WMF UX Improvement Effort

Phases

Search engine phase (3/8/11 - 3/29/11)

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.	closed	100%		Medium	20 hours
#0	#Search in text improvement	Better error message for search in page, possibly switching from dialog box to toolbar	closed	100%		Low	20 hours
#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.	closed	100%		Low	2 hours
#12	#Large search button should launch search in page	Currently executes search from search bar (see below)	closed	100%	[1]	High	1 hour
#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)	closed	100%	[2]	High	1 hour
#x	Allow multzim search and make it configurable		concept	0%		Low	15 hours

Integrated Downloader phase (4/5/11 - 4/26/11 Proposed)

Task	Title	Description	Next step	Progress	Bug	Priority	Difficulty
#40	#Download Platform	Finish the download platform using mirrorbrain and provide a working metalink solution.	realization	0%			10 hours
#41	#New library manager	The library manager is the intern component/piece of code which provides all the necessary API to deal with content. This will be used by kiwix, kiwix-serve and kiwix-library. Should be in c++, using a small/fast/portable XML parser. For kiwix an XPCOM component should be done.	concept	0%			20 hours
#42	#kiwix-library	Kiwix library in a new console tool to setup the library.xml file which lists content files available for download. More infos...	realization	0%			20 hours
#43	#User Interface	Introducing a user interface listing content available offline and online (to download). This user provides for each content an overview and gives the possibility to download/load/delete the content.	concept	0%			20 hours
#44	#Downloader core	The downloader core is the piece of code dealing with the aria2c binary. Responsible for downloading/sharing the content.	realization	0%			20 hours

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	closed	100%	[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%			20 hours
#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		closed	100%	[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%			2 hours
#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%			really depends what we want here. A few hours to get a simple list of pages but a lot of work if you want a mgmt tool.
#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%			1 hour
#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%			depends what we want inside the preference dialog
#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%		low	5 hours (must also be more detailed)
#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.

Preferences dialog box

Some settings ideas

• Font selection and size

IMO this is the job of the ZIM publisher to provide such feature: he is responsible that the content is well displayed. This should/could be done using javascript/css/webfont/cookies pretty easily. I guess around 10 hours of work to introduce that option in my ZIM build process. The result would be a font selector on every page (for example on the top left corner) Kelson 12:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

• Dont track history
• Online/Offline mode if external links are present. Would make links disappear if your in offline mode
• Default location for zim files

See also

• User_interface_feedback
• /Testers