wiki name in the sticky nav on mobile preview and the actual mobile experience don't match.
- Diffs in dark mode have issues and are sometimes hard to read. This was a problem even before mobile theming, but will likely bother more people now that it’s more widely available.
- Some admins feel the required accent color contrast is too strict and doesn’t cover all instances where it’s being used. This isn’t a bug, but it has been an area of feedback that we’re investigating. It will require more thought, so this will take the longest to fix of all the mobile theming issues.
Development Updates[]
Mobile Theming[]
- Mobile theming is now available as an opt-in experience for admins! We’re continuing to receive feedback and work on the bugs mentioned above. Some key areas of feedback we’re looking into include:
- Potentially providing a way to designate/choose which section of the desktop background image shows up for mobile, as it’s currently the left side of the image by default. We believe this is doable, but we most likely wouldn’t happen until the first few months of 2023 given our creator developers are still working on the initiatives listed in this Development Update.
- Some admins have expressed a desire to have an “I understand the contrast issues but I want to save my theme anyway.” We’ll have to think through whether or not to balance the need to meet accessibility standards, which you can learn more about by clicking here, with a bit more creative freedom in the Theme Designer. So no promises, but we wanted to acknowledge the feedback.
- Mobile CSS: we know a lot of wikis want it, and that historically Gamepedia wikis already do, so we’re going to be doing a performance and SEO test to make sure the availability of Mobile CSS doesn’t cause any issues. If the test is successful, our intention is to make Mobile CSS available (with a customization policy, of course) in the first few months of 2023.
- If you’ve found a bug we don’t know about or want to send in more feedback, please do so! Just please be as clear as possible in either explaining the change you would like to see, or as detailed as possible as you’re explaining the bug you’ve found.
Discussions Moderation[]
- Post/Reply History. Backend work on post/reply history is nearly completed, and the frontend work is currently being refined (meaning: detailed out more with time estimates for how long the work will take). Work on the design for post/reply history is also progressing.
- Report Notifications. The writing and translating of on-site notifications of reported content is completed. We’re also working on the user setting (to opt-in or out of report notifications), and translation work will be requested soon.
Mobile Editing[]
- Advanced Mobile Contributions. We are working to add Advanced Mobile Contributions (AMC) to Fandom. This is a MediaWiki feature that we previously had and will be bringing back again, because it automatically adds some content moderation links to the mobile skin. If you’d like to learn more about AMC, check out this page on MediaWiki. It won’t be completely the same feature, since we have a different mobile skin, but that gives a general overview. We’ll also benefit from additional improvements the Wikimedia Foundation will be making to the feature. We’re still working on adding it and need to style some changes for the Fandom skin and add to Special:Preferences, and we’ll keep you posted on a timeline for when we can officially turn this on for you.
- Performance Improvements. Work on improving the performance of the mobile editor is in progress, with the aim being faster loading times.
If there’s anything you still think needs to be fixed that hasn’t yet, please be sure to either contact your Wiki Representative or, if your wiki doesn’t have one, send us a bug report!
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