(In reply to James Forrester from comment #3)
> Most of these points are met by the re-work of these that has been worked on
> for months as part of the citation work – see
> http://mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Design/Reference_Dialog but broadly a
> much simplified version of the full transclusion dialog is being made
> (provisionally I'm calling it the template dialog) which removes the TOC and
> makes a lot of other changes.
> 
> There's also bug 53604 which tracks improvements in general; should we
> factor out the unique parts of this bug (not quite sure which)?
> 
> (In reply to Derk-Jan Hartman from comment #0)
> > I find the whole thing to be rather confusing. It's much too technical. Also
> > it partially mixes the concept of ToC with that of a structure editor. It
> > has some widgets on the ToC (add template, add content, change order) and
> > others inside the editor (Add param, del param, del template). This is
> > terribly inconsistent. And makes you having to scan the screen too much.
> 
> Add param – moved to ToC for transclusion dialog, and to bottom for template
> dialog.

{{done}}

> Del param – currently being left on each param; we could move it, but not
> sure where?
> 
> Del template – will not available in template dialog; being left in place
> right now for transclusion dialog.

{{done}}

[Snip]

> > For new templates insertion, make an addition to templatedata
> > "openedBy, closedBy", and only add the buttons if the template data says
> > they are needed.
> 
> This is a nice idea, though it could get very complex ("this template can be
> opened by these four templates, or these two templates in conjunction, but
> not following this template, except on Category: pages, but only with
> language conversion switched on, unless it's a Tuesday…").

I've spun this out to its own bug, bug 62338.

> > 3: Keyboard control. I try tab key to move focus to the "Add template"
> > button next to the field. Seems this is captured by the UI, so I cannot move
> > focus that way. It seems I can only click the button. BAD... Also seems that
> > the add button and the delete buttons do not have a :focus state. Or rather,
> > it seems that buttons have focus state, but the focusable element is the <a>
> > inside it, so it doesn't really work.
> 
> Yeah, there's some bits of keyboard work that need improvement, and the
> tension between accessibility and utility is acute here.

Partially done; OOjs UI buttons are not, which is bug 62337.

> > 4: The layout of the params view.. I don't know how to do it better right
> > now, but this needs work. too many lines/blocks, it's too cluttered. Do you
> > need a double line separator if you have a heading ?
> 
> See
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VE-reference-dailog-design-05b.png

{{done}}

(In reply to Elitre from comment #4)
> What about a drop-down menu with a list of most used templates (on the
> project or chosen by the single user)? I think it was asked somewhere else,
> but it's being brought up again on en.wp so I hope this is the right place
> to mention it. I know something like this will be added to the referencing
> system, but it'd be great to have it for more general purposes as well.

That's bug 53590.

Consequently, I'm closing this bug as "FIXED", which is not quite right but is a better disposal that the alternatives.