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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

FamilySearch.org is Planning an Upgrade to the Research Wiki



The issue seems to be links vs. tabs. A recent FamilySearch blog post by Danielle Bateson, entitled "A New Look is Coming for the FamilySearch Research Wiki," states the following:
Here is some exciting news about the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Our Research Wiki site will receive a major upgrade later this year (2014). This future upgrade will provide some welcome improvements. For example, there will be more space on the web page to view enriched text and images. There will also be increased editing capabilities for contributors and several other useful changes.
The announcement links to a survey about the "new look." There are two versions of the new page layout. Here are screenshots of the versions:

Version One:


You will definitely have to click on the image to see the page. Here is Version Two:


They look pretty much the same. In addition, the menu at the bottom of Version Two is usually caused by having the margins of your browser window too narrow and is what you see now in different browsers.

This is the kind of change that usually engenders a great deal of controversy and discussion in the Wiki circles, but almost goes unnoticed by the average user. If you look at Version One in full screen, you will see that the lines are very long and it is difficult to read, but this is easily solved by shrinking your browser window.

I am very glad to see so attention being paid to the Research Wiki, but I am not sure that changing menu items and moving things around a bit constitutes a new look. I find the Wiki extremely useful and I am very proactive in recommending it to everyone at every level of experience.

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