Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 00:35, 4 July 2013 editJalexander-WMF (talk \| contribs)Extended confirmed users1,284 edits →URGENT: visual editor re-enabled itself and is now impossible to disable: fixed← Previous edit		Revision as of 00:37, 4 July 2013 edit undoEric Corbett (talk \| contribs)45,616 edits →Sourcing Difficult: JeezNext edit →
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	::I think he means he figured it out for the old source editor, but can't figure out how to add sources ''in the new visual editor''. He left out ''in the new visual editor'' at the end of his sentence. Cut people some slack. We are trying to get more editors, and more editing, and not to drive them away with snark. --] (]) 00:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)		::I think he means he figured it out for the old source editor, but can't figure out how to add sources ''in the new visual editor''. He left out ''in the new visual editor'' at the end of his sentence. Cut people some slack. We are trying to get more editors, and more editing, and not to drive them away with snark. --] (]) 00:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

			:::You may be a mind reader, but I'm not. And keep your fucking "snark" to yourself asshole. ] ] 00:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

	== Transclusions are confusing ==		== Transclusions are confusing ==

Revision as of 00:37, 4 July 2013

To help test the VisualEditor:

Go to any page in the article or user namespaces and click "Edit" instead of "Edit source" – this should open the VisualEditor
Attention Internet Explorer (IE) users: VisualEditor is temporarily disabled for IE9 and IE10 users, due to various issues that are being fixed. VisualEditor will not be made available for users of IE8 and earlier; such editors should switch to some other browser in order to use VisualEditor.

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Share your feedback

Report bugs

Your feedback about the VisualEditor beta release

This page is a place for you to tell the Wikimedia developers what issues you encounter when using the VisualEditor here on Misplaced Pages. It is still a test version and has a number of known issues and missing features. We do welcome your feedback and ideas, especially on some of the user interface decisions we're making and the priorities for adding new functions. All comments are read, but personal replies are not guaranteed.

A VisualEditor User Guide is at Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User_guide.

Add a new comment – View known bugs – Report a new bug in Bugzilla – Join the IRC channel: #mediawiki-visualeditor

Archives (generated by MiszaBot II):

view · edit Frequently asked questions

If you would like to try VisualEditor without editing an article, here is a page where you can freely do so. You don't need an account to use it.

Shortcut

WP:VE/FAQ

Main page
Feedback at MediaWiki
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About

Documentation:
Development:
- Roadmap up to 2017
- Updates (2013-2023)
- Weekly status reports (2015-2016)

Help out

Research

Main research page

Other

Why are the developers building this? (2013)
- User Test Data (2013)
Customization
Known problems
Requests for Comments (RfCs): Jul 2013 a, Jul 2013 b, Jul 2015, Sep 2015

What is VisualEditor?: VisualEditor is a way to edit pages that looks more like a word processor. It was first offered here in 2013.
How do I enable VisualEditor?: VisualEditor is available alongside the original wikitext editor if you opt-in, by changing your preferences. It is currently not available to unregistered users at the English Misplaced Pages, unless they switch modes while editing.
Why is this change being made?: Some people who could become productive, experienced members of the community are turned off upon attempting their first edit in wikitext "source" mode. Some edits, such as adding or rearranging columns to a table in wikitext, are difficult even for experienced editors.
Where do I go to learn more about how to use VisualEditor?: Please see the VisualEditor User guide.
Does VisualEditor make automatic fixes to pages?: In most cases, VisualEditor will not change or reformat lines that are not being directly edited. If markup already on the page is handled incorrectly (for example, with tables that are not closed), then it may attempt to correct these.
Will it still be possible to edit articles using wikitext after the visual editor becomes available?: Yes. While the visual editor will become available to all users as an editing environment, a method for editing the underlying wikitext "source" will continue to exist. There are no plans to remove the "Edit source" option.
Won't this slow down reading and editing for people who have slow connections or computers?: VisualEditor loads the bulk of its code only when you edit a page in the visual editing mode. So if you keep using "Edit source" or are a reader, the effect on your user experience should be negligible (~4KB of additional JavaScript payload before you click "Edit", or about 0.5% of one typical page). Your web browser will typically cache the JavaScript, speeding up future uses even if you are on a slow connection. However, using the visual editor for editing may cause problems for those on slow computers or connections, especially on very large pages. For these users, opting-out for now may be the best option.
I've found an issue with VisualEditor or a feature that is missing. How can I tell you to fix it?: Please report the issue in Phabricator, after first searching exiting tickets to make sure it hasn't been reported already. Additional bug reporting instructions can be found here. There are four main kinds of issues that the developers especially need to hear about:

