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Sub-referencing support in the iOS & Android apps
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Description

Same as T395510: Mobile web reference previews for subrefs (see there for more details), but for the iOS/Android apps.

First step is to manually test both apps with the new details syntax. How do they behave? Document all findings here in this ticket.

  • iOS - see findings below (tested by Lina)
  • Android - see findings below (tested by Adam)

The equivalent of the tasks below is currently not working on the apps :

Task equivalentcurrent state on iOScurrent state on Android
* Missing detail number + indentation T378568: Parsoid: Render sub-refs in the references section like in legacy parser
IMG_2799.PNG (1×750 px, 115 KB)
1000001507.png (2×1 px, 217 KB)
* Preview does not show main + details T395510: Mobile web reference previews for subrefs
IMG_2801.PNG (1×750 px, 103 KB)
1000001508.png (2×1 px, 217 KB)

Dev notes:

  • From Dmitry Brant
    • Both iOS and Android apps receive their article content from PCS (Page Content Service), so any fixes and updates would need to be made in that codebase, and will be automatically received by apps.
    • Unfortunately, PCS contains a lot of very legacy code, and at first glance it looks like PCS does some rearranging of reference elements, in a way that is indeed incompatible with sub-referencing. Here is the file within PCS where this logic happens. If you could dig in and make PCS work with sub-referencing, that would be very welcome
  • Required before we can test anything: T395871: Enable sub-referencing on test wiki
  • iOS and Android are two different codebases:

Details

Event Timeline

Here's the PCS endpoint which demonstrates the broken reflist we see on both platforms: https://test.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/CiteDetailsTests

There's also a step described in the PCS docs which claims to manipulate refs:

Prepare a reference for mobile-html output. Adjusts the structure of the HTML and adds the appropriate pcs hooks.

WMDE-Fisch changed the task status from Open to Stalled.Aug 13 2025, 9:42 AM
awight changed the task status from Stalled to In Progress.Sep 4 2025, 4:47 PM

Change #1187880 had a related patch set uploaded (by Awight; author: Mareike Heuer):

[mediawiki/services/mobileapps@master] Support subreferences (squashed)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1187880

Change #1187880 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/services/mobileapps@master] Support subreferences (squashed)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1187880

I tested on iPhone 8, iOS 16.7.11
Pages:

Issue found with CiteDetailsTests:

  • Tapping on the footnote numbers in the reference list does not link back to the article text. This happens only with refs and subrefs [1] to [3]. [4] to [8] work as expected.

Unfortunately, the taps are not shown in the screen recording for CiteDetailsTest

I cloned the CiteDetailsTest page and removed all occurences of sub-refs - this is the cloned page: https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/CiteTestsWithoutDetails.
I was able to reproduce the issue. Seems unrelated to sub-refs.

See screen recording for CiteTestsWithoutDetails
{F66033698}

Is this a known issue? @JTannerWMF

This is how the page https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/CiteDetailsTests looks like in the live (i.e. not the alpha or beta versions) Android app this morning. Still not perfect but much, much better than before.

Screenshot_20250918-095241_Wikipedia.png (2×1 px, 132 KB) Screenshot_20250918-095645_Wikipedia.png (2×1 px, 152 KB)

I tested on iPhone 8, iOS 16.7.11

  • Tapping on the footnote numbers in the reference list does not link back to the article text. This happens only with refs and subrefs [1] to [3]. [4] to [8] work as expected.

Is this a known issue?

Yes, this is not related to subreferences. (There will be a task for this separately on the iOS board.)

Closing this "Epic" remaining sub-tasks are not blockers for resolving this ticket.