The main function of the Language Selector is for users to select a language. On wikis such as Wikipedia, multilingual users need to navigate to the versions of the article in the languages they know. In addition to this main functionality, the language selector provides access to a set of other language-related functionality to make the page available in more languages (translating the existing page, or connecting them in Wikidata), and change the UI language.
All these functionalities were reorganized as quick actions (T289840) under a generic menu ("..."). Feedback indicates that the generic option makes (a) contribution options less discoverable (T310259) and (b) settings more buried than before (T319264).
This ticket proposes to provide access to the different options in a way that:
- Selecting the language is still the main activity for the language selector (taking most of the space and user attention).
- There are clear invites to both, access the ways t contribute, and access the language settings.
Proposed design
In order to support this, the proposed solution consists in defining a bottom area for the selector with two options:
- Add languages. Using a "+" icon and a label provides access to the kist of options to contribute to the menu. This builds on the idea that the list can be expanded with new languages and users interested in it can access the ways to do it. Taking into account that this is an extensible list and multiple ways to expand the list can become available beyond the current ones (translate, and edit languages on Wikidata).
- Settings. Using the settings icon to provide access to the language settings. This keeps the backwards compatibility with the approach used when the access was provided on the sidebar (in older versions of Vector).
Empty state
If there are no actions because a given page does not support them (e.g., talk pages), only the settings icon will be shown (without a visible separator):