Something breaks: The failure may only affect a particular type of browser or computer, on a particular page, or after doing something else. Please post your problem at Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback. In your description, it is helpful to include information about what you were trying to do, your web browser, computer operating system, and a link to the article or a diff of the edit if it was possible for you to save the change.
Performance problems: If all pages seem unexpectedly slow on loading or on performing a particular task, or if it used to be faster and has recently gotten worse, then please report this.
User experience issues: If it didn't make sense, or if it was awkward, or if you couldn't figure out what you needed to do (Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User guide covers the basics), please speak up, and feel free to offer your suggestions for improving the design.
Missing functionality: Is there something you need to do, but it currently can't be done in VisualEditor, like editing mathematics equations or seeing hidden comments that contain instructions to other editors? Make sure that it's on the developers' list of needed features. If you'd like to know which missing features have been reported before, you can search the talk page archives and feedback archives. If you can't find any reference to the new feature you'd like to suggest, please report it at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Can visual editor be customized ?: Yes, see Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Customization, and mw:VisualEditor gadgets for more advanced customization.
How do I disable VisualEditor?: To continue to edit the wikitext directly, simply click the "Edit source" button instead of "Edit". On section edit links, you can open the wikitext editor selected in your preferences for that section by clicking "edit source" instead of the regular "edit" link.

If you would like to remove VisualEditor from the user interface, then you can do so.
- If it is a beta feature: go to the Beta tab of your preferences page, untick the checkbox "Visual Editor", and click the Save button near the bottom of the page. (As of 2021, this is how you do it on Meta-Wiki and the Chinese Misplaced Pages.)
- If the visual editor is already out of beta:
  - go to the Editing tab of your Preferences page, untick the checkbox "⧼visualeditor-preference-betatempdisable⧽", and click the Save button near the bottom of the page. (This is how you do it on some sister Wikipedias, for instance, Russian Misplaced Pages, as of 2021.)
  - on English Misplaced Pages, go to the Editing tab of your Preferences page and change the "Editing mode" to "Always give me the source editor"

See Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Opt-out for other options.
Can I install VisualEditor on my personal wiki outside Wikimedia?: Yes. The VisualEditor extension is available for download.
Can I use named references like the basic wikicode editor does, so I can choose my own reference names?: This has been requested via Community feedback, and is on the list of things to do. There are some links and more information about this on the Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Named references page.
The FAQ didn't answer my question. Where may I ask it?: You can ask on the central feedback page on mediawiki.org.

Notes

<<And no, we're not taking markup-level editing away. Some users may always prefer it over visual editing, even if the exact nature of the markup changes, and even if VisualEditor becomes the best tool it can possibly be.>> Erik Möller, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change, op-ed for Misplaced Pages Signpost, July 31st, 2013.

