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When should we remove deprecated "Printable version" on MediaWiki pages
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Description

When one hits a page like https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki?printable=yes (notice ?printable=yes, there is a warning at the top of the printable page saying

The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

This was deprecated in MW 1.36. Is it time to remove this feature or is there anything stopping us from removing it in 1.39?

Relevant code

When performing a request, there is a conditional check to set printable styles on the output object

if ( $request->getRawVal( 'printable' ) === 'yes' ) {
	$output->setPrintable();
}

Event Timeline

xSavitar updated the task description. (Show Details)

So far as I know, it already is deprecated, the question is when to remove it. Correct me if I am wrong; I assume @Aklapper has thoughts on a potential date?

Reedy subscribed.

It's already considered deprecated since MW 1.36 (and seemingly backported to MW 1.35) - T167956: Deprecate printable version mode, rMW06cb860a727d: Deprecate printableversion=yes

I think repurposing this task to decide when it should be removed may make sense.

Correct me if I am wrong; I assume @Aklapper has thoughts on a potential date?

He's probably not the correct person for this, no.

Naleksuh renamed this task from Should we deprecate "Printable version" of MediaWiki pages to When should we remove "Printable version" of MediaWiki pages?.Apr 18 2022, 1:21 AM
Naleksuh renamed this task from When should we remove "Printable version" of MediaWiki pages? to Should we deprecate "Printable version" of MediaWiki pages.

Reverted rename because I didn't feel like it was my place to rename it, just starting out here and not really sure what I'm doing yet. Though, it sounds like me and @Reedy were essentially saying the same thing, so did you want to carry it out?

Before fully removing it we can first hide the link in sidebar.

Before fully removing it we can first hide the link in sidebar.

Clicking on that link will print the page in the web browser, not via "printable version", and if you disable JavaScript then it's not there. The only way to get the "printable version" is to open it in a new tab.

xSavitar renamed this task from Should we deprecate "Printable version" of MediaWiki pages to When should we remove deprecated "Printable version" on MediaWiki pages.Apr 18 2022, 9:17 AM
xSavitar updated the task description. (Show Details)

Before fully removing it we can first hide the link in sidebar.

This sounds like a good first step. But I'll wait for a product-wide decision to be made on the version for this to go away then we can move forward. @Reedy, any ideas on who has to make the decision? Maybe skin architecture related people?

ovasileva triaged this task as Medium priority.Apr 21 2022, 11:21 AM
ovasileva moved this task from Incoming to Not ready to estimate on the Web-Team-Backlog board.

Regarding this feedback from on enwiki, I can reproduce it with Firefox: the warning is displayed only if I open the link "Printable version" with the right click and selecting "open a new tab". Instead, if I click directly on "Printable version" no warning appears, and the printable version is displayed differently, with a TOC displayed with a lot of space and no space between numbers and titles of sections.

No concerns from the web side on removing.

Jdlrobson added subscribers: pmiazga, Jdlrobson.

@pmiazga I remember you were working on Proton-related work. Is this something your team could prioritize? @xSavitar also feel free to write a patch - I can review.