User talk:Cullen328/Smartphone editing

December 2015

All of my Wikipedia editing is done on a laptop or desktop PC. Touch screen keyboards and the copy/paste functions are difficult to use. Consensus seems to be that touch screens are not suited to any task that requires a lot of typing. This isn't just a problem for Wikipedia.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:06, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, ianmacm. I just copied and pasted your username in two seconds in order to ping you. How do you account for that, or for the hundreds of fully formatted references to reliable sources I have created using a smartphone, all requiring copying and pasting? It is not that hard at all on a modern smartphone. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

You must have more practice at it:) It depends to some extent on the size of the screen. Sometimes it requires a lot of scrolling as well as moving the cursors around individually. This is generally easier on a desktop or laptop PC. It all comes down to personal preference. I like to look at as much text as possible while editing Wikipedia and keep scrolling to a bare minimum.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:32, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Cullen (and hi to Debra and Dexter too!), I appreciate your motivation in writing this. We do indeed need to be welcoming to new editors and not picky about the devices they use. I can't really speak to the topic - my cellphone is not a smartphone, and indeed I have never figured out how to send a text message. But I've heard what ianmacm says - that copy-paste is very hard on a phone. Is this something that has changed in very recent phones, or is it possibly something that is easier in some mobile operating systems than others? Also, how does one handle alt chars on a mobile phone? My own editing tends to involve lots of non-English characters, and that's one of the reasons I don't use Vector, because I like having them sitting under the edit screen. (And they're clearly going to be an issue for non-Anglophone editing.) Are they available at all on mobile, either through the Wikipedia skin or through the phone itself? Yngvadottir (talk) 12:04, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello Yngvadottir. I do not find cutting and pasting to be especially difficult in recent years, but I have heard that from others. It seems to be easier on newer phones with updated Android OS and larger screens. Practice helps too, of course. As for non-English characters, the Android OS offers keyboards in dozens of different languages. So, if you are fluent in Portuguese, you can toggle on the Portuguese keyboard setting and have all those characters available. If I am writing an article about someone named Gonçalves, I will either copy and paste the name from the source, or go to our article Gonçalves and copy it from there. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:08, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

PamD's comments

Thanks for this, Cullen: there doesn't seem to be much discussion of smart phone editing except perhaps in totally technical circles.

I do a lot of editing on a not-very-smart Android phone (I suspect no teenager would dare be seen with it), a Samsung Galaxy Ace 4 (I think). It's convenient when my partner is using our shared laptop, or when I've woken earlier than I want to get up in the morning, or when travelling away from home.

I scan my watchlist, do some gnomish edits, check the Category:Stubs for anything interesting (articles needing a DEFAULTSORT, or which might need to be added to a dab page, or where the page history is worth checking, etc) to stub-sort and/or tweak. I also edit on a laptop at other times of day / when the laptop's available.

Things I find problematic on my phone include:

• Lack of any forum to discuss problems, ask for help, etc - Phabricator is not user-friendly (I wouldn't contemplate even trying it on my phone).
• Lack of access to article talk pages (other than by searching on "Talk:article name")
• Lack of easy access to user talk pages
• Impossibility of adding a new section to user talk page other than by editing the last existing section
• Lack of Twinkle (eg to be able to nominate a page for Speedy Deletion and notify the creating user automatically)
• Danger of "Thanking" accidentally due to enormous green button right beside the phone's "back" button, and where dropped phone is likely to be clutched, aggravated by lack of a "confirm" step
• Difficulty in putting the cursor before first character in a line (eg to add the bolding round the title words in lead) - I usually end up having to delete the first character, which I then have to remember to replace, just to get to the edit point I need.
• Information displayed in templates is in many cases hidden (including stub templates, and hatted messages on user talk pages) (So when stub-sorting the only way I can see that my edit has probably worked is when there is no mistyped stub template text displayed! Doesn't help if my typo turned it into another valid but wrong stub template)
• Categories are invisible in the article except when editing, and can't be used to search. (If we believe that categories are so unimportant that (our growing percentage of) readers via mobile don't need them, why do we bother with them at all?)
• Lack of link to AfD discussion from the displayed message (added later)
• ... and there are more.

I can copy-and-paste just enough to move {{stub}} from the wrong place to the right one before expanding it - something seems to have improved in the last few weeks so that this works better than before.

I detest the way that the mobile interace displays an algorithmically selected set of articles as "Read more", looking just like a section heading. If the system insists on displaying these, the heading should make it clear that they are not part of the carefully-worked-on article, and format them differently: Something like "Possibly also of interest", in a different font/colour.