Please, leave things the way they are

Not all change is for the betterment of Misplaced Pages. Enough said. Bwmoll3 (talk) 18:23, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Not enough said at all. What specific problems do you have with the VisualEditor? It's going to be deployed at some stage; it is in everyone's interests for people with issues to speak up so we can try to solve for them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Okeyes (WMF). What I'm about to say is not directly for you but to them who are complaining here. I wish people could be more open with VE as it surely brings new editors who have avoided editing because they are not into codes and stuff. I wish people would not attack each other when they first see some changes. I've been a member of a game community for over 5 years and have done nothing but found and reported bugs. I used to enjoy the game until it turned out to be full time job and yet I didn't walk away. Over five years I've been struggling with the game, with its old version, beta version and now with a new version. Surely it's been exhausting but as I said I didn't walk away even though we had no chances of editing old-fashioned style and new-fashioned style as people can do in wikipedia. We only have got one style for editing and it's a lot worse than what happening here. Old editors here can use old-fashioned style for editing and yet they are complaining when you guys are trying to make this more user friendly for people who have knowledge but have no time or interest of learning all codes, as Pointillist mentioned below. Feedback is always welcome but being hostile for changes that really don't take anything off but give more tools for more people is not constructive. It's not polite to belittle newcomers. Also I have been screaming for many things and changes in my game community and in life generally but it doesn't mean I need to be mean when something happens. If people rather have this hostile attitude over VE towards other people even they have no reasons for that, you can be sure that newcomers don't join this community and leave you all in peace for doing what ever you were doing before VE, even though it would mean that they also take knowledge with them. If old editors here know all about everything, who needs new editors and their knowledge in this perfect community. Any of you have been novice once but obviously don't want to remember that. It's time to remind that we have to start somewhere as you once did. If you think that you can make wikipedia by yourself and don't need more people and knowledge here, so be it, but I have learnt long time ago that there's no such thing as perfect people. No offense but these comments here make me wonder if I wanted to do anything with wikipedia. But as I'm not doing anything much in English wikipedia, I don't need to read these negative comments, unless I'm looking for some help here. I really wish people could take things as they are, especially when there's no reason for crying out loud. The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on. And pardon my French. ;) AniaKallio (talk) 09:03, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, AnniaKallio :). I...don't have anything additional to add, because I think you've said it all! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

We've been screaming for a Visual Editor for literally years. If you say "whoah, let's halt this" now, no-one will listen, and quite rightly. The VE is almost usable enough for a serious workout ... that magical point where software becomes usable enough to seriously beta for bugs - David Gerard (talk) 19:56, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is any doubt about the strategic importance of having a full-featured, stable Visual Editor that inexperienced editors can use to make contributions without great risk of damaging existing articles. As I see it, the majority of concerns being expressed here are about deploying the current solution too widely too soon. It's a question of what&when, not whether. - Pointillist (talk) 21:10, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not sanguine about this being ready for a July release. It's so near serious beta status, though ... I'll whinge about it here, with diffs, because I want it to get better real quick ... I've been tending to do a simple edit, create a diff that's been crapped all over, then revert and post the bad edit here, 'cos that's the best way I can think of to get attention to the problems - David Gerard (talk) 21:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Mmm, I agree, except that real quick angle. IMO that's not really how software gets fixed. There's a small development team for VE and it looks as though the implications of editing complex pages completely safely weren't sufficiently explored by the business. It'll take time to get this right, and I doubt that Okeyes (WMF)'s recent promises to "kick the developers" are going to help. - Pointillist (talk) 21:50, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

It's the popular pages, which tend to have the insanely complicated wikitext, which the n00bs will hit first. I'm sure it'll be popcorn all round - David Gerard (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

That is the problem with WMF lately. Trying to kick things to impose their will instead of working through rough consensus. The WMF tries to run things through Meta which few people check for long due to the lack of integrated watchlists. Then the WMF tries to use "a small development team for VE" instead of what is needed, a massive development team. When the WMF finally realizes after years of work that the poorly-funded VE team may actually have something almost usable it tries to rush it through real testing on English Misplaced Pages.

Then the VE team gets inundated with genuine, non-ass-kissing feedback from busy editors who aren't part of the cliques at Meta and WMF. So this is the real world of English Misplaced Pages where no prisoners are taken. Get used to it, WMF. Or you may alienate more active editors by imposing a half-finished product.

