This is a great idea. The team discussed this and we think that it should be part of a broader discussion about configuring preferences. We're are moving it to a column for considering it in the future.

In T180906#4435374, @JTannerWMF wrote:

This is a great idea. The team discussed this and we think that it should be part of a broader discussion about configuring preferences. We're are moving it to a column for considering it in the future.

@JTannerWMF Do you think it's worth adding the link (Watchlist preferences) now, to make these features more accessible? It has been a long time since your comment.

I checked in with the Growth team and it sounds like that broader rethink hasn't happened yet, and while I think it sounds worth doing (preferences for RC/Watchlist are split over a number of different locations), I don't think there's any harm with going ahead with adding this link in the short term. It can always be removed again if broader preferences work gets done.

I think the suggested solution in the task description is a reasonable one.

Change #1133216 had a related patch set uploaded (by Kgraessle; author: Kgraessle):

[mediawiki/core@master] Enable navigation from watchlist to watchlist preferences

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1133216

Ok, I got a link to

Special:Preferences

to work correctly, however when I add

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist

It appears this function call is stripping the #mw-prefsection-watchlist from the url.
I'm moving this to engineering review to get product and more engineering eyes on how to proceed.
Do we still think this feature will be useful if it can only link the user to Special:Preferences and not Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist?

Do we still think this feature will be useful if it can only link the user to Special:Preferences and not Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist?

My first reaction is yes, as the watchlist tab is not hard to find in the skins I looked at (Monobook, both Vectors, Timeless and Minerva). A direct link would obviously be preferable of course.

Hi @Kgraessle!
In Codex it is recommended to use links when the user navigates to 'another page, view or section, when the user presses it’, while buttons are used for actions.
Hence, both of the buttons ‘Edit your list of watched pages’ and ‘Preferences’ could be links.

I did a quick usability test to see if shortening ‘Edit your list of watched pages’ to ‘Edit watchlist’ would be sufficient for people to understand that they can edit their list of watched pages by clicking on that button/link. The majority of participants assumed that when clicking on ‘Edit watchlist’ you’ll be able to edit/delete the watched pages.
Additionally, I wanted to see if participants would be able to navigate to watchlist preferences if there was only the ‘gear’ icon or the ‘gear’ icon + ‘preferences’ label on the page. 90% were able to find watchlist preferences from the page. 

Considering the above information, we could use icon+links instead of buttons, and shorten the other button to ‘Edit watchlist’. 


Proposed design

Additional thoughts:

• Do we need the ‘Edit your list of watched pages’ button if people can access the page from the ‘View and edit watchlist’ tab at the top of the page?
  • Wondering about renaming ‘View and edit watchlist’ to ‘Edit watchlist’ to match the title of the page?

cc: @JWheeler-WMF

In T180906#10781332, @OTichonova wrote:

Hi @Kgraessle!
In Codex it is recommended to use links when the user navigates to 'another page, view or section, when the user presses it’, while buttons are used for actions.
Hence, both of the buttons ‘Edit your list of watched pages’ and ‘Preferences’ could be links.

I did a quick usability test to see if shortening ‘Edit your list of watched pages’ to ‘Edit watchlist’ would be sufficient for people to understand that they can edit their list of watched pages by clicking on that button/link. The majority of participants assumed that when clicking on ‘Edit watchlist’ you’ll be able to edit/delete the watched pages.
Additionally, I wanted to see if participants would be able to navigate to watchlist preferences if there was only the ‘gear’ icon or the ‘gear’ icon + ‘preferences’ label on the page. 90% were able to find watchlist preferences from the page. 

Considering the above information, we could use icon+links instead of buttons, and shorten the other button to ‘Edit watchlist’. 


Proposed design

Additional thoughts:

• Do we need the ‘Edit your list of watched pages’ button if people can access the page from the ‘View and edit watchlist’ tab at the top of the page?
  • Wondering about renaming ‘View and edit watchlist’ to ‘Edit watchlist’ to match the title of the page?

cc: @JWheeler-WMF

Thanks @OTichonova one more question for you- would the icons in the above example be clickable?

Hi @Kgraessle, yes, would that be possible?

In T180906#10817294, @OTichonova wrote:

Hi @Kgraessle, yes, would that be possible?

@OTichonova
Yep!
How does this look?

Also note, these links are only enabled when the user is using javascript.

Hi @Kgraessle, looks great!
One small thing, could you decrease the space between the two links to be 12pts?

In T180906#10830663, @OTichonova wrote:

Hi @Kgraessle, looks great!
One small thing, could you decrease the space between the two links to be 12pts?

So it's currently using responsive css styling so I don't know that we can get exactly 12, but how do you think this looks?

Gotcha, okay. It looks great! Thanks @Kgraessle

Test wiki created on Patch demo by KGraessle-WMF using patch(es) linked to this task:
https://patchdemo.wmcloud.org/wikis/de670ff63e/w/

Thanks for your work on this patch. I have been playing with the patch demo you created and noticed that the spacing between Edit Watchlist and Preferences is larger on Vector 2010 and Monobook.

Should this be spaced the same way it is spaced in Vector 2022?

Test wiki on Patch demo by KGraessle-WMF using patch(es) linked to this task was deleted:

https://patchdemo.wmcloud.org/wikis/de670ff63e/w/

Test wiki created on Patch demo by KGraessle-WMF using patch(es) linked to this task:
https://patchdemo.wmcloud.org/wikis/4dedfac396/w/

Change #1133216 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Enable navigation from watchlist to watchlist preferences

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1133216

I have QAed this on testwiki, and the preferences button appears to be working there. Moving this to Done and we will resolving this once it finishes going through the train.

Test wiki on Patch demo by KGraessle-WMF using patch(es) linked to this task was deleted:

https://patchdemo.wmcloud.org/wikis/4dedfac396/w/

Thanks for adding the direct Preferences link, that is helpful.
I wonder if the amount of space the new controls take up could be reduced?
I.e. IIUC, it seems we have a new duplicate link, and an empty line on wide-screens from the new Preferences link, and I hope those can both be fixed.
E.g. [screenshots with annotations]

Hi @Quiddity! Thank you for pointing that out. We discussed this in T395646: Align issues on watchlist page with the icons/links and concluded that those buttons should be stacked on wider screens and side-to-side on narrow screens, see: here and here. We also added more room for the buttons because in other languages, the text overflows, see my last comment on this ticket. We are trying to find a balance here between excessive whitespace on some languages and overflows in others. We can discuss this on T395646: Align issues on watchlist page with the icons/links. I'm sure @OTichonova will love to chime in there.