Appropedia:Devlog

Appropedia's development log of notable changes (latest on top):

• Fix backend issues with the MediaWiki job queue and Elasticsearch
• Improve mw:Skin:Poncho so that it requires sends much less CSS and JavaScript to users
• Deprecate and disable mw:Extension:CategoryTests
• Improve Extension:Appropedia so that it categorizes automatically pages with various errors, see Category:Tracking categories
• Add "title-tag" to Template:Page data to control the title meta tags and set it for all pages with titles too long
• Simplify and improve CSS and wikitext of all databoxes
• Improve mw:Skin:Poncho to support the new media format, see mw:Manual:$wgParserEnableLegacyMediaDOM

• Add more visible button to email users, see User:Sophivorus
• Improve mw:Skin:Poncho to avoid internal API calls, see here
• Create Template:EXISTS to avoid thousands of spurious links in Special:WantedPages and others
• Add icons to databoxes and navigation menus, see for example Template:User data and Template:NREMT menu
• Create maintenance script to automatically delete broken redirects, see deleteBrokenRedirects.php
• Template:Excerpt, Template:Wikipedia excerpt and Template:Place now use Template:Card for a more unified UI/UX
• Generalize Appropedia:Devlog into Appropedia:Changelog and transclude it in Special:RecentChanges
• Improve mw:Extension:GoogleTranslate so that only full translations get saved, see Special:Contributions/Translations bot
• Fix search and other backend issues, see Appropedia:Village pump#Search non functional?

• Categorize user pages automatically based on email domain, see Module:Appropedia for the code and User:Long-Potato for an example
• Categorize translations in the same categories as parent page from Template:Automatic translation notice, so that they show in Special:Search, see for example Special:Search/inlanguage:de incategory:Water
• Develop Lua library for Appropedia, see https://github.com/Appropedia/extension
• Fix logspam issue with Extension:SemanticResultFormats
• Update to MediaWiki 1.39.6
• Start experimenting with Template:How to notice
• Write and run script to add Template:File data to all file pages
• Add subpages and prefixed pages to Template:Page data
• Organize and improve many categories and templates

• Fix internal PHP errors and warnings due to update to PHP 8.2
• Simplify and improve quiz score saving
• Highlight relevant video annotations as the video progresses, see Template:Video
• Add support for annotations for local videos and videos hosted at Commons, see Template:Video

• Speed up scripts/generateOpenKnowHowManifest.php
• Develop and deploy mw:Extension:CloudflarePurge to replace slow mw:Extension:Cloudflare
• Disable mw:MiniEdit for anonymous users
• Improve mw:Extension:TalkBelow
• Finally disconnect deprecated Google Universal Analytics
• Categorize content pages based on Template:Page data keywords
• Update to PHP 8.1

• Enable mw:Extension:Cloudflare to purge the Cloudflare cache when a page is changed
• Fix https://dev.appropedia.org and start testing Appropedia as a Progressive Web Application
• Improve accessibility standards
• Fix Twitter cards, sort of
• Replace mw:Extension:Metadata for mw:Extension:Semantic Meta Tags
• Improve mw:Extension:InterwikiExtracts to be able to hit Appropedia's API and get plain text descriptions of pages
• Start Appropedia:Performance
• Create mw:Extension:GoogleTagManager with code from Extension:Appropedia
• Finally fix mw:Extension:DiscussionTools, see mw:Topic:X9zviki367qeczo5 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T346735
• Improve performance by showing a thumbnail rather than an iframe for YouTube videos, see Template:Video
• Improve performance by lazy-loading image thumbnails, except the first of each page
• Improve mw:Extension:GoogleTranslate and mw:Extension:HTMLPurifier
• Add <meta> tags from Template:Page data
• Add experimental Like button
• Improve spam protection via Cloudflare
• Create mw:Extension:ReadAloud with functionality previously on Skin:Poncho
• Create mw:Extension:GoogleTranslate with functionality previously on Skin:Poncho