This really is a good product if both source code editing of sections, and VE editing of sections, can both be used at anytime without having to go through preferences. That is being worked on (see bugzilla:48429). Lots of things need to be fixed, but the basic product looks good. Much better than Wikia's visual editor. But fixing all the problems will take time, and this beta should not be made the default for registered editors until the problems are fixed. Now that registered editors can opt in to VE the problems will continually be pointed out and fixed. And no one will be forced to use VE during this beta period. VE will not mess up thousands of pages if it is not prematurely made the default. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

So, let me just correct some assumptions here. The WMF isn't using a small development team - by Foundation standards, it's a very large development team. We've currently got eight people assigned to the project, seven of them devs (which seems the right ratio to me, at least). The WMF isn't running things through Meta, it's running things in parallel on multiple wikis - I can't help but feel that it's somewhat silly to poke a WMF staffer to pay attention to your thread, on enwiki, on the enwiki VE feedback page, which the staffer monitors, as part of a suite of pages on enwiki set up by the VE team....to tell the staffer that things are being run through meta.

If you think we're not aware that the enwiki community is a "real world" community, I invite you to take a look at my userpage and tell me that the people running this launch don't know what they're doing. Then take a look at my boss's. Following this, I invite you to come back and offer the feedback you have in a tone that doesn't imply you think we're all idiots. We're not expecting ass-kissing; we're expecting basic politeness. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It has obviously not been a large enough development team over time if it has taken this long to get this far. To say otherwise is delusional. A visual editor has been desired for many, many years. Much discussion about many major development projects in the past in my experience has been through Meta. Other venues have been used too. The major feedback discussion about the visual editor in practice on Misplaced Pages has only occurred relatively recently, and it is being rushed through incredibly fast lately. If you are asking whether I think some of the WMF staff are idiots, you are baiting and trolling.

You did not address the point from me and others in this thread about this being rushed through lately. Pointillist asks: "As I see it, the majority of concerns being expressed here are about deploying the current solution too widely too soon. It's a question of what&when, not whether." He also wrote: "There's a small development team for VE and it looks as though the implications of editing complex pages completely safely weren't sufficiently explored by the business." --Timeshifter (talk) 10:28, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The technical complexities of any VisualEditor are vast. While it has been discussed for many years, that is very different from it being developed for many years. Development only began around two years ago (actually, taking into account the Parsoid team - we've got 12 developers, not 7. Certainly the biggest team I've seen here). Much discussion has occured on Meta in your experience, I'm sure - but this is not the case for the VisualEditor, or Page Curation, or AFT5, or Echo, or the mobile team's work, to my knowledge, or... etc, etc, etc. I haven't seen meta used as a primary discussion venue for major software since I joined the Foundation, almost two years ago. And if you think Meta is somewhere that the Foundation gets ass-kissing, I'd ask if you've ever seen the sort of people who tend to edit on Meta ;p.

To address your core point: yes, we're developing quickly - that's not a timetable set by me (or anyone else on the team), but it's a timetable we're going to do our best to adhere to while also doing our best to avoid deploying a bad product. There are a lot of bugs with the VE at the moment, some major, some minor, and the community-facing staffers are working closely with the development team to get them resolved, and to make clear what bugs are (from our point of view) blockers to any deployment. I have hope that these bugs will be fixed before any deployment takes place. Should new ones crop up during, for example, the A/B test, on such a scale as to totally disrupt editing for VE users and non-VE users, we retain the ability to disable the VE very quickly. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:40, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I discuss the technical aspects in the next talk section.

I don't want to belabor a point, but if the visual editor has only been worked on for 2 years, then it is worse than I thought. Wikia worked on it longer, and people have been asking about it on Misplaced Pages almost since Misplaced Pages was first started. Also, I wonder how many of the people working on VE have been working on it full-time. And when did they move from working on it part-time to working on it more. People have often asked the WMF to hire more development staff instead of the other staff they hire. I know I have. There are so many major features that have been requested over the years.

