Forum:Make sticky header default

I've created a new gadget that make the page header, or the top links and search box, stick to the top of the screen. Right now you can opt-in for this experience, but I think it should be the default for the following reasons:

• Search box is now much more convenient to access
• Much easier access to the links including talk page, edit, history, watch, move and purge. This is going to make editing experience much better, especially on long pages.

This feature is inspired by the Vector 2022 skin and an option on the RuneScape Wikis that you can enable.

You can experiment with it by enabling it in Special:Preferences or appending ?withgadget=stickyHeader on any page.

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 Support as proposer. -- DIR GIM Dianliang233 T C 10:59, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Strong support per reasons listed. Being forced to scroll up to search, edit the whole page, or see the talk page is incredibly annoying. If it is only optional then a good portion of editors won’t know about its existence or won’t be able access it because they aren’t logged in. - Harristic | Talk 👁 DungeonsEntitySprite penguin-onesie.png: Sprite image for penguin-onesie in Minecraft
11:50, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

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I'd support some form of sticky search bar for reasons given above, but I'm not sure if it makes sense to have Edit, Talk and other editor-related links be there as well, especially for logged out readers. This draws a lot of emphasis to these links, which ultimately aren't that relevant to readers who aren't actively involved in editing. –Sonicwave ^talk 19:52, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Strong support – ThisNewWikiIsSoMuchBettertalk | contribs 15:12, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

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 Support--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 05:02, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

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 Needs tweaking – good idea but before this should be enabled to everyone I feel like the current design for the fixed header needs some tweaking. For one I find the missing top margin / seemingly misaligned grass texture strange, and the cutoff on the bottom of the sticky header is a bit weird as well (wondering if some kind of gradient would make sense - would need to try that out). I also agree with Sonicwave that it doesn't make as much sense for logged-out readers to have all the (for them) useless links to talk, history and editing constantly on screen, so an opt-in toggle similar to dark mode might make more sense. | violine1101 ^(talk) 19:12, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I think a little pin icon to the right of the search bar to pin/unpin the header would be very nice Ishbosheth (talk) 01:17, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure where a good location and styling for the pin would be, and apart from that I also feel like this isn't really necessary. Either we should have the fixed header such that it works fine for everyone, or we shouldn't enable it by default.
Also, I've done some customizations for this in my personal CSS: namely, I've added a gradient and added an offset for links to article sections. However, the latter offset unfortunately doesn't work when you visit a page for the first time; this is also an issue with the unmodified gadget, where the section heading you jump to is always hidden by the sticky header (example: Trading#Librarian). | violine1101 ^(talk) 22:42, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Another more important issue: The sticky header conflicts with VisualEditor's sticky toolbar and hides it. | violine1101 ^(talk) 01:41, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

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 Needs tweaking If you have a text box selected like the edit source page and scroll the entire page, it just dissapears. Might be that I'm on iPadOS. It also does not work on mobile view.👁 Image
Software512 (talk) 20:30, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I've been using this while editing and browsing for a little while and I have found it to be quite nice, I would 👁 Image
 Support adding this - I think a very nice way to do it would be to add a little pin icon to the right of the search bar that would let you pin and unpin the header quickly, similar to how the dark mode toggle works. Ishbosheth (talk) 01:17, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

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 Needs reworking It looks weird, as the page tools were never meant to be sticky. Additionally, it lacks the more important links, such as theme switcher. --TreeIsLife (talk) 20:53, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

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 Needs adjustments I like it, but there are two important things that should be fixed before it is made default - it hides the VE toolbar (as Violine mentioned) so you have to scroll all the way up to the top of the page to save your changes or insert a template, for example. Also, when clicking on the arrow next to a reference in the references section at the bottom of the page, it takes you to where that reference is used in the article. However, with the sticky header, it gets covered. Also, I 👁 Image
 Support the idea of the pin. It would make it an easy, obvious, and intuitive process to enable or disable the sticky header based on people's preferences. 👁 Image
plighting_engineerd (talk) 17:58, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I think there is a general agreement that we should add a sticky header. However, there is some dispute between what the header should contain and what it shouldn't.

First things first, I need to point out that while Talk, Edit and History may sound "editor-only" things, I don't believe in they should be shown to editors only. You see, they can be used to quickly make an edit or use history to revert the edit, even by an anonymous user, which can increase a chance of an edit from these users (which increases a chance of becoming an editor).

That's why I propose all these actions to be included:

• Width toggle
• Edit
• History
• Talk
• Search
• Theme Switcher

I'll also left these for consideration:

• User actions shortcut
• Social media links

--TreeIsLife (talk) 20:53, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Currently the sticky header is identical to the header that's on top of the page by default. If we want to also include the theme switcher (which might also change in the future, different topic) and user profile there, this requires a new design which doesn't match that. I'm wondering if moving the profile stuff into a dropdown tab to the right of the search bar might work? Not sure if I'd be a fan of that. | violine1101 ^(talk) 22:45, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Do we want something similar to Vector 2022's toolbar? GIM Dianliang233 T C 04:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I certainly agree that editor stuff should be included, we have anonymous editing enabled so I'm unsure why we'd discourage anons editing by not putting editor stuff on sticky header. As for user links and width/theme toggles, it would be ideal to have them, some sort of drop down menu will probably be necessary. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
20:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)