Talk:Community Wishlist/W414

Clarifying this wish

I think the title of this wish is spot on (Make the Chart extension beginner-friendly) but there are a number of components to be explored.

Keep in mind I am not 100% familiar with the Chart extension as usage/documentation on enwiki is currently lacking.

I see the huge benefit in keeping chart data on Commons but it does come with complications. The suggestion to define local data is concerning to me.

I see a few cases:

• Editing an existing chart on Wikipedia.
  • I assume every chart has (or should have) a [data] link when reading the article that takes users to the Commons data page. Users can view the data and sources there. From there users should be able to use VisualEditor (VE), or Source if they prefer, to edit the page. T393637 is quoted in the wish. A link returning them to the Wikipedia page they were just on would be useful.
  • Users click [edit] using VE on the Wikipedia page. When they go to edit the chart, they will need to be prompted to visit (maybe in a new tab) the Commons data page.
  • Users click [edit] in Source mode. They will not see any data, just a chart tag, and get confused (or enlightened on how charts work). I don't know a solution to this, but hopefully most new users are using VE.
• Inserting a new chart on Wikipedia. I think a wizard would be useful, for VE and Source. The cross-wiki upload tool seamlessly allows Commons uploads.

The issue of providing a link in a Wikipedia article to the chart's data and sources is particularly important. Already I have seen a case where an svg graph from 2008 with all data sourced on the image description page was replaced with a chart and someone asked for the sources of the chart.

Side note: I presume the Charts extension is in some sort of alpha testing introduction phase? I visited the documentation example at de:Autobahn_(Deutschland)#Netzentwicklung, followed the Definition link which took me to the Commons page. On mobile I clicked the three dots and Edit full page threw error "Section editing not supported Section editing is not supported in this page or is disabled for this view." (I may look for or file a bug on Phabricator if I have time). There was no link to the source data, but when I found it the sources were bare urls clumped together at the bottom. I hope that each data point can have the source listed in a nice <ref>-style way. Commander Keane (talk) 07:45, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Scope

I have created a module that allows keeping datapoints on Wikipedia. It is c:Module:Graph:Chart, it is usable without copying it to any wiki. See the module page for more information on it. That then leaves the .chart page data. Any mentioning of datapoints having to be on Wikimedia Commons should be removed. Snævar (talk) 11:47, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

That is interesting Snævar. Was there a discussion about using data points within the article namespace on English Wikipedia? It screws over, by requiring duplication of the data, the other 300+ Wikipedias. And the favour will be returned.

Awesome for Wikiprojects though.

I would also guess that VE data editing will never be possible without json. Commander Keane (talk) 02:05, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

There was and is enough people from English Wikipedia agreeing on using data point within the article namespace. There are also some that have agreed to that outside English Wikipedia too. Femke, the creator of this wish is one of those. As someone that does translate from English Wikipedia, let me tell you that code like this is usually just copied over. There is very little skill involved. Usually, the argument among people wanting to have this data local is that is hard for newbies to create json files. At en:Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 68#h-Don’t know how to convert graph-20250617010700 there was a user with around 1100 edits that could not understand the instructions, and actually, if that message did not exist, the module I linked would not either.

Personally, I very much do not agree with .charts needing to be on the original wiki. I also think .tab files should just be local when the data is frequently updated. But, at the same time, I will not police how people use this. Snævar (talk) 13:29, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

@Femke

Thank you for your patience, while we identify whether there are blockers for the team to implement this. We will keep you updated about it. MikeZ-WMF (talk) 12:10, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Response to the wish

@Femke Thank you for submitting your wish! We are working with internal stakeholders to figure out next steps, such as feasibility and prioritization. We’ll keep you posted about it. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:44, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Also please note that this wish has been worked upon during our last Wishathon, and we made some progress towards its resolution. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:44, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Feedback request while we scope this

[Tagging supporters of this wish: @Femke @Neriah @ZandDev @Iniquity @Omnilaika02 @Shushugah @Yodaspirine @Girart de Roussillon @Ayack @EatingCarBatteries @Waldyrious @Hakimi97 @Lewisiscrazy @Jugondial @Escargot bleu @Kulawik.pl @Matěj Suchánek @Red Sneak ]

Hi folks,

Thank you for voting! As the wish is relatively general, we would like to ask you for some feedback to help scope milestones and priorities - please feel free to reply to all or a subset of these questions and number your responses, so we have the context and can organize ourselves better:

1.Which features are absolutely essential to solve the core problem?

