Last modified: 2014-05-18 00:13:53 UTC
We use textarea which means that browsers don't suggest text from previous uses.
...or implement our own autocomplete?
(In reply to comment #1) > ...or implement our own autocomplete? Possibly. Given that we are intending to replace this wikitext field with a full VE micro-surface (with the limited scope that log entries allow), that might be a bit fiddly, though. There's also not currently a useful API to query "useful edit summaries" from. Marking as a longer-term consideration.
Browser's autosuggestion/complete is the most used function during editing Wikipedia, especially when I do similar edits. Every time I test the VE is miss this function because the field is a textarea instead of an input field. It's really annoying to type every time the summary instead of selecting out of previous summaries.
(In reply to comment #3) > Browser's autosuggestion/complete is the most used function during editing > Wikipedia, especially when I do similar edits. Every time I test the VE is > miss this function because the field is a textarea instead of an input field. > It's really annoying to type every time the summary instead of selecting out of > previous summaries. Sure, but this functionality isn't possible for proper editable surfaces with rich text, links and other HTML items that these fields will allow.
Rephrased bug summary. "textbox" doesn't exist. There is "input" and "textarea" both are "form fields".
(In reply to comment #1) > ...or implement our own autocomplete? It depends what the use-case is. Personally, I like the current multi-line input and my browser stopped remembering my inputs for <input>s long ago (perhaps when I switched from Firefox to Chrome). However, just brainstorming, to address Raimond's use-case in comment 3, it may be possible to query the most recent X edit summaries a user has used and implement a suggestion feature based on those. That might cover the repeated edits use-case.
(In reply to comment #6) > (In reply to comment #1) > > ...or implement our own autocomplete? > > However, just brainstorming, to address Raimond's use-case in comment 3, it > may > be possible to query the most recent X edit summaries a user has used and > implement a suggestion feature based on those. That might cover the repeated > edits use-case. That's pretty much what I meant. The autocomplete would populate from recent commit messages, or they would just be shown in a dropdown.
A suggested list populated with recent edit summaries will be really useful when VE is extended to talk namespace. Almost every time I close an RfD as something other than delete, I make an edit to the redirect's talk page with the summary "Noting old RFD" or "Note old RFD and tag for relevant WikiProjects" (depending whether they are already tagged or not).
(In reply to comment #8) > A suggested list populated with recent edit summaries will be really useful > when VE is extended to talk namespace. We're not planning to make VisualEditor work with talk pages, but instead this will be done by Flow (which will use VisualEditor for editing content). That said, we still think this would be valuable, and it's definitely in our plans.
The main threads in VE/F: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_05#Edit_summaries_have_no_.27memory.27 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_06#Predictive_texting_in_edit_summaries and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_06#Edit_summaries_-_menu_of_recently-used.3F and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_07#Speed.2C_Edit_Summary.2C_and_Limitations Closely related are: Bug 42139 ("There is no preview of edit summaries") - Wanted, so that we can test WP:shortcut links etc are correctly-targeted. Bug 50961 ("Provide simultaneous access to editor and edit summary") - So that we don't have to remember everything we did, after a multitask edit.
I think this should be low priority. Only power users need quick access to commonly used edit summaries, and these power users will by definition know OS-wide tools like autohotkey or ditto which can do the job much more comfortably.
