[01:57:43] Reminder to US folks, meeting in #wikimedia-US in 3 minutes [17:59:40] it's office hour time with the mobile team! [18:00:11] * yuvipanda looks around [18:00:15] we're still getting people trickling in - let's give them a minute to get settled [18:00:17] * awjr waves [18:00:59] it appears that santa is in our channel, so everyone be on their best behavior :) [18:01:49] * jorm is here. [18:02:12] jorm has always been here... [18:02:20] we are all kosh. [18:02:25] :D [18:02:32] b5 ftw [18:02:37] \o/ [18:02:44] yo! [18:02:49] i knew someone would get that reference. [18:02:51] * ragesoss asked Santa for a Wikinews app for uploading newsworthy videos straight from a phone. [18:03:03] hi aude! and ragesoss [18:03:11] * aude wants a wikidata app :P [18:03:24] * ragesoss wants a watchlist app. [18:03:33] you hear that, [santa]? [18:03:36] a lot of people want apps, eh? [18:03:37] we are working on watchlist stuff. [18:03:37] :) [18:03:51] <[santa]> hi [18:03:55] ragesoss: yuvipanda is working on an Android app to upload files to commons; at the India hackathon last month he and some nice folks put together a version that uploads video, transcoding to ogg transparently. You might like that or something similar. :) [18:04:06] ok, so quick round of introductions maybe, and a word about what we've been doing the past few months? [18:04:35] * brion waves [18:04:40] i'm maryana - i'm helping out with product management on the mobile team [18:04:47] * ragesoss wants an ARG where you get points by uploading useful photos. [18:04:54] I'm Max, resident troll [18:05:05] hello [18:05:07] Also do some backend work;) [18:05:13] i'm arthur, scrummaster and engineer for the mobile team (mostly back-end stuff) [18:05:18] i'm brion, all around crazy guy… currently filling in for some of the Wikipedia Zero work and doing apps and mobile web bits [18:05:28] I'm Michelle Grover, QA Automation [18:05:45] I'm Yuvi, and I do the apps stuff [18:06:04] I'm brandon. I'm an impediment to all things good and an endless disappointment. [18:06:11] jdlrobson is one of our frontend developers, but he just took a cross-ocean flight and is probably half dead [18:06:20] Maryana: you beat me to it [18:06:23] :) [18:06:25] i'm howie, playing the role of interim product owner, along with maryana [18:06:33] (that was pretty much what i was going to say) [18:06:42] nice :) [18:07:22] ok, so now maybe let's just touch briefly on what we've been doing - hands up if you've ever visited en.m.wikipedia.org or any of the other language wikipedias or sister projects on a mobile device [18:07:32] * Maryana raises hand [18:07:34] :) [18:07:45] never ever :D [18:08:25] * awjr raises hand [18:08:42] \o/ [18:08:47] o| [18:08:48] so, we've mostly been focused on building out the reading experience for the dot-m mobile gateway, as we like to call it [18:09:14] the place where most readers get directed by google if they look something up on a phone and tap on a link to wikipedia [18:09:27] Hi! [18:09:29] A question about Mobile Frontend: is the work on integration into MW core completely stopped? [18:09:47] Tpt_: it's delayed a bit but tendrils are getting inside :) [18:10:00] for instance we're partway through migrating things to use the core ResourceLoader system, which required some core changes [18:10:14] over time we'll probably merge the rest but it's not a priority as long as it doesn't interfere with functionality [18:10:36] what we do want is to make core at least more 'mobile-aware'. a beginning to that is that RL modules can be defined to target desktop, mobile, or both... [18:11:07] Tpt_: one thing i'd very much like to see is getting MW context-aware (that is, knowing when it's displaying desktop view vs mobile view vs print view vs ? view) - like brion said, this has been deprioritized, but im hoping to get back to working on that piece in my experimentation/free time [18:11:58] the current state is roughly that PHP-side code doesn't really know it's in mobile unless it pokes into MobileFrontend, but JavaScript-side code can either be written to work with both or to have separate front-end modules for each mode [18:12:12] yep, if you look at internet trends over the past few years, more and more people are moving to mobile devices as their primary source of online time. we want to be sure that we're able to deliver people the appropriate experience for their internet access point of choice [18:12:16] having that in MW would make integration with other MW extensions a lot easier, as it would provide a unified way for everyone to variably show desktop vs