2. What goals do you have when interacting with the extension?

3. What are the pain points or frustrations you face on this user journey?

4. What might be complexities with the wish that we are currently aware of? MikeZ-WMF (talk) 11:35, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

1. Ability to create and edit a chart directly from the visual editor on-wiki. I imagine an interface with 2 parts. One to fill the data table and one to set graph options. All edits on Commons should be invisible to the user.

2. Creating graphs.

3. Everything needs to be done on Commons.

4. It will require creation of a user interface. Escargot bleu (talk) 13:14, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

There's a major problem with charts right now: localization and data modification are edited in a single location .tab using code spanning several pages. This is confusing and frustrating, even for me, an experienced contributor with technical expertise.
The second most significant problem is that the participant has to go to the Commons. Iniquity (talk) 15:44, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

To add to the points from Escargot blue:

1. Ability to update the graph rapidly from VE and Source too

2. Creating graphs, while ensuring data integrity by being able to watchlist the underlying data is some form, which is in a human-readable form.

3. Commons is a hurdle, the json files are a hurdle, and the spread over informaion on three different pages is a hurdle.

4. The combination of tracking/watchlisting data, but using data across multilpe languages is a new challenge, perhaps outside of the scope of this wish. It's the reason that enwiki doesn't use wikidata much for instance. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:32, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping! I want to preface that I don't have any experience using the new Chart extension, and I'm more so looking at this from an outsider's POV.

1. If we want to make editing Graphs approachable to anyone, they need the equivalent of a Template's Visual Editor GUI. Keep the JSON editing for more advanced users and for those who copy + paste from other sources. The longer editing takes, the less users are willing to follow through with editing
2. The ability to quickly create, edit, and fix graphs
3. The requirement for it to be on Commons and via JSONs. It simply isn't practical for new users to have to go to another website and know basic JSON editing just to be able to add one data point to a chart. The data on Commons is spread across multiple pages, which is not approachable.
4. Mobile editors. They take up a considerable share of new users, and they should not be discriminated against.

EatingCarBatteries (talk) 06:31, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

To add onto this, there should be a way to convert old Charts into new ones. EatingCarBatteries (talk) 17:47, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

See c:User:Tomastvivlaren/graphDataImport and the links in the See also section there. This is also linked here. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:57, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

1. There is still some problems in terms of user experience of the Graph extension when editing the Wikipedia page visually. Currently, when any user clicks Insert (or + sign) > Chart, the interface only shows two text inputs with no other information: "Chart definition page" and "Chart tabular data source".

1. Minimally, the normal non-technical contributors should understand what "Chart definition page" and "Chart tabular data source" represent for, either some simple text explanation, or an interwiki link to a page such as mediawikiwiki:Extension:Chart for more information. If possible, the users should be able to lookup for the chart and there is a dropdown to suggest what respective definition page and tabular data source to be inserted.
2. Ideally and hypothetically, the users should be able to create graph directly on VisualEditor of the respective language edition of Wikipedia and save the graph on Commons Wikimedia from the Wikipedia itself. After that, there should be a mechanism to check whether the new data or chart that is going to be created has a duplicate at the Data namespaces on Commons Wikimedia, if there is any other duplicate chart then the user be prevented from creating the duplicate and motivate the user to use the existing chart instead. Finally when it is confirmed no duplication, then the user can finally export the data to Data namespace, and save their edits (through adding something like {{#chart:Example.Line.chart}} or {{#chart:Population through years.chart|data=Population of UK.tab}} on Wikipedia. However, I understand that this might technically expensive but at least the idea is here.