In a world where younger people in particular live on their smartphones, we need to make the editing, and reading, experience on a smart phone as convenient and powerful as possible. It's the future. PamD 12:45, 12 December 2015 (UTC) one point added 13:27, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for such a detailed list, PamD. I encourage you to try the desktop site on your smartphone, and I think you will find that it works just fine and that most of not all the problems you mention will evaporate. Also, I think your current phone will work fine as well, but you might want to consider a slightly larger screen next time you upgrade. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:14, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I never use the mobile interface when reading or editing on my phone, but I use a 'phablet' with a large screen so the desktop interface displays OK. I can make brief edits just fine, but for more extensive edits I use a laptop. I find using citation templates awkward on my phone though it is possible, and cut and paste is fiddly. More problematic for me is referring to multiple sources on several tabs - I can hunt down sources just fine on my phone, but putting it all together into well-sourced prose is something I generally leave to when I'm on my laptop. Fences&Windows 13:08, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Google Books tool

You may already be aware of this, and it might or might not help, but there's a Wikipedia citation tool for Google Books. Graham87 15:17, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, Graham87. I am aware that tool exists but haven't tried it. I am "old school" and like to move slowly and deliberately. Strange as it may seem to some, I actually get pleasure from creating a perfectly formatted reference manually. I do use citation templates most of the time, though. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:20, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

There is also Citoid, which you can use with the gadget User:Salix alba/Citoid.js (appears in your sidebar). Nemo 08:10, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Are there relevant technical advances for keyboard entry?

This is a beautifully written essay that advances your point of view. Nonetheless, I do not envy that six-line window that shares half its space with a keyboard that provides no tactile feedback. I feel like this is an intensely researched area of technology, outside my field, but there are all kinds of seemingly obvious things I've never heard of:

• Tactile keyboard that involves changes in roughness/texture on the glass, that doesn't actually affect the display, so that you can touch-type on the same surface you read at the same time.

• Useful "smartwatch", by which I mean, something that works with your phone but instead of providing an extra miniscule display and a dumb looking plastic band, it has some kind of keyboard set up around the band that you can reliably touch type with using [mostly] the other hand (though it would require considerable practice!)

• Could there be some kind of gesture-based scheme that replaces typing with finger movements on the smooth display that do not require hitting specific buttons, or even (using a camera, though I find that creepy) reading them out of the air? It might be as simple as air typing some distance away from the phone, maybe not though.

• And then there's the Blackberry type keyboard, whatever happened with that.

I don't know if any of these things exist, or if other things exist, but if you want to promote smartphone based editing any new tech you can recommend may make all the difference. Wnt (talk) 15:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Wnt, and thank you for your comments. My phone has a tactile element which is a tiny vibration with each successful keystroke. An enlarged image of the character also flashes. I have no recent interest in input accessory hardware, though I tried a plug-in folding keyboard back in the Personal organizer days. As a construction contractor, I carry around hundreds of physical tools and love weight and bulk free virtual tools. My phone's standard keyboard works fine for me, though I try to tweak its settings. There are gesture based writing input systems available, such as Swype. I have tried them and prefer QWERTY. The problem with a hardware based keyboard like the Blackberry is that it is there all the time. My phone's software based keyboard is there when I need it, and disappears whenever I don't, doubling my effective screen size. With my keyboard off, I can see 14 lines of text in the edit window, about 73 characters per line, perfectly readable with my surgically and optically corrected 63 year old vision. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The Swype link is interesting, and mentions many competitors ... what's not clear from the article is if any of these writing systems are free of copyright issues. (Theoretically "methods of operation" aren't copyrightable but my guess is you'd have to be very rich to win with that argument in court) Who wants to learn a touch typing system that is slaved to one owner, and likely will disappear forever in a few years after some mergers or bankruptcies? In any case I can't ask you to add a section about one particular company's product; we should have an article on "gesture typing" or whatever you would call it, but I guess we don't. Wnt (talk) 15:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Put on your thinking cap