mobile vs ? content [18:13:00] brion awjr: Thanks. So, it would be possible in the futur to create an output for mobile and an output for desktop for special pages? [18:13:39] I believe it's the main place where extension will deal with mobile. [18:14:00] Tpt_: yes. as an example for now you can look in MobileFrontend where we replace Special:Watchlist with a mobile-centric version with a different UI arrangement [18:14:14] it should become saner in the future, right now we just replace the special page with another class if in mobile mode :) [18:14:41] indeed. watchlist is one of the features we've got in our experimental beta site [18:14:42] in an "ideal world" you'd do the same HTML output on both and just swap your CSS and JS, but that's not always possible [18:14:58] which you can opt into on the settings page of any mobile wikimedia project [18:15:21] beta is where we're currently playing around with a bunch of contributory features [18:15:44] I think mobile can learn a lot from desktop and vice versa [18:16:45] yep :) for example, we just worked on login and account creation on mobile [18:17:06] and we went off the design that the e3 team had used for a recent account creation redesign on desktop [18:17:40] note - it doesnt include all the functionality e3 has added to account creation/login, but same design [18:18:04] yes, good point [18:18:57] so, has anybody here opted into the beta and taken a look at some of these new goodies? :) we have login, editing, and watchlists in there... [18:19:15] Thanks for all these informations. :-) [18:19:17] About to get MW context aware, if I have well understand, we can imagine to have a method in OutputPage (or in WebRequest) to know if the output is mobile or not? [18:19:32] Tpt_: that's very likely yes [18:19:46] expect it in the future :) [18:20:10] Tpt_ - you're very welcome. you should hang out in our IRC channel - #wikimedia-mobile [18:20:19] (invitation extends to anyone, of course) [18:20:52] between maxsem and yuvipanda, i think we literally have someone there around the clock to answer questions :) [18:21:10] :D [18:21:21] we need an aussie though [18:21:39] then there will be 100% coverage;) [18:21:43] * yuvipanda notes that the world is supposed to end in 9 minutes for him. [18:21:52] hehe [18:21:56] * yuvipanda waves at ragesoss and aude [18:22:12] oh noes! [18:22:25] hehe [18:22:26] it sounds like some people were really interested in apps [18:22:26] MaxSem: let us know what's coming :D [18:22:32] so we can prepare [18:22:52] yuvipanda: does end of world happen incrementally? [18:22:53] do you want to talk about your work on commons and signpost apps, yuvi? :) [18:22:56] indeed! There's a commons app in the works, and it can already upload photos and audio [18:23:00] we should strive to make the mobile site so smooth that no app will be required [18:23:13] MaxSem: +1 :D [18:23:13] MaxSem: you'll have to go hack on webkit then :P [18:23:19] anyway, silly fights aside [18:23:21] well, it's not required even now;) [18:23:26] commons app is doing pretty well [18:23:26] what's the status of the wiktionary app? [18:23:27] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Yuvipanda [18:23:40] has a lot of pics and audio i uploaded when field testing it [18:23:45] aude: i'm not sure who's working on that [18:23:54] aude: Maryana nobody. [18:23:59] hrm [18:24:01] currently it is broken and nobody's looking into it. [18:24:39] we've to figure out a way around that, and also figure out a way to have 'community' supported apps (that are not fully wmf engineering backed) in the stores. [18:24:39] so, apps are tricky. because they require some extra steps for people to take to use them, you lose a lot of people in the downloading/opening phase [18:25:07] with mobile gateway, the audience is already there [18:25:12] yuvipanda: are the apps going to be iOS+android or just android right now? [18:25:28] legoktm: we're planning an iOS version as well for the commons uploader [18:25:30] legoktm: so I'm working on Android. We just put out a call for an iOS dev to the mobile team yesterday. [18:25:36] so, there will be an iOS version too [18:25:43] i'll likely be working on that along with whoever we hire :) [18:26:04] legoktm: there's going to be an internal smaller 'app team' forming come January. [18:26:04] awesome :D [18:26:13] http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=oqU0Wfw0&c=qSa9VfwQ [18:26:21] ^ come work for us! :) [18:26:37] * aude sad it's broken and appears that way to me [18:27:08] aude: it is, indeed. I suppose it is a 1 day effort to go get