As for Meta, I use Meta as my all-around generalization for WMF discussing things away from Misplaced Pages. Whether feedback occurs through MediaWiki.org or Bugzilla or Meta or Strategy or other wikis they are all places ignored for the most part by regular editors due to the lack of integrated watchlists. MediaWiki.org uses the much-hated LiquidThreads for its talk pages. So it has 2 strikes against it being used much by regular Misplaced Pages editors for feedback. Bugzilla is even more difficult for regular editors to use and keep up with. It took me a long time to figure out how to use it somewhat effectively. I even researched and wrote a lot of how-to tips at WP:Bugzilla. You and I both act as interfaces between regular editors and developers, and between regular editors and the WMF board/staff. But the real solution in my opinion is to move most WMF and developer feedback to locations with watchlists that more people use: English Misplaced Pages and/or the Commons. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:28, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm certain much work has gone into this, however, I suggest that you have an "opt out" option. I've been on Misplaced Pages for over 7 years and have over 120,000 edits and have written several thousand new articles.

Honestly, I haven't heard a massive cry from the user community about the need for a visual editor. Nevertheless, I subscribe to the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) philosophy when it comes to change and "making things better". I'm quite happy, thank you, with the current editor as it gives me maximum flexibility to edit and create articles without having to experience the problematic issues that seem to be well-documented by other Wikipedians (above) in this discussion.

If Visual Editor is designed for new editors, then that's all well and good. However, for the experienced editors here, I'd be quite happy with the old, antiquated, simple editor I've been using the past seven + years. I just don't see any advantage of going though a leaning curve to learn new software that, in the end, will force a learning curve and in the end, do exactly what we're doing now with the existing editor that is quite simple to use, is extremely flexible and quite adequate. Just a few thoughts. Bwmoll3 (talk) 08:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Brent,

At this point, there are absolutely no plans at all to turn off the classic wikitext editor for anyone. You don't need to opt out of VE to get what you're used to. You just need to click the button, which will always be on every editable page. Or, to put it another way, there's no way to opt out of the classic wikitext editor. Everyone will have access to both.

For values of always that may be somewhat shorter than the WP:DEADLINE, but are longer than the next couple of years.

If what you want is a way to hide any reminder that VE even exists from yourself, rather than simply choosing not to use it, then let me know. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 14:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

VE for new editors

I'm looking forward to VE because it'll make it possible to introduce friends and family to the joys of editing (and wasting hours trying to find sources for articles). When Everything is Working Properly™ I'm going to encourage my brother, sister, father and father-in-law to get started here. They've each got domain-specific knowledge, good writing skills and I know the retired parents have time to spare. If all our experienced editors were to recruit and induct a couple of new editors each, the project would get an enormous boost. That's the central benefit of the Visual Editor IMO. - Pointillist (talk) 10:25, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

An excellent point :). You know, I've been genuinely impressed by how willing so many community members are to open their minds around the VisualEditor. Sometimes I'll be working on software and it'll be a bit controversial, or not aimed at experienced editors, and a user will just suddenly turn up and blow me away with a well-reasoned argument for why this is A Good Thing, even if it's not something they'd use. With the VisualEditor, that seems to be happening daily. My barnstar button is looking rather worn. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:10, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I do agree that VE will be useful in attracting new editors, but I strongly believe that there should still be an opt-out option (excuse my repetition) for VE for pre-VE editors who do not prefer the new change, even after VE is out of development stages. smileguy91 23:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Opting out

Hi, How do you opt out from this Visual Editor? I like the current editing system a lot. --Bogu Slav 07:04, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

