@nayoub One issue with the status icon and message being below the input box is that when the dropdown menu is open the status info is not visible:

I might have missed the discussion, but have we considered switching to an OOUI TitleInputWidget? Then it'd match the VE selector (I think? Perhaps there are differences.) It'd look something like the following:

Of course, it's a bit hacky to have just this one input element in a different style, but perhaps if we converted only the two inputs it'd be okay and wouldn't make this task too large?

I've added details of the new messages to this ticket's description.

Change 715916 had a related patch set uploaded (by Samwilson; author: Samwilson):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Remove unused image: insert-link-error.png

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/715916

Change 715916 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Remove unused image: insert-link-error.png

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/715916

Following RTL meeting, we are updating the UX wording to "This is not a content page; it lists topics with similar names."

Another aspect that we didn't talk about earlier: the title dropdown also needs to support external links, which the default TitleInputWidget doesn't. I think the changes are not too great; for anything recognised as a URL, we'd need

• a different image/icon (I've not yet really looked at where these images come from, but maybe they're just icons and so linkExternal will be fine?);
• to not uppercase the first character; and
• to show it in blue instead of red.

Change 717068 had a related patch set uploaded (by Samwilson; author: Samwilson):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] [WIP] Update messages in the link-insertion dialog

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/717068

I've got a bit further to go with this: sorting out the behaviour when the internal/external radio buttons are changed; what happens for invalid titles (which generally aren't invalid for external links); how the four messages change with various interactions; whether not selecting from the dropdown should be considered selecting (to maintain existing behaviour); etc.

I keep referring to other uses of the TitleInputWidget, and realising that this overloading of it (with external URLs) is a bit unusual. VE handles this by putting the internal/external choice above the title input, so it's clearer what mode it's in and there's no ambiguity about switching. The WikiEditor link-inserter tries to guess what's an external link.

Anyway, I'll get it all sorted, but it does just make me wonder what different design choices might be made in the (near?) future when this link-inserter is swiched away from jQuery UI (T209059). I don't want to build too much customization into this widget (away from other places where page titles are chosen, e.g. VE, TemplateWizard, etc.), if they're just going to be undone again. It might be easier to make this current change to 'stock' title-selecting, and iterate from there.

I've set up a patchdemo with the current state of my work: https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/416f066d1a/wiki/Main_Page?action=edit

Definite follow-up patches to this patch will add OOUI widgets for the link-text input field and the radio buttons. I don't want to do it all in one patch because it'll just get bigger and bigger.

The first part of this is ready for review. I'm working on the follow-up patches now.

Actually this isn't quite ready: need to fix up the behaviour when no title is selected from the autocomplete menu (it should display a message about whatever text is present in the title/target text box, regardless of whether the user clicks an item from the popup menu or not).

I've been trying to get the blur/non-selecting behaviour correct, but ultimately it feels like I'm battling against what the TitleInputWidget is wanting to do. I've created T291056, because that seems to be one key bit that works differently, and other behaviour I think is just going to have to change (to be in line with title-selecting everywhere else in MediaWiki, which is a good thing, I think! But might be a source of discontent with this change).

Change 721248 had a related patch set uploaded (by Samwilson; author: Samwilson):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Change link-insert field to OOUI

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/721248

A note from meeting earlier: @nayoub and I would like to do a design desk check before changes are merged in! We tried it on patch demo and it's looking great

Test wiki created on Patch Demo by Samwilson using patch(es) linked to this task:

https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/1101ee626c/w/

Another bug that @Daimona and I found yesterday while trying to get redirects to show in their correct order in the search results: T292600: TitleWidget lacks sorting-indices for redirect pages

We also noticed that the main patch for this task is not working correctly when the title search input is emptied (the message below is not being cleared). I'll fix this up now.

@nayoub one note about the messages under the title input box: the OOUI default is to indent these (they're a standard part of a FieldLayout). Is that okay, or should they be left-aligned as shown in the design mocks?

Hi @Samwilson, that's completely fine – it works well indented too :)

Hey all, if this is merged, it makes the accuracy of the user tests we are running in beta better. Can we prioritize reviewing/QAing this over other tickets?

Also @Samwilson can you link us to the patch for this last fix above?

@nayoub one note about the messages under the title input box: the OOUI default is to indent these (they're a standard part of a FieldLayout). Is that okay, or should they be left-aligned as shown in the design mocks?

In T289214#7406574, @NRodriguez wrote:

Hey all, if this is merged, it makes the accuracy of the user tests we are running in beta better. Can we prioritize reviewing/QAing this over other tickets?

Sure, I already started looking at this again today, I'll finish later today and merge the patch.

The patch is 717068: Switch to OOUI TitleInputWidget for the link-inserter (and there will be a couple of follow-up patches, the most necessary of them being 721248: Change link-insert field to OOUI, because that'll make the two text-input boxes look the same again; beta-testing can happen before that though, the actual functionality stuff is all in the first patch).

Test wiki on Patch Demo by Samwilson using patch(es) linked to this task was deleted:

https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/1101ee626c/w/

Change 717068 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Switch to OOUI TitleInputWidget for the link-inserter

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/717068

Change 729944 had a related patch set uploaded (by Samwilson; author: Samwilson):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Change insert-link radio buttons to OOUI

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/729944

Change 721248 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Change the (insert-link) title field to OOUI

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/721248

Change 730139 had a related patch set uploaded (by Samwilson; author: Samwilson):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Remove template for insert-link dialog

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/730139

Change 729944 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Change insert-link radio buttons to OOUI

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/729944

Change 730139 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikiEditor@master] Remove template for insert-link dialog

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/730139

@Samwilson Can this be moved to QA, or is there any additional cleanup that you'd like to do first?

No, I think it's ready for QA. I've already made a couple follow-up tasks:

• T293168: External links should never be invalid
• T293167: Disable insert-link button when title is empty

Verified the different link state and the new icon in Beta and Prod
Tested on Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge
sample url: https://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Disambiguation_links&action=edit&redlink=1

Screenshot of tested links: