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VisualEditor: Provide an omnibar for quick keyboard access to tools
Closed, ResolvedPublicFeature

Description

From MediaWiki.org:

I would like to have an omnibar in VE. This is a single text field where
a user can search for things they want to do, instead of clicking a
button you can invoke omnibar with a keyboard shortcut and then search
for the task you want to do. This would be helpful to easier access those
buttons which don't have shortcuts now. Like managing category, inserting
reference, changing to source editor etc.

Seems like it could be a lot of work to implement – for example, internationalisation of such controls might be hard – but it might be particularly useful for power users (or for controls that don't have a keyboard shortcut, as the proposer notes).


Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Low.Nov 22 2014, 3:18 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz64905.
Aklapper changed the subtype of this task from "Task" to "Feature Request".Feb 4 2022, 11:13 AM
Aklapper removed subscribers: rmoen, TrevorParscal.

Adding for tech news, suggested description: "VisualEditor now includes a toolbar search popup that can be triggered by typing \ or pressing ctrl/cmd + shift + p, which will let you quickly access most tools available inside the editor."

Change 921677 had a related patch set uploaded (by DLynch; author: DLynch):

[VisualEditor/VisualEditor@master] Add fuzzy bar to the help dialog

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/921677

Change 921682 had a related patch set uploaded (by DLynch; author: DLynch):

[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Register a HelpCompletionAction group alias for cite

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/921682

Change 921683 had a related patch set uploaded (by DLynch; author: DLynch):

[VisualEditor/VisualEditor@master] Clean up the cite group alias since it's moving to the extension

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/921683

Change 921677 merged by jenkins-bot:

[VisualEditor/VisualEditor@master] Add fuzzy bar to the help dialog

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/921677

Change 921683 merged by jenkins-bot:

[VisualEditor/VisualEditor@master] HelpCompletionAction: rename and clean up commandGroups to toolGroups

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/921683

Change 922577 had a related patch set uploaded (by Esanders; author: Esanders):

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Update VE core submodule to master (12333c596)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/922577

Change 922577 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Update VE core submodule to master (12333c596)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/922577

Change 921682 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Register a HelpCompletionAction group alias for cite

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/921682

Quiddity subscribed.

Thanks for the draft wording for Tech News!
Is there a wiki-page the entry could link to, showing an image or text-description of the feature?

When this (cool) feature will be on wikis?

@Trizek-WMF It's already out, but your comment made me notice that it's broken this week, so https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor/+/930637 will fix that.

It would be best if the image was part of the official documentation, and could be linked to as part of the text within Tech News, rather than just a footnote. Perhaps someone from the Editing team could add it to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:VisualEditor/User_guide wherever is appropriate? I'm not sure how your (great!) multilingual screenshot system works, nor where within that page to locate a new section mentioning the feature, hence haven't attempted to add it myself. Thanks!

@Trizek-WMF It's already out, but your comment made me notice that it's broken this week, so https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor/+/930637 will fix that.

Now I get why I couldn't use it. :)

+1 to @Quiddity. Documentation is important, and much more efficient than a one-time announcement or serendipity.

When I'm in Visual Editor, and type a "\", I see this toolbar. However, the "\" is inserted into the text of the page being edited, as is illustrated at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Visual_editor_toolbar_search_feature.png Is that the expected behavior?

@John_Broughton yes, that’s expected. It should be removed if you chose something from the menu, and otherwise stick around (e.g. if you actually wanted to type a backslash). You can trigger it without entering a character by pressing {cmd/ctrl}-shift-p if you prefer to avoid that.

Ctrl+shift+p doesn't work for me (backslash does). This is on Ubuntu 22.04 and Firefox 114. What happens instead is that a private window is opened, which is the normal behaviour in Firefox.

Ctrl+shift+p doesn't work for me (backslash does). This is on Ubuntu 22.04 and Firefox 114. What happens instead is that a private window is opened, which is the normal behaviour in Firefox.

Filed as T341603