Wikipedia:Interfaces/Internal interfaces

Internal interfaces - what do you use?

How do you have Wikipedia set up? (What scripts do you have installed, what do they do, what skin, do you use the edit tool bar, etc.).   The Transhumanist   00:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been urged on my talk page to expand this project, so we might be getting more people in here, therefore for each section each responder should set up a subsection so that it is easier to read each person's contribution.

AMK152's internal interface

• I don't have any scripts set up. I do not use the edit toolbar, I just type in wiki mark up manually. -AMK152 02:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The Rambling Man's internal interface

• Pretty much ditto for me. I'm using the standard monobook skin and do my markup manually. Budgiekiller 13:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Okay, so I use pop-ups but have (well-documented by me) problems with it under Safari. I have a number of links in Safari and IE6 to get me to WP:AIV for example. Budgiekiller 18:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The Transhumanist's internal interface

Skin: monobook. Nothing special.

Edit toolbar: I definitely use this. For some reason, when I started here I didn't even touch the thing for nine months. It just looked so cryptic, and it was hard to memorize the buttons. But eventually I discovered it can be a real timesaver. I started using it to do redirects, as clicking the #R is much easier than typing it all out. And it puts the edit cursor right there inside the brackets so all you have to do is type the page name. After that, I was convinced that the toolbar was useful, so I opened a sandbox and practiced with the other buttons for about a half hour. So now I know what's up there, and have several more of the buttons memorized. They keep adding new buttons to this, and one of my favorites is the table button. That makes creating matrices a breeze.

Scripts: when Interiot's went down, I used the script to make use of Interiot's 2 (on a previous account). I also had popups installed, though I never really understood it (I only used one feature of it, so I'll have to try it out again sometime soon). I copied a whole bunch of scripts to my monobook.js page at one time, but since few scripts are documented adequately, I never could figure out what any of them did! At this time, in order to make heads or tails of the scripts you pretty much have to know Javascript. Weird things happen for no apparent reason (hitting certain key combinations) when you don't know what you have loaded, so someone will need to organize the script department better before it will be very useful. I'll let you know if I discover anything.

Navigation aids: Wikipedia provides many ways to use links.

• I use my userpage header and menu as a navigation bar (tools are hard to make sense of on Wikipedia, for instance, so I created my own tool page).
• I've redesigned my workshop to double as a navigation console. There are 4 navigation headers at the top of the page to choose from (contents, editorial, communications, and administration). The default is contents.
• I've streamlined the linknames on my Firefox toolbar to make room to add more wikibuttons, and have 13 of them crammed up there, which take up about half of the toolbar.

(If anybody else is reading this, please create a subheading and tell us all about your internal interface).  The Transhumanist   17:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Update

I now have my navigation menu bars displayed on different pages (one on talk, one on my user page, one on my workshop page, etc.). For a description of the tools and scripts I use these days, see my tools page. There's a link to it at the top of this page. The Transhumanist 17:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

CBDunkerson's internal interface

I'm always changing things around... sometimes I use the classic skin and sometimes monobook. Use popups and 'godmode lite' extensively even as an admin. I like the 'deep history reversion' feature of god-mode lite for vandals that coordinate multiple accounts to vandalize the same page... can go back to the last clean version with one click. Also use automated warning template scripts. Popups are great for getting a preview of what the change to the page was, seeing all changes since my last edit, getting to the talk or history of a linked page with one click instead of two, et cetera. Easily the most useful scipt available and works on both classic and monobook. Don't use much local css, just to hide the '.spoiler' class so I don't see the 'spoiler start/end' section notices. When using classic skin I suppress the search box entirely because I've got the same functionality set up in Firefox's search option. Haven't looked into getting this to work in monobook yet. Like flexibility of the classic skin better overall, but often need to use monobook to see how things will look for the majority of users since it is the default. --CBD 14:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

What is "godmode lite", and please provide a link to the page it is available/described on.  The Transhumanist   23:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

See this site for info on the 'godmode lite' script and Wikiproject User Scripts for a list of that and other javascripts which can be used to add/change various custom features to the Wikipedia 'internal interface'. --CBD 11:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Interiot's internal interface

See Wikipedia:Interfaces/External interfaces#Interiot's external interface. Most of my tools are Firefox-based rather than being in monobook.css or monobook.js. The only thing my monobook.js does is include CSS that makes the left column totally disappear. The "go" textbox is replaced by my "w" keymark. I memorize most Special: locations, and go to them with "w". For the whatlinkshere/relatedchanges/etc, I memorize their keyboard accesskey (which still work because the left column is hidden, not deleted). And by some lucky mishap, the interwiki links appear just off the right side of the screen, so I just scroll to see them. This makes it a little less obvious that I use Wikipedia from work, and makes articles look a little cleaner. --Interiot 18:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ansell's internal interface

I use the Cologne Blue skin as I do not like the colour scheme that comes with Monobook, and well, I have kind of got used to it. Albeit there are random disadvantages, like the common assumption with "popups" and other JS helps that Monobook is the underlying skin. I guess I could go back to Monobook and just customise the CSS to my needs, but I am comfortable and productive still so it is not a driving force. Ansell 02:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough's internal interface

I use monobook, with extensive Javascript addins, both my own and borrowed from others - mainly to do simple search and replace. I use popups which I find good for antivandal work, but sometimes gets in the way. I have my raw sig set to include the date so that I save a keystroke when signing my posts. I use WerdnaBot's good offices to archive my talk page, and I have a box of "admin links" on my user page (can't remember who I copied that from).Rich Farmbrough, 11:08 7 November 2006 (GMT).