that back all fixed [18:27:17] sure [18:27:18] but I'd really like a long term solution. [18:27:30] * aude nods [18:27:37] it'd be nice if someone can pick that up though - code's on github, etc. [18:28:13] yuvipanda, first of all, it should stop screen-scraping [18:28:15] i'm a sucker, i might help with that -- aude drop me a reminder email next week or so [18:28:16] but then again, it'd be nice if we had world peace and aliens too [18:28:23] MaxSem: yes, that's the 'fix' [18:28:30] brion: ok [18:28:53] uh oh, our robotic overlord left the channel [18:28:59] MaxSem: IIRC we didn't have an API when the apps were first built. [18:29:03] and now that we have the awesome api... [18:29:52] brion: You threw out an RFC for native apps; what's the status on that? [18:30:21] Amgine: we're going native :) [18:30:27] Amgine: currently nobody seems to be voicing objection to the notion of native apps (other than questioning what we're doing on mobile at all ;) so we expect to move forward with that [18:30:33] android and iOS are our primary targets for that [18:30:36] makes sense to me [18:30:44] stuff like uploading, etc. [18:30:45] other platforms, to the degree that we support them, will probably keep getting the HTML app [18:30:47] Amgine: that mail thread sortof got OT. [18:31:00] In a hurry! [18:31:02] and if we have no app for a platform, we've still got th emobile site. :) [18:31:06] so we have good coverage [18:31:16] +1 [18:31:53] any other questions out there? [18:32:02] questions and/or features requests? [18:32:03] :) [18:32:25] Sane wiktionary output/api for the wikt app... [18:32:27] [18:32:34] hehe [18:32:38] Amgine: :P [18:32:58] amgine: are you a wiktionary editor? [18:33:17] would you prefer to be able to edit on mobile? :D [18:33:25] well wikidata could change wiktionary in the future :) [18:33:28] Mmm... [18:35:02] so if you look at non-wikimedia but similar-to-us stuff like wikihow, they've done a lot of work to make contributing possible on mobile [18:35:08] you can patrol recent changes on mobile [18:35:47] I had a questions for or our mobile editor users, do you find yourself using your phones or tablets more for editing? [18:35:47] mw 1.12 iirc. [18:37:06] for myself i rarely edit on a tablet since usually if i have a tablet i have a laptop nearby. ;) if i'm browsing on my phone it's because i'm out and about…. so it's all i have on hand [18:37:20] i've used my phone to edit a few times - it was pretty painful [18:37:30] but editing on an ipad in safari is actually pretty nice [18:37:30] still needs work yes :) [18:37:31] * aude can't imagine editing on a phone [18:37:40] yup same here i would just grab my computer [18:37:53] someday, like for wikivoyage, it would be great :) [18:38:07] add small snippets, take pictures, etc. [18:38:12] gps coordinates [18:38:17] but I wondered if there were people who would try to use their phone for editing… someone with infinite patience :D [18:38:27] * yuvipanda edited on the phone on monday [18:38:31] fixed something in an infobox [18:38:32] i do the occasional reply or copyedit, not much more presently [18:38:34] * aude has reverted vandalism on my phone [18:38:34] aude: you should opt into the new alpha - allows easy photo uploading [18:38:38] :) yay [18:38:43] it's challenging [18:38:44] ooof, infobox editing [18:39:01] jdlrobson: shall try [18:39:07] we're aiming to make that easier. jdlrobson built an editing interface that expands as you type [18:39:12] it's a lot easier [18:39:15] The biggest problem is the kbd interface. I've tried some small bt kbd, but they aren't really good. I'll be trying a normal-sized kbd this break, at which point I assume it won't be much different than using a laptop. [18:39:19] there should be something, if i spot vandalism, to report it [18:39:28] small typo fixes are what i would do from a phone. i haven't really given this much of a try yet, but when i find typos while on my phone it drives me crazy and it would be easy enough to do a quick fix [18:39:32] somebody on a computer can fix it [18:39:38] easier for them [18:39:41] aude, that's a good idea [18:39:50] "flag as vandalism" or something [18:39:57] yeah [18:40:06] normally i just open my phone's irc client and message someone to edit for me [18:40:13] heh [18:40:18] legoktm: smartphones for the win :D [18:40:21] haha - i've seen that happen on #wikipedia-en [18:40:26] flag as vandalised, or spelling, or ... [18:40:33] people come in desperately seeking a vandalism reverter to help them [18:40:37] 'flag as not awesome enough' [18:40:45] "needs improvement" :) [18:41:05] considering