• Improve event tracking via Google Tag Manager
• Document mw:Extension:TalkBelow and improve it so that it's now possible to reply from the content pages
• Deprecate Template:Skill data and Template:Biographical data
• Improve Extension:TalkBelow so that new topics can be created from the content pages
• Add links to frequent API queries and documentation to Template:Page data and Template:File data

• Improve automatic translations so that old translations are not replaced by new ones unless the new ones are more complete
• Create Extension:TalkBelow to show the talk pages below the content
• Simplify Template:Header
• Create Appropedia:Initiatives
• Improve PDF generation from Template:Menu
• Create EDDIY
• Improve Appropedia logos, icons, favicons, etc.
• Improve icons in mw:Skin:Poncho
• Improve support for project branding, see Fashion Revolution and SELF

• Set up Cloudflare for anonymous visits
• Fix responsive Poncho and enable on mobile devices, so that the interface and cache is the same
• Improve Poncho so that the HTML of anons is always the same and can be cached
• Fix and improve Cloudflare cache
• Add icons to sidebar
• Improve Template:Notice so that only the title is shown in mobile devices, and the rest when the user clicks "more"
• Mark many pages as topics with Template:Topic notice and add "Topics" as a page type filter, see Special:Search
• Deprecate Template:References in favor of plain <references /> tag due to better compatibility with visual editor
• Simplify sidebar and move link to Appropedia:Admin panel to user menu (only for sysops)
• Refine main page
• Wikitext standardization is now done by User:StandardWikitext bot and User:Appropedia bot rather than by the account of the user doing the edit
• Fix file pages created with the visual editor
• Improve mw:Skin:Poncho so that thumbs in wikitables look better, see Uniplanar External Fixation/Materials and Equipment
• Empty Special:DeadendPages
• Extension:Appropedia now adds Template:Page data and moves categories to the bottom automatically
• Merge and rename "Interwiki links" section to "External links"
• Start categorizing automatic translations
• Internationalize search filters, see Special:Search
• Rewrite guidelines on use of AI
• Empty Category:Pages with no parent by replacing / with \ and update Appropedia:Page naming accordingly

• Install Google Tag Manager
• Rewrite and repurpose mw:Extension:Metadata to replace the mw:Extension:SemanticRESTAPI and some of SMW itself
• Create Template:Topic notice and add it to relevant pages in Appropedia:Top
• Deprecate "type" parameter in Template:Page data
• Install Extension:MediaSearch for advanced media search, see Special:MediaSearch
• Create signup form for the newsletter and add link to the home page
• Improve WikiEdit tool with a checkbox to mark edits as minor and a field to input an edit summary
• Improve read aloud feature to highlight what's being read and to allow jumping anywhere with a click
• Add rule to .htaccess to fix accidental requests to /wiki, see for example https://www.appropedia.org/wiki/Water
• Disable mw:Extension:PageForms
• Fix backend issue that delayed edit requests
• Fix errors in Extension:Antispam and Extension:DiscussionTools
• Fix https://dev.appropedia.org/
• Add support for up to 50 items to Template:Bill of materials
• Refine spam protection to improve performance
• Fix email sending
• More improvements to WikiEdit, now it can edit many other elements besides paragraphs
• Improve new edit feature for paragraphs (and now also list items), see MediaWiki:Gadget-WikiEdit.js
• Enable mw:Extension:Gadgets

• Add new edit feature, see little [edit] button when hovering over paragraphs
• Add "Skills" to search filters, see Special:Search
• Create Category:Pages with no parent
• Update MediaWiki from 1.39.1 to 1.39.3, see Special:Version
• Migrate stuff in the MediaWiki namespace to Extension:Appropedia, see remaining stuff
• Delete unused Modules, see remaining modules
• Add messages of Extension:Appropedia to translatewiki.net, see translation project
• Fix and improve mw:Extension:StandardWikitext
• Document and simplify data structure, see Property:Type
• Add "Papers", "Books" and "Literature reviews" to search filters, and remove Location filter, see Special:Search
• Request that Extension:Appropedia gets added to translatewiki.net, see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T334684
• Add custom interface messages to Extension:Appropedia