There will be an "Edit source" button you can use to access the old editor. –Thatotherperson (talk/contribs) 07:17, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That is the current way to not use it. Once VisualEditor is turned on as default, you can go to your preferences and under the editing options turn off VisualEditor, just as right now you can select to turn it on. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:51, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Or use one of the many browsers that are currently not supported, such as Opera.... Personally I still think this is being rushed far too quickly. Dsergeant (talk) 06:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Are they not going to give us both buttons? I thought making VE the default simply meant everyone would have two edit buttons.
Thatotherperson (talk/contribs) 07:10, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm interested to see where Keegan is getting this information from. As far as I can tell, wikitext editing will remain available indefinitely. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:06, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure. @Keegan:, Thatotherperson's advice is actually correct :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't mind me sometimes, I'm new :) I misread the question. Edit source is not going away. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 05:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

How to opt out needs to be clearly explained on the information page. It took me a lot of searching to figure it out. Preferences > Gadgets > under Editing, check/tick "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface". It is not at Preferences > Editing, where one would expect it. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Devin (talk) 22:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Yngvadottir. I had indeed been looking under 'Editing'. Yintan 00:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Why does clicking “Leave” not opt out of this abomination? --KAMiKAZOW (talk) 02:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

There is an option in your preferences to hide it - or you could just, well, click on the other tab. Can you explain why you don't like it? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Text appearing behind infobox / behaviour after editing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52181

VisualEditor is improving a lot and in general I now prefer using it to editing the wikitext, so that's a huge step forward. I'm really looking forward to the instructions on how to use TemplateData so that we can get template parameters displaying in VE. A couple of issues I've noticed lately:

In VE infoboxes tend to sit on top of the text rather than the text wrapping around the infobox. As such you can't edit the text underneath (or you can, but you can't see what you're doing!)
When I first navigate to an article page and click any of the section edit links, VE opens. After making a change in VE, if I then click on one of the section edit links, I get the old wikitext edit box. Similarly javascript tools (notably WP:POPUPS) don't seem to work after saving an edit in VE.

Sorry if these are already known issues. WaggersTALK 07:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Can you give an example of the first one? (testing the second now). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:57, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Second now listed in Bugzilla :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Waggers, in addition to the name of an article where you found the first problem, it might be useful to know which browser you're using and which operating system. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I'm using Chrome (version 27.0.1453.116) on Windows XP. It certainly seems to happen on Borough of Eastleigh and some VERY strange things are happening when I load the Southampton article in VE. I think it's something to do with the image_map parameter of {{Infobox settlement}}. WaggersTALK 07:27, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Having played a bit more, it's not image_map specifically but there definitely seems to be something odd when there's an image in the infobox. WaggersTALK 07:50, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Just {{Infobox settlement}}? Is it happening on other pages with other info boxes that contain images? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 09:15, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes it is, it seems to happen with any page with an infobox containing an image that is wider than the infobox would be if it didn't contain the image. WaggersTALK 19:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52416

I see what you mean. The opposite happens at an article like Leukemia, where it seems to think everything should be skinnier than default. I have just created a Bugzilla account and filed this as my first bug. (I hope I did it right!) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 09:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. The developers have closed that as a duplicate, and claim the duplicate bug is resolved. Certainly things look better at Southampton but the problem is still occurring both there and at Borough of Eastleigh. WaggersTALK 09:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It's supposed to be the same problem as Template:Bugzilla. Southampton is still screwed up for me. I'm not sure how to interpret this comment, which seems to say that it both hasn't deployed and that it already deployed. It might be one of those things that's fixed in the code but hasn't quite reached us. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 10:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Table/Template

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52361
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52423

When I am trying to edit anything on the table/template that exists on this page, even if that is a simple typo, it gives me the notification:
→Cite error: There are ref tags on this page, but the references will not show without a reflist template. (See help page)
First, why is this happening and second, it's obvious that the page does have a reflist. Same happens to all the table/templates that are like this one. TeamGale (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

We just patched referencing; can you try again and see what happens? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Just tried it again...same thing happens :( Is this not happening to you if try to change something? TeamGale (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Nope, now happening for me too :(. I'll throw it in Bugzilla. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:50, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

And now I can't edit references or templates at all. @TeamGale:, can you try editing the above article? Does it seem...screwy. To you? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

OK. The same thing as I said at the very beginning still happens with the table. Nothing changed. When I edit it, the notification appears so for now the only way to do it is with the "edit source" road.

