Last modified: 2014-08-22 00:54:36 UTC
This follows bug 9753. It's needed a preference which toggles off the toolbar with the templates, IPA charachters, etc. A hack with CSS can be done to visually hide it, but it's better to stop producing the HTML code (uncompressed it's about 100 Kb, in Wikipedia). Considering the discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Edittools , I think that a better option would be not just having enable/disable EditTools, but allowing the users to change its implementation (add more characters, remove categories, ...). If that's done, then enabling/disabling is trivial.
Note that on enwiki, [[MediaWiki:Edittools]] is used as a convenient place to dump anything you want under the edit box, not just massive globs of JS. We probably don't want stuff like "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it" vanished via user preference. Furthermore, since by default this message is blank, by default this preference would have no effect. And we all know how Brion hates preferences, anyway . . . A per-user-editable message would be something new, it would require a bit of extra coding work. It's doable, much like user JS/CSS, but there are cascading problems . . . presumably the content of the site message should just be ignored if the user has customized it, but what about if some site wants to add dynamic informative stuff below the edit box (like at the top of [[Special:Recentchanges]] on enwiki)? Personally, it seems best to me for enwiki et al. to just move this monstrous thing into [[MediaWiki:Common.js]]. Then a) it will be cached by the client, and b) it won't display in the first place for anyone not using JS. Anyone who dislikes it could add some lines to [[Special:Mypage/monobook.js]] or whatever. In the same vein, anyone who wants extra JS widgets could add them in their custom JS. So this looks like more of a content issue than a software issue. WONTFIX? (Sorry for the whack-a-mole, by the way. I didn't actually think of most of these considerations when you filed the original bug, particularly not how this should more properly be implemented, but not I think it's probably an inappropriate change altogether.)
Yes, moving all this to a .js is also was I thought to allow customization or disabling it. It can be Commons.js or another. So the solution would be to move the HTML content from [[MediaWiki:Edittools]] to [[MediaWiki:Common.js]] on each Wikimedia project (manually). Since all projects would need that change, maybe it makes sense to support this "editTools via JavaScript" in MediaWiki. Maybe, instead of including MediaWiki:Edittools in a <div>, a <script> could be included which reads the contents of MediaWiki:Edittools and writes them inside of the <div>. And it's needed also some examples of how can a user customize (extend or reduce) or disable the contents easily.
See also Bug 11130, "Preference to toggle edit tools".
*** Bug 13284 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Not sure if this is the reason for problems we are having in https://simple.wikipedia.org. Edittools is wanted, otherwise editing with a Scandinavian keyboard requires copy and paste for each [ or { character used, i.e., every template or link added. Edittools is listed in the user preferences, but doesn't work. (It's under Gadgets, Editing Gadgets.) Editing Help offers links, but not templates. What's available in commons.wikimedia.org would be great, "Old edittools" that work. Thanks.
(In reply to sminthopsis84 from comment #5) Replied on https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard?oldid=4870321#Edittools_not_working