Dear Jim, Each time you use your SmartPhone and realize you are using a tip or trick jot it down and then post it in to the article. You may not realize that your workflow on the SmartPhone is quite novel. Switching to Desktop view was a big breakthrough for me but then the font got too small. I use a Blackberry Bold 9900 that has about a 2" screen horizontally! I discovered if I double tap on the touchscreen (yes, it has a touchscreen and a keyboard) that the font upsizes, and then the text right/left justifies to fill the width of the screen. Win/win. I find that carrying two pairs of reading glasses helps too; 1.75 for the newspaper and computer and 3.25 to zoom in on the puny Blackberry LCD. The Blackberry does not have the horsepower to run VisualEditor in Desktop view. I find the Mobile view to be buggy: Sometimes the edit window never opens; edits rarely save; notifications don't open; so on. The blackberry has a mini-trackball that makes highlighting text or micro-clicking on text or links text a whiz. I look forward to hearing your SmartPhone tips and tricks. I wish more Gadgets worked on the SmartPhone like wikEd and wikEdDiff. PS: You should really try the Citation Tool for Google Books. Check out this Category: Category:Wikipedians who use the Wikipedia Citation Tool for Google Books (click on it). Using the tool still gives you the flexibility to tweak the fields, and preview your dressed citation. See you at the Teahouse. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 13:49, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia Zero

Hi Cullen328. Have you heard of this program where Wikipedia negotiates free data use from mobile phone carriers while mobile phone users are accessing Wikipedia? For a while I burned up a lot of gigs accessing Wikipedia for editing. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:20, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Cullen328, here's another link: Wikipedia Zero. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 14:20, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

WP SmartPhone viewing graph

Hi, Cullen328. Here is a graph showing the steady rise in SmartPhone viewing of WP pages. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Checkingfax. I would like to know more about the methodology behind that chart. My hunch is that it is measuring page views on the mobile site versus page views on the desktop site. If I am correct, then mobile users like me who prefer the desktop site are not being measured. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:14, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Cullen328. I too am wondering about some of the figures that WMF makes public. The Washington Post had an article recently mentioning that WP had 100,000 active editors, and 60-minutes mentioned 75,000 active editors. Weird since I know English Wikipedia alone has over 125,000 active editors.

By the way, I noticed Jimbo Wales user number is 24, and that Dreamyshade (Britta) is 32. Mine is like 20,000,000.

I never use the mobile site by choice and have almost forgotten about it. Although, I did find a gadget in my preferences for allowing the use of a temporary mobile view that sites beside the desktop view so you can see how a page will render in both. It toggles on and off easily with a mouse click. Or maybe it was a user script. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 17:25, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

FYI - Tip of the day - Mobile view sidebar from the desktop

Greetings, Recently while working on TOTD updates, a February 17 new tip was added that I thought you might be interested in. The Mobile view currently only is available with Vector skin. There is a standing issue at WP:VPT and a test version of this Gadget until it's solved for the other skins. In this SP editing article I notice the screenshots are Vector so that must be the best one to use for mobile edits. Regards, — JoeHebda • (talk) 03:43, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!

I just stumbled upon your essay by peculiar accident: I seem to have tapped a link to it by mistake while scrolling through something unrelated.

I do most of my editing from my smartphone now, largely because I can lie on my back in bed (lazy bloke that I am), hold the smartphone up over my chest, and edit there … until the cat decides that she wants to take over my face or my chest. And also because while I'm waiting somewhere, like a doctor's office, or riding the trolley, I can edit there.

My smartphone is a Samsung Verizon Galaxy S6. In sufficiently quiet environments, such as my kitchen where I'm sitting right now, I do a lot of my input by voice (as I'm doing for most of this comment), using the Swype + Nuance keyboard setup, which is my preferred keyboard for manual input as well. Of course, there are speech recognition errors – "reccos" – which I correct by hand.

(I see Nuance advertising slogans like "Replace your keyboarding with voice dictation and eliminate all those fat-fingered errors!" Baloney; that is a load of basilisk manure. I am more than somewhat familiar with speech recognition, having been Senior Linguist at Dragon Systems all through the 90s, before it was bought by the company that is now Nuance. One of my biggest peeves with this interface, which is certainly one that would be very easy for Nuance to fix, is that it always recognizes "semicolon" AS A WORD, not as the punctuation mark!)

As a (retired) linguist [language scientist, not translator], I use a lot of foreign-language material. The Swype + Nuance keyboard supports many languages, a number of which I have downloaded to my smartphone, though I don't dictate in them: Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, Hebrew … I'm sure I'm forgetting some. I have also installed the Multiling O Keyboard setup, which supports not only many other languages, including Esperanto (which I have been using for pleasure and utility most of my life), but the International Phonetic Alphabet as well, which is really indispensable in my field.

