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Written by 0xDE on 2025-01-16 at 01:28

New Calculator template brings interactivity to Wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2025-01-15/Technology_report

The template basically allows the creation of small forms that allow readers to specify some numbers as input and use a formula to generate an output. It's even possible to simulate some simple algorithms step-by-step and expand the form after each step: see for instance an example of this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_algorithm#Procedure

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Descendants

Written by sojournTime@qoto.org on 2025-01-16 at 07:10

@11011110 This is so cool 😮 ! Thanks for posting!

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Written by Christian Lawson-Perfect on 2025-01-16 at 07:30

@11011110 wow, that's really pushing the template syntax to the limit of readability!

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Written by 0xDE on 2025-01-16 at 08:01

@christianp True. Very programmer-unfriendly.

For worse syntax see the coding for using CSS to turn calculator template results into a dynamic geometry figure (a triangle with specified edge lengths) in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron%27s_formula (code visible at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heron%27s_formula&action=edit&section=1, also probably with not-very-accessible color differences in the rendered figure).

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Written by Christian Lawson-Perfect on 2025-01-16 at 08:04

@11011110 yeesh! Now there's a hack!

Are SVGs forbidden on security grounds?

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Written by 0xDE on 2025-01-16 at 08:33

@christianp Static SVG is fine but is converted to bitmap on the server side before being shown to readers. That's how I upload most of the mathematical illustrations I have made for Wikipedia. But I don't know of any way to present SVG directly to Wikipedia readers in a way that would allow it to be dynamized.

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Written by Christian Lawson-Perfect on 2025-01-16 at 08:33

@11011110 yeah, that's what I thought. SVG really needs a more secure Core subset, like MathML has.

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Written by Peter Krautzberger on 2025-01-16 at 08:44

@11011110 @christianp looks sweet but the examples in the signpost article and elsewhere are pretty bad in terms of accessibility even from just a quick glance (e.g., focus lost, no update info, inaccessible output). I'm curious if editors will get help/guidance/review to avoid messing up accessibility all the time.

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Written by 0xDE on 2025-01-16 at 08:47

@pkra @christianp I think Wikipedia editors are generally receptive to codifying accessibility into their style guidelines and then enforcing those guidelines. But this feature is too new to have had much attention put into that side of it yet. I did notice there were already comments on the Signpost article pointing out accessibility issues, though, so I hope that attention comes soon.

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Written by Peter Krautzberger on 2025-01-16 at 10:52

@11011110 @christianp right, I saw the comment, too. Here's hoping someone will take a closer look (because I suspect it's a harder problem, outside of what editors can do - but then again I only took a quick look 🤞). Fixing accessibility issues after launch usually takes much (much) longer.

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Written by 0xDE on 2025-01-18 at 21:42

@pkra @christianp Re accessibility, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-dimensional_space where the calculator gadget has been used to make it possible to stop an animated image (something not easily available through Wikimedia itself), potentially resolving an accessibility issue where some readers find animated images too distracting.

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Written by Peter Krautzberger on 2025-01-20 at 09:21

@11011110 thanks for sharing. It's great to see that editors are making the best of this new tool. I just wished the developers would think more broadly about the issues editors cannot solve (e.g., honoring browser settings for prefers-reduced-motion). (But I admit I'm slightly biased from interactions with WMF developers years ago.)

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Written by 0xDE on 2025-01-20 at 17:49

@pkra My interactions with them over math formatting have not left me with the feeling that their priorities are in order. I imagine that people who work with them more closely on accessibility issues might get the same impression.

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Written by nicki xaphania mouse 🐁 on 2025-01-16 at 07:53

@11011110 That's pretty cool if implemented well and sparingly in articles, but they picked a really bad example to put at the top of the post without many asterisks 😕

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