1. What is the problem
The Performance team created an extension called Performance Inspector[1]. This extension, when enabled, allows the editor (or viewer) of a page to get details about a number of different factors that may influence the performance of the page, such as the number of javascript and CSS files being pulled in, where ResourceLoader modules were loaded from, image sizes, and timing and resource usage from the browser parser. T117411 has additional details about the motivations for the creation of this extension.
Currently the extension is enabled in Beta, and can be activated from the User Preferences/Beta Features tab. When enabled, it appears as an additional link in the "Tools" section of the links panel:
We would like to roll this feature out to Production, but we aren't sure that the current implementation is ideal. In particular, we're wondering whether the addition of a link to the Tools section of the links panel is actually the ideal way to expose this to users, or if there's a better option.
2. What does success of this task look like?
In our view, success is either
- Confirmation that the current approach is fine; or
- Clarity about what a better approach would be.
Some help understanding any communication/notification expectations would also be appreciated.
3. Is there any goal/program/etc related to this request
T117411 as noted above. This is driven by the Performance team, in order to enable work that community members have been tackling independently.
4. What is your expected timeline? Is there any hard deadline?
There is no hard deadline. This extension has been in Beta for about 18 months now, so clearly there isn't a big rush to get this done.
With that said, work that's complete but not actually deployed is just tech debt, so it would be nice to close the loop.
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PerformanceInspector