One of the most useful features of the Swype keyboard, I find, is the navigation keyboard. Using this, I can maneuver the insertion cursor exactly where I want it on the screen without having to deal with the conflict between small screen and big fingers. Another trick that works for me is touching the screen with my fingernail rather than my fingertip.

Anyway, I am very glad you're doing this. I have added myself to the category of Wikipedians who edit on smartphones, and I'm thinking it would be nice to make a user tag as well... And to make some comments on the talk pages or essays that you cite whose logic is "I don't think it's easy, so it's pointless and impractical and will never catch on. And it may doom Wikipedia as well."

--Thnidu (talk) 06:22, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your interesting observations and kind words, Thnidu. I appreciate it. I am still plugging along with my one finger typing. Lots of people think I am kooky, but I just point out that billions of people write extensively using smartphones on Facebook, Twitter and similar platforms every single day. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:14, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm editing Wikipedia:Editing on mobile devices and its talk page right now. --Thnidu (talk) 07:19, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

contributions via app?

Hello, given your interest in mobile, did you check this discussion out? Thanks!--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Kudos

Just a small, minimum-bandwidth-taking post to congratulate you on a very informative and extremely helpful essay. Keep up the good work, sir!.. -The Gnome (talk) 11:03, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Tablet editing

Hey Cullen: great advice here! I think we discussed this in San Diego in October. Some applies to tablets, some does not. For most of my Wikipedia editing I'm using a 8.4-inch (210 mm) Samsung tablet, a little bigger than an iPad Mini, but the same weight. For extensive keyboarding, I switch to a desktop, but the virtual keyboard is surprisingly usable, especially with the inclusion of a 'delete' and CTRL key (for CTRL+C/CTRL+V capability), neither of which is present on the standard Android system AFAIK. This is what I consider the minimum usable screen format, and happily also the maximum size that will fit in a hip pocket or jacket pocket. Like you, I have preference for the (pre-2013) desktop site for my editing; I don't use the mobile site or Visual Editor. I frequently use HotCat, but no other script-type helpers other than a test of AWB once or twice. Often I manually format references the way you describe, but for Google Books and NYT I'm as likely to use yardkard's helper. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:58, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I like to put information about some onr

Hie i want put some information in Wikipedia about Dr.abdul gaffar qaudri Rajpathan96 (talk) 19:31, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello Rajpathan96. Start by reading Your first article. A better place to ask questions about editing Wikipedia is the Teahouse. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:38, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Great information here. Thank you. Abdul Hakim Genius (talk) 23:03, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

How to create a new article in mobile mode

Hi,

Your article is very useful for me. Even though I am going to edit using my smartphone, But I wanted to learn how to edit using a smartphone to help new editors registering and editing Home Wiki using the smartphone. One thing I couldn't find till now is How to create a new article while we are editing in a smartphone. Desktop users simply create an article by searching with its potential name. But here, we are not getting a redlink to click if we search a missing topic. --Pavan santhosh.s (talk) 08:02, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Might smartphone editing promote caution/thought?

Hi Cullen328, I read this essay because it was mentioned at the Teahouse and it's really interesting. I'm particularly impressed that you built George Meany on your phone. I wonder, do you think smartphone editing, for all its other advantages, slows you down compared to desktop editing (or would slow down others), and might that be a good thing? It seems to me that debates on Wikipedia most easily go haywire when they go too quickly, and I know I make most of my mistakes when I rush. Perhaps smartphone editing would make editors move more slowly, automatically making them put more thought into their edits and perhaps re-read them more carefully to check for typos, which I find are easier to make on a phone. › Mortee _talk 20:29, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Also, being forced to type more slowly might encourage conciseness, which I know is one of my weak areas, partly because I can type very quickly. Perhaps I should give it a concerted try. › Mortee _talk 20:32, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Thoughts and reactions

Thanks for the essay, Cullen! Going to read it more in detail again later.

Some initial reactions:

