WMDE Technical Wishes/Line Numbering

Line Numbering
Status	Deployed on all wikis with syntax highlighting; only for the template namespace
Focus area	Templates
Phabricator	T267911
Responsible	Technical Wishes Team

This page is for documenting the development progress, research, and discussions about the project "Line numbering for the wikitext editor". Comments and questions are welcome on the talk page!

Description

As of June 2018, Syntax highlighting uses color to make it easier to visually separate article text from the code for links, references and templates, when editing wikitext. Syntax highlighting mode can be turned on and off in the editing toolbar with the highlighter icon. The CodeMirror software behind it is also the basis for the highlighting of matching brackets.

CodeMirror also provides the simple ability to display line numbering. This brings two main benefits - especially helpful for templates, but also applicable to other types of pages:

• It makes it easier to refer to a line in discussions
• It shows where line breaks are at a glance

The Technical Wishes team has therefore enabled line numbering when syntax highlighting (CodeMirror) is turned on.

Implementation

If syntax highlighting is enabled in the editor, a gray bar with line numbering is displayed on the left edge of the editor. If syntax highlighting is disabled, then line numbering is also disabled.

• Line numbers in 2010 wikitext editor and in the New Wikitext Mode
• 
  2010 wikitext editor
• 
  New wikitext mode (beta feature)

Status and roadmap

• YApril 13-15, 2021: deployment
  • on all wikis which have syntax highlighting (CodeMirror extension). Right-to-left wikis currently aren't using CodeMirror.
  • only for the template namespace
• Ydeployment on all namespaces for these wikis:
  • September 29, 2021
    • German Wikipedia
    • Catalan Wikipedia
    • Wikitech
    • all group 0 wikis (including mediawiki.org and testwiki)
  • August 11, 2022: Twi Wikipedia
  • April 2024: Deployment to more wikis is in progress.