Hiya lovelies! It's been another two weeks with lots that happened behind the scenes. As we're nearing the end of the year, the teams get busy building a roadmap for what we'll be doing next year. Every two weeks, we post these tech updates blogs to inform you all about a selection of public bug fixes that we tackled, as well as some ongoing or upcoming experiments and platform wide changes. If there is an issue you're encountering still, don't hesitate to sound off in the comments about it. Today is no different, so let's dive in!
Several issues relating to syntax highlighting (misalignment) in the 2017 VisualEditor - Source mode editor have been fixed:
Incorrect line height caused a syntax misalignment.
Copying a lot of content led to a cursor misalignment.
Syntax highlighting could cause an overlap effect on text if there were more than 100 lines
Wikimedia Foundation released some important security patches, which were ported to the necessary places.
The "Top Contributors" module on Mobile was removed as it couldn't be interacted with.
When clicking a thumbnail image in the navigation of the lightbox, you will no longer be shown the incorrect image.
Marker progress tracking was invisible for new Interactive Maps.
File uploads with % were broken, causing the image to not display and lead to an error page.
Fixes in Development[]
Several things can result in triggering a vertical scrollbar for the content area on FandomDesktop, videos embedded at the bottom of a page being one of them. A fix for this is being investigated.
[Tweak] Interactive Map markers need to have a unique ID: Interactive Maps progress tracking is reliant on having marker IDs be unique, lest markers with the same ID will display the same behavior. To prevent that, we have implemented a restriction on having duplicate ID markers. This means that you will no longer be able to save an edit if the Interactive Map contains markers with the same ID until that's fixed. Every ID can have a maximum of 64 characters to make it unique.
[Tweak] Highlighted embedded Interactive Maps code: It's always nice when we can deliver on a community-requested feature, even if it is seemingly a small one. A small but noticeable enhancement is that <interactive-map> is now highlighted in the source editor, so the embedded maps code is easier to see/visually parse.
[Ad Removal] Remove ads from non-content namespaces: We are removing ads from non-content namespaces like talk pages, walls, comments, and forums, which are pretty specific to editors and how you manage the wiki community. With this, we continue to lean into our commitment to improve the ad experience on Fandom.
English as preferred language (top) and wiki default for logged out users (bottom)
[Tweak] "Official Wiki" label display in chosen language: You may have noticed that some wikis have an "Official Wiki" label next to their wiki logo to indicate that the company behind the IP and Fandom have a deal together. This badge was hardcoded in English despite being a Fandom element. This will be changed sometime next week, and from then on, the badge will display the words "Official Wiki" in the language chosen by the user via their Special:Preferences if they are logged in. When they are logged out, the language matches the wiki's language.
[Tweak] Remove "Edit mobile main page" link from edit dropdown on desktop main pages: You may have noticed the appearance of Special:CuratedContent a few weeks ago. The special page essentially holds the same information but in a more refined format than what is accessible through the "Edit mobile main page" button on the main page edit dropdown on desktop. The information on Special:CuratedContent is used to populate the "wiki" tab on the Fandom App. To avoid confusion with the actual mobile main page, which is populated automatically based on popular pages and categories, the link on the desktop main page will be removed in the coming weeks. Administrators can access Special:CuratedContent via Special:AdminDashboard.
That's it for the past weeks! 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, 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.