we all manage to type emails and text messages on phones, it should't be impossible to do a good editing interface. mainly the problem is with drilling down to the right part of a giant page so you're not stuck in a giant text box [18:41:12] There's a rather extensive set of templates used for article flagging on en.WP and others. [18:41:18] it's a delicate balance. we don't want to just encourage people slap templates on everything. we're kind of already suffering that on desktop wikipedia.. [18:41:47] amgine: unfortunately, they display poorly on mobile devices [18:41:52] too big and too long [18:42:13] they cover up the entire screen on a phone [18:42:21] It'd be easier to set up a single template with flags designed from the start to work with mobile. [18:43:02] i sense WikiProject Better Maintenance Templates brewing [18:43:28] that would be the best present from santa ever! [18:43:43] or smw meta data template... [18:43:57] !hss | Amgine [18:44:08] [18:44:36] * yuvipanda pokes Amgine with a pitchfork [18:44:39] it's interesting, because those cleanup templates are meant to be calls to action [18:44:55] but it's hard to do some of those activities - "add references," for example - on a phone [18:44:55] so, am I the only 'user' who's actually talking? [18:45:00] haha [18:45:17] i guess it's too early for most people [18:45:34] Amgine: it's also our first office hours, I think? [18:45:40] this is what we get for trying to accommodate other timezones besides north america :) [18:45:43] it's also in the "holiday zone" [18:45:52] Amgine: I'm still here :P [18:45:59] and tfinc left already. [18:46:47] Anyhoo. Legoktm should be gifted with the wiktionary app. [18:47:09] legoktm: up for fixing it? :P [18:47:17] no java! :D [18:47:17] >.> [18:47:20] build your own present [18:47:32] it *mostly* works... [18:47:56] [18:47:57] Well I don't know objective-c so sorry... [18:48:04] legoktm it's js [18:48:10] legoktm: is js + phonegap. [18:48:15] Oh [18:48:25] TAG! [18:48:40] Drat. [18:48:45] What's broken about it? [18:48:54] * legoktm is getting off topic a bit sorry [18:48:59] Yuvipanda? [18:49:00] heh, no worries [18:49:06] ah :D [18:49:16] legoktm: well, it's based on an older version of the wikipedia app [18:49:33] legoktm: and things changed, and it was not updated. [18:49:35] I don't see it in the iOS app store either... [18:49:40] legoktm: it's only on Android [18:49:44] So does it just need to be merged back? [18:49:51] vice versa. [18:49:56] legoktm: it needs a rebase [18:50:04] on top of the wikipediamobile code [18:50:28] Heh ok, I'll take a look later. [18:50:31] i'm probably going to do a big refactor of the wikipedia mobile phone gap app pulling in changes from the Firefox OS version as well [18:50:35] so this is gonna be fun ;) [18:50:47] legoktm: awesome! [18:51:21] Also legoktm: add #wikimedia-mobile to your favourites. [18:51:32] ^ +1 [18:52:09] there's also a mailing list: mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org [18:52:46] so many lists >.> [18:52:52] i know.. [18:53:21] :D [18:53:35] well, looks like things are pretty quiet in this channel this morning. anybody else have any questions before we wrap up? [18:54:09] going once... [18:54:18] going twice... [18:54:25] oh wait [18:54:28] last question [18:54:29] hehe [18:54:35] nice save [18:54:57] are there plans for echo to have mobile notifications? [18:55:06] ah, excellent question! [18:56:05] echo is still a pretty new feature. we're not sure how it's going to interact with mobile yet. but it's definitely something to think about. [18:56:17] we'll have to integrate echo with mobile [18:56:29] but that project is still pretty early in its development, having just launched a prototype on mw.org [18:56:57] ah ok [18:56:58] it will happen, it's just a matter of when and how [18:57:07] :) [18:57:31] thanks for bringing that up, legoktm :) [18:57:33] there are general plans to make it integrate with on-device notifications through the apps, we're just not that far yet [18:58:10] alrighty, i think that about does it for us [18:58:19] thanks for coming! :) [18:58:31] and again, feel free to hang out in #wikimedia-mobile [18:58:39] wheee [18:58:46] thanks for hosting Maryana [18:58:46] there are cookies! [18:58:48] bye! [18:58:54] virtual cookies, mmm [18:59:11] thanks mobile team :) [18:59:33] \o. [18:59:38] bye! [18:59:42] don't make me destroy you. [18:59:45] wait. wrong channel. [20:08:35] James_F|Away, hi, when you come back, may you, please, help me. Chip told me to talk to you on how to get access to #wikimedia-staff channel