• Andrew Lih is full of it. People always think stuff they can't do is too difficult. I remember when basically every lawyer in the country thought email was too difficult (partly because typing was too dificult; that's something secretaries do). Then, they had to use email. Now, it's not so hard anymore.
• Andrew Brown and Ed Erhart sound like curmudgeonly dinosaurs. Things change, their opinions and lives (and ours) will be swept aside soon, and it'll be a new world out there. (And this, from someone likely older than them.) That said, there is plenty of room for improvement in the interface.
• Per William Beutler, yes, it's cramped. So, William, do you have a smartphone? Do you use it *only* for phone calls, with those nice, big, key caps with numerals on them? Or do you sometimes text, and email, maybe? Read a newspaper? Surf the web a bit? Small and cramped, n'est-ce pas? One person's "outlier", is another's "influencer", "vanguard", "wave of the future". Maybe time for Category:Wikipedians who are outliers?
• Improvements – not only has screensize doubled since 2007, but resolution is vastly improved. I've heard the term "retina screen" or some such, meaning that further improvements aren't necessary; the eye couldn't take advantage of it.
• The dinosaurs fail to see the fact that the smartphone isn't the endpoint of mobile editing; in fact, we are in the drooling, babbling, infancy of mobile editing. I foresee a time, when the "smartphone" (likely called something else by then) will generate a VR projection in space, and you'll be able to type with both hands on a full size VR keyboard, and view text on as many widescreen monitors in space as you can handle. Just don't drive and edit. Voice-to-text exists already; perhaps things will develop in that direction, instead.
  Some earlier opinions about technology for the dinosaurs to consider, when giving theirs:
  • I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. —Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM. (1943)
  • Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. —Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox (1946)
  • There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. —Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977. (Apple 1: 1976; TRS-80: 1980 Still have yours? ; IBM PC: 1981.)
  • The Internet won’t change anything. —Newsweek (1995).
• About writing references with Google books: yes, but once you have the g-books url, you should *really* switch to reftag; it will do all the work for you. On a laptop, if you use a bookmarklet, you don't even have to change tabs away from g-books. (Bookmarklet code in hidden text.)

Some personal usage notes:

• I've been editing by smartphone for years. (iOS/iPhone)
• I'm nearsighted; that helps on a small screen. (You know about the state names on the back of the $5 bill, right?) A section in the essay on far-sighted smartphone users and how they deal might be illuminating. I have three pairs of eyeglasses, progressive, reading, and "occupational". The latter is tuned to laptop-distance. Are "smartphone glasses" for presbyopia the next thing?
• Placing the cursor between a vertical bar and another character can be annoying, but I don't use a stylus, I'd probably just lose it. I use my index finger.
• I'm a touch-typer on a laptop (including special characters and shift register), and that carries over as rapid thumb-typing with both thumbs on the smartphone. Autocorrect usually fixes things the way I want. Occasionally I end up with weird typos if I'm going too fast; usually I find them in Preview mode.
• Can't stand mobile view; first thing I do is fly to the bottom and click that Desktop link.
• I have other browsers on my phone, but mostly use Safari. I use Opera almost exclusively on a laptop, and I should try my Opera mini smartphone app more often.
• I keep multiple tabs open and swap between them. For example, to copy some policy text into {{xt}} snippets when writing on a User talk page.
• I use portrait mode 99% of the time.
• At home, I probably use the laptop 90% of the time to edit, the smartphone 10%. When out, the numbers are reversed.
• As a passenger in moving vehicles, I text, read the news, get directions, use email, or view Wikipedia, but rarely edit Wikipedia.
• I hand-code the big four or five citation templates from memory, mostly. Some welcome templates, too. Also, major policy shortcuts, and a few specialty templates, like {{ill}}.
• For citations or other complex, contiguous code snippets, I may switch away from the code window. But unlike you, I don't use another Wikipedia page, like a sandbox; instead, I switch to a text editor, do my thing, select/copy/switch/paste. Mostly, I've just been using the native "Notes" app.
• Sometimes, I want to do something more complex, like a find/replace of every occurence of FOO to BAR in the entire page. The native Notes app isn't good enough for that. I've been experimenting with Kodex (free) and it can do what I need. There are some apparently better, unfree apps, but I wanted to see how much I would really do this sort of thing. I also happen to be good at regular expressions, and can do global regex replace over an entire source with Kodex. Paste the entire file back into the Wikipedia input window, do Show Changes to verify, and Save. (Raspberry to Browns and Erfurt.) Haven't needed it a lot, but when I do, it really fills the bill.
• A few operations on the Smartphone are harder than on a laptop, but not usually because of the smartphone, but due to poor design by WMF. In particular, on my phone, in portrait mode, the 'rollback' link appears directly between the timestamps of the latest revision, and the previous one. I occasionally have done rollbacks by mistake, because of this. When I self-revert after an inadvertent rollback, I use the summary, "fat-finger error. Although that apparently means something else, I don't care; it expresses what I mean. One of these days, it may mean this, too. Round up your category-posse, and let's get busy!
• Inserting Latin-extended characters like in señor while typing a foreign word or brief passage in en-wiki is trivial (press and hold the N-key).
• Extended editing in other languages or scripts is far easier on the smartphone. I currently have ten keyboards installed (including 'emoji'; so nine languages), and it's trivial to switch back and forth. Autocorrect works properly, according to the language of the keyboard I've chosen.
• Are there some things I haven't attempted (yet) on the smartphone? Yes. I haven't tried creating templates that use params and parser functions. A little worried about getting lost in curly-bracket hell. It's tough enough on the laptop.