Oh yes I also have User:Dragons flight/Category tracker/Summary on my talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52 7 November 2006 (GMT).

I've merged the box of admin links above with the one on my old userpage, and have made the new one available at the top of my workshop page, which is accessible from my userpage menu.  The Transhumanist   00:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

For those interested in that shorter sig, it's actually pretty clever. It goes like this: "{{subst:CURRENTTIME}} [[{{subst:CURRENTDAY}} {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}]] [[{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}]] (GMT)". It has to be added into your signature preference, and that has to be raw, or else things get messed up; obviously you'll need to prepend to those templates whatever your regular signature is, like for me, I would append to the templates "--[[User talk:Gwern |Gwern]] [[Special:Contributions/Gwern | (contribs)]]" I've added it into my signature; should be fun! --Gwern (contribs) 19:16 15 November 2006 (GMT)

Mac Davis's internal interface

I've recently switched from Cologne back to monobook. I like Colonge better, but monobook is more the standard. I don't have anything at all. No popups, no javascript. Manual editing. I never use the javascript editing toolbar either. Just text. X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 17:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Cynical's internal interface

I use monobook, with assorted javascript addins which have been acquired from other people (my knowledge of javascript consists of document.write and little else). The most important of these is popups, which is an absolute gem. In fact, I usually find myself RC patrolling manually (rather than using the snazzy 'alternative interfaces', some of which I have the javascript for set up) just because Popups is so effective at diff viewing, reverting etc. I never use the editing toolbar - I know the appropriate wikitext for everything I want to do, and having to scroll up the page to click a button (which sometimes puts the markup in the wrong place) is distracting. Cynical 19:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Willtron's internal interface

Just the standard monobook skin and also I write wiki mark up manually. --Willtron (?) 21:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

LaraLove's internal interface

I use MonoBook. I've looked at each of the others and I just don't like the layout. I've tried downloading a couple scripts, but I think I'm going to have to wait until I get my high gain antenna before I'll really be able to get anything like that working. I would like to have popups or something similar to aide in vandal fighting. There are some others that I've had my eye on. I don't often use the tool bar. Only for strike-throughs, for the most part. Although, I frequently use the markup/character box. LaraLove^T/_C 06:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

SGBailey's internal interface

I use the classic skin (on XP with MSIE7). I just type stuff, if needed cutting and pasting from elsewhere. I don't even know what the edit toolbar is - unless it is the list of wacky characters below the "save page" button. I also have section edit turned off since the little "edit" links scattered around annoy me. No scripts, no bots, no css, no anything. If I need to get fancier, I copy text into an external editor, process there and copy & paste back. (dash dash space tilde tilde tilde tilde) -- SGBailey 11:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

D.M.N.'s internal interface

I use monobook. I have a few scripts, namely the Automated Peer Review script and the Automated Person Data script. Cheers, Davnel03^{Sign It, Junior!} 22:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Ravichandar's Internal Interface

Hi everybody! I don't change my skin often. In fact, I don't remembered having changed my skin at all. I always use the default skin 'Monobook'. During my early days in Wikipedia, I used to use the toolbar extensively. However, I don't use it as much nowadays one reason being that I am more fluent in Wiki language now than I use to be in my early days. But the prime reason is that use of the toolbar necessiates a very high number of mouse clicks which I normally tend to avoid. Until recently, I used the toolbar only when I needed to affix my signature but nowadays, I even started typing the four tildes myself.

I have changed my signature once, and that was quite recently. I don't modify my other settings. When I need to tag articles or users, I generally pick these tags from articles having them or a Wikipedia policy page itself. However, nowadays, I've memorized most of the tags I frequently use that I need not even search Wikipedia for articles in which they are used.As of now, I dont use any bots though I am planning to develop a bot in the future.-Ravichandar 08:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Vox Rationis's internal interfaces

My internal interfaces can change on a day to day basis. In my monobook.js, One item has stayed since the beginning. It is a basic little script that creates a "View Source" tab on every page, similar to how Fully Protected pages work. This prevents me from messing things up, when I simply want copy a template, or some markup code. At one point, I used a rollback script called "godmode-light.js". I later removed it because it was buggy, and slow. After removing it, I installed TWINKLE, and have found that quite useful for reversions, templating, CSD, user warnings, and various other tasks. I have also recently added FRIENDLY, a script very similar to TWINKLE, which allows me to welcome new users, by subst'ing a template right onto their page (I prefer using {{welcomeh}} for this). I have used navigational popups twice so far. Once, I used them in Recent Changes patrol, and found them fairly useful, but promptly removed them, because they were very annoying when you didn't want them. Recently, I have found that they are useful for welcoming new users, as they can show the users contribs (since I am not about to say "welcome" to an obvious vandal, and would warn them instead).--Vox Rationis (Talk | contribs) 16:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

See also

• Wikipedia:Interfaces/External interfaces