I'm using Vector 2022 on Beta cluster as it seems appropriate to do so there. I've been somewhat annoyed by it due to relatively minor inconveniences that are easy to adjust. (if this task is ignored I'll just userscript it or stick with Vector classic as long as possible)
Feature summary (what you would like to be able to do and where):
The vector-user-links section has the following items:
- Language selector
- Link to my user page
- Alerts
- Notifications
- Watchlist
- Dropdown user menu where everything else got stuffed in, click to open
Suggested changes:
- Make the user menu open on hover (but with a very small delay, ballpark 100ms, so it won't open if the mouse is just passing by), this would make the other suggestions less pressing. It's all about navigational flow, a click pauses that flow. Which is fine for rarely used items, but not all items in there are rarely used.
- I rarely visit my own user page. (and why would you? to update it?) Stuff that in the user menu and give me my talk page! I go to my talk page (when there's no alert) to follow up on questions/requests, new users go (or should go) there to read their welcome message again with all the helpful links.
- Give me my contributions. Mostly useful for experienced users, but I use it a lot. For some people, it's even a kind of watchlist. Being forced into a sub-menu is just inconvenient for something I use so often. I'd be curious to see stats for how often all these links are used.
- There should probably be a method/option of combining notices and alerts, but I assume that'll be more complicated. Would reduce the icons by one though..
- Unclutter suggestion: you can compact the language selector. Hide the span with the language (<span>English</span>) and make #ca-uls display it on hover. I'd actually argue that for logged-in users you can omit #ca-uls entirely or stuff it in the dropdown menu.
Benefits (why should this be implemented?):
Make commonly used links directly accessible, unclutter.