Well, that's it. Hope you found this interesting, or at least, not as boring as watching a plywood box for six months. Happy editing! Mathglot (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Try this

[1] EEng 01:36, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Yep (see section above, bullet eleventy-seven). Mathglot (talk) 03:53, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

EEng and Mathglot, I actually enjoy filling in citation templates manually on my smartphone. I like verifying the fields with my own eyes, and being reasonably sure that the reference is presented the way that I feel is best. I am proud (perversely perhaps) that I do not use any automated editing tools anywhere on Wikipedia. That being said, I have no objection to other editors using such tools responsibly.

As a professional contractor and hands-on craftsman, I use a wide range of sometimes dangerous power tools most working days. But I have enormous respect for old school cabinetmakers who still use hand saws, planes and chisels to build fine furniture. When I edit Wikipedia as a hobby, I enjoy using "hand tools" as much as possible, in that same spirit. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:09, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Look, I still code in C and assembly, so I defer to no one in the old-school snobbery department. Believe it or not I enjoy filling in cite templates too, but this is different from the stupid Mediawiki tools like VE -- take a look and actually try it. (It's only for Googlebooks.) EEng 11:21, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Diffs on mobile?

Hey, Cullen328! How difficult is it to create diffs on mobile? I've seen a mobile user recently who experienced some difficulty doing pings and wikilinks because on mobile redlinks show up as blue. The same person wasn't providing diffs when needed, and I wondered if it was because working on mobile made that difficult too. (This is a user who doesn't have previous experience working on a desktop machine.) I tried to figure it out myself but I regularly have to remind myself how to find talk pages on my phone. :) I like spending time with the hubs and cats and fireplace, too, which is why I edit from a laptop with a keyboard like any normal old person. :D —valereee (talk) 18:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee:, not difficult at all, I do it all the time. Just type [[Special:Diff/xxxx|xxxx]], go grab the oldid, and paste it over the x's. You can get the oldid directly from the History tab as provided by script User:BrandonXLF/ShowRevisionID, which if you're not currently using, you should run right out and get. Others prefer the "paste the whole url" approach, but I prefer a plainlinks-style link, with no offpage-connector icon. Finally, apologies for the late response, I was taking a long bath. Mathglot (talk) 20:46, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

lol...I suspect your knowledge/skills on this are vastly different from my own. I don't edit much on mobile, but honestly I don't even know how to get an oldid there. My fault not yours, obviously, but I'm clueless except to read on mobile. Valereee (talk) 21:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Valereee I use the app fairly frequently and I can create diffs like this. There's actually a copy link feature in the overflow menu (three dots) that I can use when viewing diffs. The problem is actually seeing said diffs because external links don't typically show up as visible unless you're looking at stuff in source. That's why a lot of people use what I call "the Cullen method" (desktop view) on mobile, among other reasons. I'd say there's increased interest in mobile view and I'm one of the trailblazers for the app. If you ever have any questions about how stuff works on it, I'd have a fairly good shot at knowing from experience. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Clovermoss! I suspect the problem is between chair and keyboard. :D Valereee (talk) 17:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Valereee I mean it doesn't help that Wikipedia looks different on the app, through a browser (mobile view), or desktop (standard). Even the android and iOS versions of the app are different! I don't have experience with the latter, but apparently watchlists are not currently a feature there (it's planned but not currently a thing). Wikipedia:Mobile communication bugs can outline some of these differences between platforms. If you're curious, I have my own essay about mobile editing, too. I'd say I'm most helpful when it comes to questions about the app because many other experienced editors use mobile view more frequently than I do and very few try to do anything with the app. That's why I called myself a trailblazer. :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:33, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Current phone - HTC One (M8)

In the current phone section it says you are using a HTC One (M8). That is quite a bit old now. What is your experience editing on it? --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:07, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Emir of Wikipedia. Sorry to take ten+ months to reply. I just noticed your question. After the HTC, I used a Google Pixel for a few years, and now a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. It works great. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:21, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit suggestion

