Community Wishlist/Wishes/I don't need all the special characters, but it can be hard to find the ones I want/en
Description
Typically, when I'm writing a page or article, there is a rather extensive menu of special characters. (On most wikis, this appears as the Omega symbol; in the Page namespace on Wikisource, it appears directly in the editing UI). The thing is, I don't actually need the vast majority of these special characters. There are only a few I really need, but they can be quite tricky to get:
- On Wikisource, I typically need the "long-s" symbol
ſ, the em dash—, and sometimes (depending on whether previous editors used curly or straight quotes) curly opening and closing quotes, both single and double (‘,’,“,”). This is pretty much it! All of these symbols are very common in older books. However, the long s doesn't show up at all. Also, the em dash confusingly appears right next to the identical-looking en dash, so I have to mouse over both to make sure I'm really getting the correct kind of dash. - On Wikipedia, it's even more stark - I typically only need the em dash. On occasion I will need symbols for foreign-language scripts (eg if I want to add the native name of something to an article but it happens to be in a non-Latin script), but for me this is pretty uncommon. There is an "Often used" section, but again the em and en dashes appear right next to each other.
(Wikidata and Wikifunctions don't currently have a special character menu AFAICT.)
It would really nice if the special character menu was revamped to show the special characters editors really need!
I recognize that this might not apply to all wikis. A lot of them are written in non-Latin-script languages, so they might even treat the Latin alphabet as a foreign script! Also, some editors might use different sets of special characters than I do out of personal preference. However, it is definitely something worth considering.
Assigned focus area
Unassigned.
Type of wish
System change
Related projects
All projects
Affected users
editors
Other details
- Created: 21:27, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Last updated: 22:16, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- Author: Duckmather (talk)