• Improve Appropedia:Admin panel
• Deploy Extension:Appropedia
• Fix and improve Template:Set reminder
• Create Extension:Appropedia to clump together all PHP, JavaScript and CSS Appropedia-specific
• Fix and improve Appropedia:New page on mobile
• Fix mw:Extension:DiscussionTools, again
• Mark edits made by bots so they don't appear in recent changes
• Fix and improve automatic translation script, see MediaWiki:Translate.js
• Add coordinates parameter to Template:Place to reduce requests to https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org
• Fix and improve Template:Set reminder
• Develop and deploy mw:Extension:StandardWikitext
• Reduce and simplify semantic structure
• Create Template:Set reminder and improve and simplify the "persistent notice" system (now called "reminders")

• Create Template:Search results
• Create mw:Extension:SearchParserFunction
• General improvements to all databoxes
• Remove or limit styling parameters in most templates because they don't work well with dark-mode, mobile and other site-wide styling
• Improve styling and behavior of Template:Header
• Improve Template:Page data, see "creation", "last edit", "automatic translations" and "what links here" fields
• Improve MediaWiki:Translate.js
• Create persistent notices system, see Template:Persistent notice and links thereof
• Improve mainpage gallery
• Improve mw:Skin:Poncho with fixed table of contents and many details and improvements under-the-hood
• Improve automatic translation script
• Disable mw:Extension:Antispam for autoconfirmed users
• Search results now show the "display title" rather than the title, which is crucial for automatic translations, see this
• Deprecate "keywords" parameter in Template:File data
• Delete obsolete notices and improve existing ones
• Rename notices in Category:Notice templates so that all end in "notice"
• Again improve logo handling of mw:Skin:Poncho

• Update to SemanticMediaWiki 4.1 to get rid of deprecation errors
• Replace 99% of mainspace calls to parser functions for appropriate templates
• Fix mw:Extension:MyVariables, see https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/MyVariables/+/873502
• Improve logo handling of mw:Skin:Poncho
• Update mw:Extension:NumberFormat, see https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/NumberFormat/+/880467
• Simplify.htaccess
• Use mw:Extension:HitCounters to track impact instead of mw:Extension:Metadata
• Update hit_counters table with data from Google Analytics
• Rebuild semantic metadata to fix duplicated entities bug
• Fix, update and improve all widgets
• Enable GoogleTagManager
• Clean database by removing obsolete tables
• Fix DiscussionTools by reverting to 1.35 version
• Create https://dev.appropedia.org to debug DiscussionTools and for future development and testing
• Install mw:Extension:QRLite and create Template:QR code
• Install mw:Extension:QuickInstantCommons
• Debug and fix job queue

• Start experiment with cards in search results, see Special:Search/water
• Simplify and improve search logic in Special:Search
• Add Translations field to Template:Page data
• Change "published" for "years" in Template:Page data
• Patch Extension:MyVariables to fix Template:Gallery and others
• Update mw:Extension:RottenLinks, see Special:RottenLinks
• Rename database user from "appropedia_2020" to "appropedia"
• Replace all file copyright templates for "license" parameter in Template:File data
• Improve Template:Create to replace Widget:Create
• Fix issue with Elastic Search due to update to MediaWiki 1.39
• Change logo to fix display issue in mobile devices due to update to MediaWiki 1.39
• Convert all file pages to simpler standard format
• Update mw:Extension:SearchThumbs for compatibility with MediaWiki 1.39
• Update Appropedia to MediaWiki 1.39
• Update mw:Skin:Poncho for compatibility with MediaWiki 1.39
• Add Property:Hardware license and Property:Software license to Template:Device data
• Add "navigation-not-searchable" and "searchaux" classes to Template:Databox and other templates to improve search results, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch#Exclude_content_from_the_search_index
• Add snippet to LocalSettings.php that adds Template:Page data automatically to all content pages that don't have it
• Update documentation of book functionality, see Help:Books, Template:Menu and Category:Appropedia books
• Load MediaWiki:Mobile.css asynchronously to prevent flash of unstyled content
• Simplify Special:Search UI on mobile
• Merge Template:Book into Template:Menu
• Install mw:Extension:CodeEditor
• Rethink, redesign, simplify and improve Template:Book
• Simplify, debug and improve print mode and book printing
• Test Appropedia ZIM file for offline use with Kiwix, see https://github.com/openzim/mwoffliner/issues/1556
• Fix bug with Extension:InterwikiExtracts
• Improve feedback form
• Simplify and improve UI of Special:UploadWizard, Appropedia:New page and MediaWiki:Sidebar
• Track clicks to sidebar, search filters and other elements using new Google Analytics 4

• Track custom events in Google Analytics 4
• Set allowed values for Property:SDG and fix 100+ pages with typos in their SDGs
• Add location filter to user search
• Fix backend errors and warnings
• Distribute map locations in pages of no more than 50 locations to avoid excessive geocoding requests to Open Street Map
• Improve UX and UI based on Hotjar recordings
• Update, simplify and organize MediaWiki:Common.css
• Delete old temp files and backups to free disk space
• Create Template:Search and start to link it from databoxes
• Simplify sidebar by moving some links to footer
• mw:Extension:Page Forms deprecated and no longer used except for the #arraymap parser function, see Special:Forms
• Improve search filters, see Special:Search
• Track and fix misc fatal errors that were bringing down the server
• Install newrelic.com to monitor server performance

• Improve and simplify search interface
• Install New Relic to monitor server performance
• Add "info" parameter to Template:Databox and use it in existing databoxes
• Update and trim main.htaccess file
• Disable mw:Extension:RegexFunctions per no longer used
• Improve mw:Extension:InterwikiExtracts with an "api" parameter to specify api endpoints directly
• Update, fix and trim all interwiki links, see Special:Interwiki
• Improve Template:Wikipedia excerpt and Template:Wikipedia definition so that they get content from the appropriate language Wikipedia
• Fix all errors at Special:ProcessingErrorList and Category:Pages with math errors
• Increase PHP memory_limit to 256M to allow large file uploads
• Simplify, fix and improve collapse behavior in Template:Menu, Template:Horizontal menu and Template:Databox
• Develop generateKiwixList.php for generating ZIM files of public Appropedia pages, see https://github.com/openzim/mwoffliner/issues/1556
• Merge Appropedia and GSTC logo at Global Surgical Training Challenge
• Develop Widget:Civics to embed maps in community action pages
• Show resource type in search results, see for example Special:Search/panel
• Replace page review script for comment script that runs in content pages after 30 seconds (see MediaWiki:Common.js) because 90%+ of page reviews were empty or useless, see for example Talk:Save the planet board game
• Limit custom error reporting to fatal errors, see /home/appropedia/logs/fatal_error_log
• Develop first version of custom error reporting, see /home/appropedia/logs/custom_error_log
• Create Category:Pages with math errors and fix math errors
• Remove edit section links from previous automatic translations using Appropedia:AutoWikiBrowser
• Improve MediaWiki:Translate.js so that it doesn't save edit section links and translations render ok in mobile
• Disable MediaWiki:Comment.js due to disuse
• Fix PHP errors due to recent update to PHP 7.4

• Appropedia:Dashboard now gathers all key links and data for admins
• Appropedia:UI now gathers all key interface messages and tips
• Wikivideos are now available
• Template:CERN-OHL-S|CERN-OHL-S-2.0 is now the default hardware license
• New Template:Tabs for creating up to 9 tabs
• Template:Page data now detects and reports page issues automatically
• New Template:List for generating dynamic lists of pages
• mw:Extension:ExternalData is now enabled, allowing us to query and reuse data from external sites, like Template:Databox/greenweb
• New Template:News for creating news as semantic objects that can be listed anywhere using Template:Newslist
• mw:Skin:Poncho now features a persistent sidebar (menu icon on the top left), a dark mode and a read mode (eye icon on the top right)