@Cullen328: I don't know if you're aware but there's a useful template called {{If mobile}} that displays different content depending upon whether it's viewed on mobile or desktop. The basic markup is:

{{If mobile|this text is displayed on mobile|this text is displayed on desktop}}

At the moment there are links at the bottom of the lead paragraph like this:

• Mobile version of User talk:Cullen328/Smartphone editing
• Desktop version of User talk:Cullen328/Smartphone editing

Essentially, one of those links is always redundant, but by using {{If mobile}} it should be possible to display only the relevant link, making it simpler for the readers. I'm not sure what all that elaborate markup is all about, but I think you could replace it with something like this:

View the mobile version of this guideView the desktop version of this guide

I'm not entirely sure that it will work as intended, it will need to be tested, and it's quite a drastic change, so I thought it best to let you decide whether you want to try it and make the edit yourself. nagualdesign 01:49, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Well it works on this page on my HTC One. It opens a new tab when switching from desktop to mobile, which I think the original links are supposed to do. I hope that helps. nagualdesign 01:54, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello, nagualdesign. Thanks for the tip. The template is not of much use to me, since I consistently use the desktop site. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:24, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi Jim, Perhaps I wasn't clear. What I'm suggesting is replacing the two links in your essay (User:Cullen328/Smartphone editing) so that your readers only see a single link. Mobile users will see a link to the desktop view while desktop users will see a link to the mobile view. I realize that the links shown above link to this talk page, but if you copy/paste the code into the essay it will make more sense. nagualdesign 02:42, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks and details request

Hi User:Cullen328, thank you for your essay on the ikipedia editing by smartphone. Since learning how from reading it some years ago, i have been unafraid when it would be convenient and used my smartphone to do this occasionally. I just found my way back and picked up new info. I admire how nicely written it is. However now i am not finding any passage on exact steps, e.g. “ In order to copy the text string, hold your finger on the screen until...until that little jobber thingy shows up allowing you to stretch it to cover the text u want. With that highlighted, hold again until popup menu appears, and select Copy.” I thought u had detail like that, or did i read that elsewhere? Having such in footnotes or a linked subpage “for extreme detail” would add a lot i think. And i do have a real question: after i have switched to my editing window, and held again, i am given popup allowing “Paste”. But what if i choose not to paste, can i cancel that and overwrite the buffer(?) with a new selection of text? That was my real question. Hmm now it seems i can, by holding down to get the popup but choose “Select” not “paste”. AFter the buffer thingy is loaded, the popup gives three options... And when you’ve finished, hit the available small downarrow to jump the cursor conveniently to the edit summary window... I do think having this kind of detail available, perhaps identified as “step by step instructions”, even with little screenshots, would really make the essay work for more people. And provide a useful refresher for users like me. I am editing on my Apple iphone 6. If the steps differ by smartphone type and version, then i think giving one or two examples without trying to be comprehensive would be good. I thought the link to “best practices” might provided that, but no. Maybe i am just not finding it? I hope this might be helpful. Anyhow, thanks again for your great service. :) cheers, —Doncram (talk) 05:29, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Doncram. You edit with Apple iPhones and I edit with Android smartphones. I have nothing against the iPhone except that I have almost no experience working with them. I think that maybe twice since the introduction of the iPhone, a friend has handed me one, and I have fiddled around with it for a few minutes, and handed it back with a friendly remark like "that's interesting". In other words, I am not competent to edit with an iPhone in particular, or even more so, how to describe iPhone editing accurately. But I am trying to convey the fact that editing on smartphones in general is practical, fun, and to be encouraged. I assume that iPhone users have experience with texting, email, Google searches, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like. The skills developed in working on such text and image based social media sites and applications transfer easily to Wikipedia editing. Perhaps the techniques for copying and pasting differ from device to device. I do not know. It is intuitive to me as a long time Android user. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:50, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the read!

Thanks for the read! I do occasionally use a mobile for editing myself, but not quite directly - I typically make notes of typos and such on the go when I read Wikipedia to kill time, and then fix them later if I find any. Your point about English language editors struck me, as it is certainly true that in many areas smartphone ownership is far more common then PC ownership. I've actually seen it to a lesser extent in my own circles, where my friends will sometimes give up maintaining a computer entirely, simply using their phone or tablet for most things, and going to a library if they genuinely need a desktop. In any case, everyone should have the opportunity to contribute to Wikipedia and smartphone access is a vital part of that. Thank you again for your insightful essay. --Mbrickn (talk) 04:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

How to do bolding and apostrophes in general and quotes

Hi User:Cullen328, thanks again for creating this essay. I’m reminded from your recent comments at ANI about problem that editors using smartphones and the non-desktop interface don’t receive Talk page messages (hmm, is that issue addressed in this essay, i’m not sure). I learned how, here, and often now edit using my iPhone.

