As Ed surfaced in chat, conversations [1] about what the most useful workflow [2] for previewing a reply composed in wikitext have been going on for some time.
The design, thus far [3], has the preview "replacing" a contributor's text input.
This task is about exploring what an approach might look like where a contributor is able to view their text input and a preview of how their text input will be rendered on the page at the same time.
Details
As a contributor, you can...
- Easily differentiate between the reply you are drafting in the reply text input area, the preview of said reply draft and the content on the rest of the talk page
- Know, at any given moment, how the reply you are drafting will look once it's posted to the talk page.
- Know whether the wikitext you wrote is rendering properly. Said another way: you can depend on the preview to identify when something is behaving in a way you didn't intend it to.
- e.g. a link is invalid, there is a line break in a place you didn't intend there to be one, etc. (see: Topic:Vcehezaiyl3znf0d).
- Know whether the wikitext you wrote is rendering properly. Said another way: you can depend on the preview to identify when something is behaving in a way you didn't intend it to.
- Know when the software has done something you did not expect.
- e.g. == Welcome == not saving to the page in a way you expect (see: T241388#5762825) or the content of a reply affecting other parts of the talk page (see: Topic:Vcwvt3bq03o5gv8h).
Platform: desktop
Open questions
A ranked list, where "1." is the most important question to be answered
- Where is the live preview shown in relationship to the text input area? Above it? Below it? Somewhere else?
- How should the live preview be styled?
- What should be shown within the preview window as the preview is being populated?
- When should the preview window become visible to the user?
- Should there be a "fallback" experience on slow connections? What should this experience look like?
- Should contributors be able to hide and/or disable live previews?
Community input
We are seeking community input on-wiki, here: Talk:Talk pages project/replying
Done
- One mockup showing two things: the reply you are composing in the reply text-input area and the preview of said reply
- T155732, Preview "oddity" w.r.t. sidebar, A Preview panel that doesn't obscure the wikitext edit box (Was: No feature parity)
- Does the preview "overtake" the text input area? Is the preview presented in a way such that the content a contributor has composed and the preview of said text are viewable simultaneously?
- Zeplin + T235592