Prioritization
This Editing-team will prioritize work on this task if/when we come to learn that volunteers report not knowing what settings withing Special:Preferences control how the Reply and New Discussion Tools behave and/or appear.

Change 723302 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@master] Highlight section header when linking to a section on Special:Preferences

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/723302

Change 723303 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@master] Work around a Chrome bug with :target selector and Special:Preferences tabs

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/723303

I found an old feature request for similar functionality for the Gadgets tab in Preferences: T126962.

In T291002#7387550, @Volker_E wrote:

Drive-by comment from Design Systems person and reviewer of the patch:
I like the proposed change by @matmarex and agree with @ppelberg on the generalization.

1. Wonder if the highlight needs to be persistent or could fade out after (f.e.) 3s?
2. The highlight currently uses an Accent color, which we try to limit for interactive elements. Highlight should rather use a Yellow, like Yellow90. This would only work with a fade out though.

In T291002#7381227, @ppelberg wrote:

Regarding T291002#7372992 and the way the highlight in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussionPreferences [i] behaves...

@matmarex, the changes you've implemented [ii] seem like they will help people to more easily identify the settings that are associated with the tool whose behavior they are wanting to change.

With this said, the more "permanent" nature of these changes (e.g. showing on every click as opposed to the first one, not fading, etc.) is leading me to see this as a bigger change and perhaps one that should be considered for Special:Preferences as a whole.

As such, to start I am thinking we should:

1. Exclude all of the highlight-related changes from this initial change
2. File a new ticket for introducing the highlight changes within Special:Preferences as a whole
3. Consider prioritizing work on the to-be-filed ticket mentioned in "2." if/when people report having difficulty finding the settings associated with the New Discussion and/or Reply Tool.

...if any of the above seems problematic to you, please let me know.

---

i. Visual showing the highlight in preferences	ii. Highlight behavior
	1. Only the Discussion pages heading is highlighted [as opposed to the entire settings "group"), 2. Discussion pages is highlighted every time someone clicks the [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussionPreferences|Preferences]] link from within the New Discussion and Reply Tools, and 3. The highlight is shown on the page as long as someone is viewing it [as opposed to it being removed after some amount of time or action being taken]]

In T291002#7387550, @Volker_E wrote:

Drive-by comment from Design Systems person and reviewer of the patch:
I like the proposed change by @matmarex and agree with @ppelberg on the generalization.

1. Wonder if the highlight needs to be persistent or could fade out after (f.e.) 3s?
2. The highlight currently uses an Accent color, which we try to limit for interactive elements. Highlight should rather use a Yellow, like Yellow90. This would only work with a fade out though.

I've proposed persistent and blue to match the existing pattern used by links to references (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwark_Street#cite_note-1).

Change 723302 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Highlight section header when linking to a section on Special:Preferences

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/723302

Change 723303 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Work around a Chrome bug with :target selector and Special:Preferences tabs

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/723303

Change 748275 had a related patch set uploaded (by Esanders; author: Esanders):

[mediawiki/core@master] Revert \"Work around a Chrome bug with :target selector and Special:Preferences tabs\"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/748275

Change 748275 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Revert \"Work around a Chrome bug with :target selector and Special:Preferences tabs\"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/748275

2nd patch was reverted so needs more work.

Change 748766 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@master] Re-apply \"Work around a Chrome bug with :target selector and Special:Preferences tabs\"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/748766

Change 748766 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Re-apply \"Work around a Chrome bug with :target selector and Special:Preferences tabs\"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/748766

The heading is highlighted as expected. See screenshot for link to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets-gadget-section-appearance