My question: is there a way to enter an apostrophe of the right type? Including for bolding text. Here is what i can enter: ‘’’Bolded text?’’’ (which does not display with bolding). I’d like not to have to return to an article later from a laptop to fix my iPhone edits. Also about “quoting” (where vertical not slanted quote marks are wanted). I do see a possible workaround: make a “cheat sheet” userpage that i could have open in another window to copy-paste from, with these characters and other symbols, e.g. accented Spanish letters i sometimes need in writing about historic sites in Puerto Rico. But is there a less cumbersome way?

P.S. Hmm, maybe there are options at top of my edit window, gonna have to try, maybe this question is silly. —Doncram (talk) 19:18, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Testing: bold. D’oh! Doncram (talk) 19:26, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello, {{u{Doncram}}. I do not use an iPhone and am quite suprised that it does not allow the easy input of vertical apostrophes and quotation marks. I use Android phones which allow input of these characters with a single keystroke. I rarely use that special function panel at the top of the editing page. If I want to add a name with diacritics, for example, I copy and paste it from a reliable source. Primitive, but it works for me. Cullen328 (talk) 20:17, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

With some experimenting now i can see hiw to bold a phrase, insert special characters (e.g. “Àà”), and i see i could choose to use various other insertions for block quotes, for links, and more. Maybe this essay could usefully include a section with brief advice on such.

But I do not see any way to make a vertical quote mark (rather than “) or vertical apostrophe (rather than slanted or curved ‘) as i get from regular typing on a laptop. And as i get from selecting, using a single tap, the quote or apostrophe character available at bottom of my editing window. The vertical versions are needed in Wikipedia writing.

Thanks for ur prompt reply. Now i wonder, maybe there is some coding to select vertical versions as defaults for my account, in one if those initialization files which exist somewhere. I should go to Teahouse or Village talk technical(?) i guess. Thanks! Doncram (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Yay, i found out that i just needed to turn off "smart punctuation" in my iPhone settings under "keyboard". Per the very last section of this permalinked Teahouse page.

So maybe something could be added like: "Iphone editors might be aggravated that their typing an apostrophe or quote mark yields what are called "curly" versions. While Wikipedia requires vertical versions (see MOS:STRAIGHT and wp:APOSTROPHE. To remedy, simply turn off "Smart punctuation" under Settings/Keyboard. This will also turn off automatic conversion of two hyphens into an em-dash, which is probably fine." Doncram (talk) 22:44, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Doncram, you don't have to turn it off, and I don't. Just press-hold the apostrophe key until it pops up with a choice of four apostrophe alternatives, and pick the one you want. In fact, if you want the "vertical apostrophe", when the options pop up, the right-most one, which is to say, the option under your finger, is the vertical one. So if you release your finger without sliding over to another option, you will have chosen the one you want. So in sum: press and hold apostrophe, wait for pop-ups to appear, release your finger. Mathglot (talk)

I know this isn't a place for bug reports..

I tried adding comments to talk pages whilst I was on a long train journey and it didn't work. I just got error messages implying I was blocked or otherwise didn't have the permissions to edit. Logged in or logged out - the wikipedia iOS app would not let me leave talk page messages. It felt pretty pointless. Secretlondon (talk) 17:48, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Secretlondon. I suggest that you ask about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Cullen328 (talk) 17:55, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Undoing

Usually a computer maniac, but these days I've travelling and so I thought I'd give it a try. A problem I've had is undoing. The best I've found is a hack with Gboard because in japanese there's an "undo" button. Do you know of anything else better? — Alien333 ( what I did &
why I did it wrong ) 20:56, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alien333: Are you using desktop mode, mobile view, or the app? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Desktop mode. — Alien333 ( what I did &
why I did it wrong ) 22:56, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

@Alien333: Are you implying that you don't see an undo button when looking at a diff? Because you should be able to. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:58, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, not that undo, I meant the undo for text editing as in ctrl-Z. I should've been more clear. — Alien333 ( what I did &
why I did it wrong ) 01:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

A nice article

I love this article as I edit 99% of time using my mobile so it's kinda relate with me. Tesleemah (talk) 18:10, 4 September 2024 (UTC)