Help:Enhanced recent changes

The preferences can be set to use the Enhanced Recent Changes feature (not for all browsers) instead of the classical Recent Changes. It groups recent changes per day, where "day" is defined according to local time. For each day, it groups the changes by article, and displays the titles of the changed articles in order from new to old latest change of the day concerned, or in the case of hiding minor edits, latest major change.

Multiple edits on the same day to a single article are grouped together on the Recent Changes screen. Only a summary line is shown, info about the individual edits is loaded into the browser right away but only shown by clicking on the blue arrow on the left. This option uses JavaScript, and won't work in every browser (see Browser issues with MediaWiki).

This feature applies also to Related changes and the enhanced watchlist. The latter is simply a selection of the enhanced recent changes, namely a restriction to watched pages, without the bolding.

Composition of lines
(For the pages Wikipedia:Upload log, the corresponding pages on Wiktionary and Wikibooks, and perhaps a few more pages some links are not present).

Pages for which there is only one edit
The line shows:

Nm ! time pagename (diff; hist). . (size_change). . username (Talk | contribs | block) edit_summary


 * possibly "N" for new page
 * possibly "m" for minor edit
 * possibly "!" for edit patrol
 * time (the date is not shown here, it is in a header)
 * page name linked to the current version
 * the link diff to this edit
 * the link hist to the page history
 * change in the size of the wikitext in bytes
 * user, linked to his or her user page
 * Talk, linking to the user talk page
 * contribs, linking to the user contributions page
 * if the page is loaded by a sysop: block
 * edit summary

Pages for which there are multiple edits
The top line, which is the only one shown before clicking on the arrow, shows:

> time pagename (number_of_changes changes)..(size_change)..(Page history) [username (number_of_editsx)];..]


 * time
 * page name linked to the current version
 * number of edits during the day concerned (if it is the oldest day covered by this Enhanced Recent Changes page: restricted by the total number of edits covered by this page)
 * the link changes to the cumulation of these changes
 * change in the size of the wikitext in bytes
 * Link Page history
 * the users, linked to their user pages, with for each the number of edits

The lines per edit show:

Nm ! time (cur; last). . (size_change). . username (Talk | contribs | block) edit_summary


 * possibly "N" for new page
 * possibly "m" for minor edit
 * possibly "!" for edit patrol
 * time, linked to the page version created at this time
 * the link cur to this edit
 * the link last to this edit
 * change in the size of the wikitext in bytes
 * user, linked to his or her user page
 * Talk, linking to the user talk page
 * contribs, linking to the user contributions page
 * if the page is loaded by a sysop: block
 * edit summary

In the case that a page is moved, the data refer to the edits of the page that at the time had the specified name. In the case of edits before the move and edits of the redirect resulting from the move, the figure for the total change in size is not the actual total of the size changes listed, because it also includes the size change due to changing into a redirect because of the move.

Examples
The default recent changes looks like this:
 * (diff) (hist) . . MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing mathematical formulae; 10:06 . . 111.222.33.44 (Talk) (Add examples)
 * (diff) (hist) . . M MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing mathematical formulae; 10:04 . . Anthere (Talk) (links)
 * (diff) (hist) . . N MediaWiki User's Guide; 10:04 . . Brion VIBBER (Talk) (New page)
 * (diff) (hist) . . Endnotes moved to Footnotes; 10:03 . . Maveric149 (Talk)

Enhanced recent changes shows changes to one page on the same line, with an arrow next to it:

10:06 MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing mathematical formulae (2 changes; Page history)  [ 111.222.33.44; Anthere ] N. 10:04 MediaWiki User's Guide (cur; hist). . Brion VIBBER (Talk) (New page)  .. 10:03 Endnotes moved to Footnotes (cur; hist). . Maveric149 (Talk)

Clicking this arrow expands the entry so you can see all the changes made:

10:06 MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing mathematical formulae (2 changes; Page history)  [ 111.222.33.44; Anthere ] . . . . . . 10:06</tt> (cur; last). . 111.222.33.44 (Talk) (Add examples) <font color=#eee>. . .. . M</tt> 10:04</tt> (cur; last). . Anthere (Talk) (links) N</tt> <font color=#eee> 10:04</tt> MediaWiki User's Guide (cur; hist). . Brion VIBBER (Talk) (New page) <font color=#eee> .. 10:03</tt> Endnotes moved to Footnotes (cur; hist). . Maveric149 (Talk)

RTL languages
Comparison of enhanced recent changes on an site and on an LTR site (line with an arrow):
 * RTL site, LTR interface
 * [(x2) changes)..(+36)..(Page history) [username 2) pagename 12:53 <
 * RTL site, RTL interface
 * [(x2) username] (changes)..(36+)..(2 :Page history) pagename 12:53 <
 * LTR site and interface
 * > 12:53 pagename (2 changes)..(+36)..(Page history) [username (2x)]

Thus, on the RTL site, in "2 changes", the "2" gets separated from "changes". Also, on an RTL site with LTR interface, in "username (2x)", the "(2x)" gets separated from "username", and the bracket structure seems broken.