Eyo my lovely people! How time has flown by, and as we near the end of the year, we are at the end of the Technical Updates series for as far as 2024 is concerned. If you're new and wondering what this is: every two weeks, the technical updates are posted to give you all an overview of releases, bug fixes, and other things relevant to the platform and that may have an impact on your experience. It's also a good place to give your feedback and report on bugs. With the yearly code freeze starting Monday, December 16th, no new releases are planned anymore, which is also not that surprising since we saw one of the biggest, most visual releases go live earlier this week! Let's dive in!
New navigation design for logged-in users: current panel open at the top (top) and scrolled down with open profile panel (down)
I doubt anyone missed the release of the new horizontal design for the global navigation with content panels earlier this week. The most visual change of the year is the result of two experiments conducted earlier this year: the horizontal navigation top bar and the "current" content panel on the left being open by default to logged-out users with a screen that's at least 1640px wide. Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, this new design was released to all users on the platform. While this is a first version that'll be the subject of change based on experimentation with new content types next year, it is here to stay and replace the old design. We are definitely interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions, so please let us know! Read more about all the details on going into the new year with a new navigation design
Perhaps a bit overshadowed by the navigation redesign but notable nonetheless: the FanFeed has been removed from all pages on desktop. This is the result of the re-running of an experiment that earlier in the year already resulted in the removal of the FanFeed from all desktop pages with max 200 characters. The same experiment was run on mobile. However, where low engagement was found on desktop, FanFeed did do its intended job of guiding users to the next page on mobile. As such, it remains on FandomMobile but has been removed everywhere else.
Recent Fixes[]
OGG files are generating an audio player again on FandomDesktop. The issue persists on Safari however, but that's due to browser incompatibility.
Special:CuratedContent suggestions did not allow non-English category names; now they do.
There is no longer an issue with wikis receiving Quick Answers.
While on a mobile device and logged out, loading a Universe Pages resulted in the old desktop version of the navigation flashing on screen before swapping to the mobile navigation.
On December 12th, Discussions malfunction on multiple wikis by throwing an "ECONNREFUSED" error and usernames and avatars were missing on Message Walls.
On wikis with anonymous editing still enabled, these users once again have the ability to post replies on Message Wall posts.
[Page Cleanup] Remove "Others Like You" widget from the FandomMobile skin: One of the goals for the mobile drawer is the decluttering of widgets inside the content space. With the release of the mobile drawer last month, the "Other Like You" widget initially still remained visible underneath the infobox on mobile though it has been removed by now to take a step closer toward the decluttering goal.
[Feature Tweak] VisualEditor Structured Quote button: A change born from direct user feedback, the pop-up triggered by the VisualEditor Structured Quote button now also supports the custom fields that were added to a Structured Quote in source mode. While the code freeze is upon us, this button, placed within the "Insert" menu on the VisualEditor, likely will still arrive just in time to be a 2024 release. Clicking this will trigger a pop-up menu that allows you to easily create a Structured Quote with the correct syntax. It'll auto-generate the necessary unique ID as well as clearly indicate which parameter fields are mandatory to fill out. As a bonus option, when you go to a page that already uses the more common regular Quote template and you click to edit that template using the VisualEditor, this too will trigger the StructuredQuote template editor and allows for easy conversion of the old quote to be a structured quote.
That's it for the past weeks and this entire year! Per usual, if you encounter something that feels off about the platform, please report it by sending in a bug report, reach out to your Community Manager, contact the Product Support Owner on their Wall/talk page, or just simply sound off in the comments here. Remember to include a link to where you're experiencing the issue, a screenshot if it is something visible, as well as steps to reproduce your issue. As always, thank you for helping us by continuing to communicate. Happy editing and happy holidays, everyone!
Lostris is a Senior Product Support Manager. When not online, she lives to travel, play roller derby, and escape the world by watching anything that has a good plot, good acting, and preferably a ton of sassy one-liners.
