WMF UX Improvement Effort

Phases

Search engine phase

Task	Title	Description	Next step	Progress	Bug	Priority	Difficulty
#5	#Google-styled search result page	Displaying the results in the sidebar is not good. We should display the results like google in a tab.	realisation	10%		Medium	20 hours
#0	#Search in text improvement	Better error message for search in page	realisation	??		Low	??
#9	#Search misses some articles	Some articles included in the Wikipedia Version 0.5 ZIM file I tested were not matched by searching and could only be viewed by clicking a link to them.	closed	100%		N/A	N/A
#10	#Unnecessary doubleclick by suggestions	If a match is chosen from the pop-up search suggestions, it should probably go ahead and execute that search rather than waiting for the user to hit enter.	realization	0%		Low	2 hours
#12	#Large search button should launch search in page	Currently executes search from search bar (see below)	proposal	0%	[1]	High	??
#x	Add small search button inside search field	Similar to Firefox, Explorer, Wikipedia, for searching entire ZIM file. This function is currently done by the large search button (see above)	proposal	0%	[2]	High	??

Integrated Downloader phase

Task	Title	Description	Next step	Progress	Bug	Priority	Difficulty
#4	#Download manager	For most of the user, this is too complicated to download separately the content. The download must be integrated in Kiwix itself	realization	20%

Last phase

Task	Title	Description	Next step	Progress	Bug	Priority	Difficulty
#1	#Bad MacOSX Quit menu item	MacOSX Quit menu item in File menu is odd to see	realization	0%	[3]
#2	#Dead "adding content" link in the help	"Adding Content" paragraph does not exist in the Help page in English	closed	100%	[4]		2 hours
#3	#Revamp the help page	The help page must be more complete, more sexy, with screenshots. It should also provide an easy way to download new content.	proposal	0%			30 hours
#6	#Localization improvement	Kiwix has too few locales and it is too complicated to update them.	realisation	30%
#7	#ESC to quit Fullscreen	This should be possible to press ESC to qui the fullscreen.	closed	100%
#8	#User unfriendly index dialogbox	Change the invitation to index message to "This file does not include a search index. Creating one may take several minutes. Do you want to index your ZIM file now?".	closed	100%
#11	#Desktop File browser integration	ZIM file mime-type should be recognized as "application/x-zim", icon should be the kiwix one and double click on them should start kiwix and open the file.	realization	50%			20 hours
#13	#Bad "transliteration" menuitem on OSX		realization	0%	[5]
#14	#Unusual keyboard shortcuts on OSX	In the Mac version, the Keyboard shortcuts are not typical for a Mac application (normally the Command key is used rather than Control). Regardless, they do not actually work using either keys.	realization	0%
#15	#History navigator	You can purge your history, but you can't view it. It would be nice to be able to browse through your history either from a menu or the Sidebar..	discussion	0%
#16	#Back button wrong behaviour	While it was indexing, I decided to try clicking some article links. This worked fine, although I was not able to return to the home page by using the back button. (Strangely this only happened the first time I left the home page. On subsequent attempts I was able to go back to the home page by clicking the back button.)	reprocase	0%
#16	#Preferences dialog box	It might be nice to have a preferences pane where you could set things like "Always show the tab bar", "Remember browsing history", etc.	realization	20%
#16	#Kiosk mode	It would also be cool to have a kiosk mode available in which the interface would be fullscreen unless a special keyboard command was issued.	discussion	0%
#16	#DNS prefetching	although this isn't a user interface issue, it seems that Kiwix makes DNS requests on all the external links included in each Wikipedia article it loads (without clicking on them). So if I pull up World War II, for example, Kiwix might make a couple hundred DNS requests. This isn't bad for someone living in the US, but if you are in a remote area and don't have unlimited data for free, it could be an unexpected surprise, since Kiwix is supposed to be an "offline" reader. Just thought I would pass it along.	closed	100%

Details

Search in text improvement

There is also a small bug: If the search term is not found, it returns an error saying "[JavaScript Application] The text you entered was not found." The "[JavaScript Application]" part should probably be removed or replaced. Ryan

Google-styled search result page

As previously discussed, Google-style search results would be a nice alternative to the current Sidebar implementation, especially if it could include a brief snippet from each article. Perhaps you could configure what type of search you prefer from a preferences menu. Ryan

Localization improvement

We will migration to translatewiki.net. We know how to make the migration, I still need to work on the migraation scripts, new templates and import scripts. Kelson 13:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Desktop File browser integration

Gnome done, OSX, KDE and Windows still to do. Kelson 14:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Large search button should launch search in page

It is not clear what the function of the large search button in the toolbar is. Usually that icon is associated with launching a "Search in page" feature. If someone assumes that that is its function, they will be confused when they click on it and nothing happens. Ideally the search box itself should have a small magnifying glass within the search box, like Firefox, Explorer, and Wikipedia, and the large search icon should launch the search in page dialog.

See also

• User_interface_feedback