2. Creating charts that could be convertible across different language variants.

3. I could not find any guides on how to ensure the charts convertible across different language variants. For example, please have a look on ms:Pengguna:Hakimi97/Kotak_pasir#Charts_extension_testing. I want to be able to convert between ms and ms-arab for let say {{#chart:Swedish aid.chart}} and {{#chart:Swedish electricity production by type.chart}}. Although mediawikiwiki:Extension:Chart mentioned "Charts can only be embedded in the wiki's content language; so, for example, the "uselang" query string (e.g. ?uselang=es) will not impact the chart.", I hope for any other alternatives/ways for users to modify the lang attribute of the chart, so that the chart could also change its language variant accordingly (for example relying on the wiki's interface language instead since all language variants are readily available there, or maybe the chart extension could have something for user to define the content language explicitly with the example of {{#chart:Swedish aid.chart|lang="ms-arab"}}). Hakimi97 (talk) 05:59, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

1. I also think that the "add a chart" feature should be doable directly on-wiki. Our wikis contain data mainly in tabular format, so adding and displaying data in other (and better) ways should be easier for the user base.

2. Be easier to create graphs.

2. Edit JSON should be simpler, as hoped in c:Help:Tabular data with "a spreadsheet-like editor".

3. The actual "add a chart" UI feature (at least in Vector-2022 menu) requests the page name. So I think that it is assumed that the average user knows how to create them, and that they are splitted in two pages, are on Commons, ...

4. A new dedicated graphic UI may be necessary.

I agree with the proposals presented above, but I want to clarify that I believe that the data should remain centralized/shared on Commons and not, as Femke's openness on the point might suggest, distributed across various wikis. -- ZandDev (talk) 22:25, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

New designs available for this wish

[Tagging supporters of this wish: @Femke @Neriah @ZandDev @Iniquity @Jules* @Omnilaika02 @Shushugah @Yodaspirine @Girart de Roussillon @Ayack @EatingCarBatteries @Waldyrious @Hakimi97 @Lewisiscrazy @Jugondial @Escargot bleu @Kulawik.pl @Matěj Suchánek @Red Sneak @NightWolf1223 @Toadspike @ChaoticVermillion @Inter-rede @Jeroen N ]

Hi all, we wanted to share that on our new project page for this wish, we shared some initial designs about how a potential visual mode for Charts might look like. We are open for feedback: what do you think of our current designs? What is missing? What could be improved? What works, in your opinion? Let us know in this thread! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:28, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks, this looks very comprehensive. However, I think the main issue is still missing: there are no design mockups for how the data stored in the .tab file itself should be displayed. Iniquity (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

----

Hi ! Thanks for these first mockups, which I suppose is focusing only on the .chart part on Commons of this community wish, since the .tab view is not showed and the Commons .chart page headers are there (then no VE integration on WP yet).

• What I like is the Chart type selection coupled with the preview.
• What misses is the data transform function selection, for example if TabUtils is used to select a subset of the tabular data, the user may not understand why the whole dataset isn't there.
• What I'm worrying about is the languages variants, for example I made a chart of the world fastest elevators. If someone on EN or DE opens this wizard on a existing page, they may think "Let's translate this!", select their preferred language and unknowingly erase the FR version. A button that suggests to create a new variant of the current chart would avoid that kind of confusion.
• What puzzles me is the "Recently viewed datasets": how is it feeding, how many items will be there ?

Yodaspirine (talk) 14:26, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

The mockups look good, but I have some thoughts. The data selection (ireland_population.tab) shows a file extension that is unfamiliar to editors, so might create some friction. Should it be shown?

A typical user journey is:

- Find a dataset online that you want to include

- Try to insert graph onwiki

- Be redirected to Commons (?)

- Have nowhere to add the data in this mockup

Could a button be added to the page where they can add data? Even if at this phase of the wish, the addition of data is still only for highly experienced users, it would be good to give them a route to do this. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Screenshot of the upcoming visual mode of the Chart extension with JSON visible on the right

@Iniquity @Yodaspirine @Femke Thanks for this initial feedback. I've got some more info from our UX designer, who is working to integrate your feedback into the new designs. In particular she's sharing an additional screenshot to clarify how we're thinking about the relationship between .tab datasets and .chart creation within the MVP experience.

The idea is that users can search, select and preview existing tabular datasets directly within the chart workflow, rather than needing to immediately work in raw JSON. For now, the focus is primarily on improving the chart creation flow itself and making existing datasets easier to understand and work with. But some of your feedback, especially around dataset creation/upload flows, localisation/versioning concerns, and transformed datasets, is really useful context for future exploration beyond the initial scope.

Hope this helps, and as always we're glad to listen to your feedback. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 11 May 2026 (UTC)