Talk:Community Wishlist/W299

Thank You

Hello Keith D, thank you for sharing a problem with the Community Wishlist. We will get back to you with further questions if need be. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Better diff parser

There is also the problem that the parser sometimes "gets lost". A small change at the start of a block is sometimes displayed as the whole block being removed and then added back. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:14, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Support this wish – it would be useful if you and/or Keith D could take a screenshot the next time either of that happens and add it to the wish description. This would make it much clearer and easier and quicker to understand. It's a big problem that occurs often and makes the diffs longer than they need to be, draining a lot of time. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:51, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Focus area & issue with wish

I think this belongs into FA1 Task prioritization. It matches its description and it has similar wishes. Removing clutter from diffs and making them better (quicker, more clearly and less exhaustingly) checkable allows people to check more and more of what needs to be checked (within a given diff and in terms of many watchlist items).

However, I think the wish currently is overspecific on spaces. There's also other changes that cause the diff to screw up a bit – like iirc sometimes line breaks. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:27, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Inline diffs

@Keith D Have you tried inline diffs (example)? It should seemingly address the problem you describe. If not, could you provide some links to example diffs that are still difficult to read? Thanks :) MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I have been looking for examples of why I raised this but nothing obvious on my watchlist. I have not come across the inline diffs function before and that solves some of the problem raised, though it would be good if the colouring on its output could be customised. May be that is detailed somewhere?

Looking at it the problem remains when you have run a script on a page and get a diffs of what the script has done, you then do not get an option of switching to the inline diff. For example if you run ReFill2 or the script to correct dashes when you get to the diffs you just get a normal diffs but with no option of getting to the inline version to spot the changes of spacing. Keith D (talk) 22:47, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

You get a similar problem when you have edited a page and go for the "Show Changes" button where you do not get an option to use the inline diffs. Keith D (talk) 22:56, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

it would be good if the colouring on its output could be customised – Providing a UI or something to customize the colors is not something we can provide (per mw:Just make it a user preference reasons), but as always you can tweak things as desired in your personal CSS. Your comment did alert me that the two-column diffs and inline diffs are now using slightly different colors! That is perhaps a bug that should be fixed.

the problem remains when you have run a script on a page and get a diffs of what the script has done … run ReFill2 or the script to correct dashes – Don't these scripts and tools show the diff in the on-wiki interface? If so, the inline diff option should be there for you to toggle on/off as desired at the top-right. If the diff is shown off-wiki, the maintainers of the tool will need to be contacted in order for the tool to support inline diffs. It's fine to create a wish for this but it would have to be a "Community Opportunity" since the Foundation does not maintain on-wiki scripts and external tools.

when you have edited a page and go for the "Show changes" button where you do not get an option to use the inline diffs – Now that's a great idea! Indeed, the "Show changes" feature does not offer inline diffs, and it should :)

Would you mind revising your wish to be about outstanding issues? Or better, break them out into different wishes? Community Tech has spent significant time on diffs over the past several years. Your wish as currently written is not actionable, I'm afraid, as we've done all we can do with respect to the diff algorithm. I've changed the wish to have the "Under review" status until we've ironed out what we're asking for.

Thanks and look forward to your reply, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 20:38, 23 October 2025 (UTC)