The Signpost

Dispatches

Tools, part 3: Style tools and wikEd

This article is a continuation of Tools, part 1 and Tools, part 2, a series meant to introduce readers to useful tools for article editing. This time, we will be treating tools that relate to checking compliance with the Manual of Style, with a special mention of wikEd.

Many tools consist of user scripts, JavaScript code running in your browser, that can be imported by adding importScript("User:Example/awesome script.js") to your skin.js page. Compatibility varies with skin and browser, with Internet Explorer being the most problematic. A more extensive script list is at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts.

Various other tools are hosted on the Wikimedia Toolserver (currently provided by the German Wikimedia chapter) and can be accessed via a web interface. Some are also hosted on non-Wikimedia websites.

Dash tool

The Dash tool converts dashes, hyphens, and minus signs to their proper format per the Manual of Style. Particularly useful for year and page ranges, which are often input wrongly, with hyphens. En dashes are much easier to recognise in these contexts and are recommended by most authorities as well as Wikipedia's style guide. The script has been demonstrated to have an extremely low false-positive rate.

Author : GregU
Placement : Adds an en dash ("–") next to the history tab.
Demo : Paste javascript:importScript("User:GregU/dashes.js");autoEdExecute() into your browser's address bar while editing the article of interest.
Installation : Add {{subst:js|User:GregU/dashes.js}} to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page.

Peer reviewer

Peer reviewer checks pages against some Manual of Style rules and generates a report on that. It was used as a user script to post reviews at Wikipedia:Peer review for four years before it was set up as a tool on the Toolserver. Installed as a script, it also provides some (outdated) automatic formatting options. Despite being unmaintained and looking for a new maintainer, it is still useful for checking for general issues in an article.

Author : AndyZ
Placement : Configurable, defaults next to log out on edit pages
Demo : Paste javascript:importScript('User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js');output_PR = 'wpTextbox1';JSpeerreview_simple(); into your browser's address bar while editing the article of interest.
Installation : Add {{subst:js|User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js}} to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page or run online at tools:~dispenser/view/Peer reviewer

Altviewer

Alternative (alt) text is an appropriate text substitute for an image, such as in an audio rendering of a Wikipedia article used by blind or dyslexic users. It also has secondary uses for low-bandwidth web browser and search engine bots. Once a requirement for featured content, it has since been downgraded over confusion of what constitutes a good description.

Altviewer provide a method for examining and comparing an image's alt attribute without turning off images or install Fangs extension for Firefox.

Author: Dispenser

WikiSort

WikiSort adds a "Sort words" link on the sidebar. Pressing this opens a separate window that displays all words longer than six letters; this is useful for spell-checking articles.

Author : Michael Devore
Placement : Adds a "Sort words" link to the Wikipedia side bar.
Demo : Paste javascript:importScript("User:Michael Devore/wiksort.js");wiksLoad(); into your browser's address bar while viewing the article of interest.
Installation : Add {{subst:js|User:Michael Devore/wiksort.js}} to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page

wikEd

wikEd editing interface

wikEd enhances the edit box with syntax highlighting with code check, on-page Show preview and Show changes, improved diff view, converting rich-text to wikicode, and nearly a dozen fix up buttons. Some features found their way into the usability team's editor; such as find and replace and reference and template folding.

wikEd boasts several translations, an API/customizations which are used by other scripts, and it is the second most popular gadget on the English Wikipedia. It works in most web browsers with the exception of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Author : Cacycle
Placement : Replaces the edit box and adds new editing toolbars, see wikEd Help.
Demo : Try it in the Wikipedia:Sandbox
Installation: There are several ways to install the script. The easiest is to enable it under "Gadgets" in Special:Preferences.

















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