For the references, I am not sure what you mean by saying that you can't edit them. Can't edit the old ones or can't add a new one? I can do both. What I noticed though is that when I clicked in an "old" ref to edit it, the text on the ref box appeared as a template so I had to click on it and edit it as template. I have to say that's something I was thinking to ask to be added on VE but, I see that it's already there. It took me 20min to discover how to do it after watching it but, I finally found it! :D

I am not sure if that's what you were asking. If the Q was if I could edit the article, table or refs, the answer is yes, except from the table that was the original problem TeamGale (talk) 14:59, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to say that this issue still exists. Can't edit with VE this type of templated because of the error that appears after the edit TeamGale (talk) 08:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Darn. Can you give me an example of a specific tweak I could make to replicate? I've found an error, but... Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmm...I don't think is something specific because if I try to edit anything on a table like the one above, even if it's just one letter, I get the error notice in red letters...if you can explain me how to post a screencap, I might be able to show you what I mean better. If you try to edit the table, you are not getting that notice? TeamGale (talk) 10:40, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I am. I'm not 100% sure it's a bug - it's a valid warning when there isn't a way to expand refs on the page, but there is at the bottom. That said, it certainly is confusing. In spite of the warning, I was still able to save the change (beyound -> beyond). TeamGale, are you trying to complete the edit after you change the template? The template editor subpage does not save the change - you have to click "Save Page" still at the top. Apologies if you knew that and it didn't work for you. :)

Meanwhile, while I managed to correct the typo, I am not at all happy with its decision to move episode 9 to the top of the list (). Checking to see if this is a known issue. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Now tracking :). Not a known issue, but an important one! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:23, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmm...to be honest, after getting that notice I never tried to save the page because I didn't want to "damage" the table. I was clicking cancel and was going the old way to make my edits. But it seems that what VE does after saving, is way more interesting. TeamGale (talk) 15:11, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Always save a bad VE edit, so you can post it here - you can always revert yourself straight after - David Gerard (talk) 16:28, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'll have that in mind from now on :) TeamGale (talk) 20:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Correcting typos

It would be helpful to have key mapping for correcting certain common typos, e.g.,

Flip case
Lower case
Transpose
Upper Case

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:28, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing where most operating systems provide key bindings; on windows, it's Shift+Letter, for example. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the user wants some kind of "change case" tool (e.g. change a passage of uppercase text to lowercase). The existing wikitext editor doesn't have this, but I suppose it could be nice to have it in VE. — This, that and the other (talk) 06:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Plausibly but, well, operating systems tend to cover this indirectly :/. Given the number of bugs/necessary enhancements I can't promise this is something we'll work on, now or in the near future. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:43, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Editors for operating systems may have tools for manipulating case, but not for altering the case of data maintained by an application. Are you suggesting cutting the text, pasting it into an external editor window, changing the case, cutting and pasting the text back? That would work, but seems rather clumsy. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:15, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that most keyboards have a shift or caps-lock key which OSes (and the VisualEditor) interpret as changing the case. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Or, in plain English, you're saying that if an editor encounters "tHIS IS THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES" in an article, then he should just re-type it from scratch rather than solving the problem by clicking a button.

This isn't a bug, but it would IMO be a nice feature enhancement to request for "someday". Perhaps it would be worth filing the request at Bugzilla. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:28, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The shift and caps-lock keys have an effect when you are typing; they cannot correct the case of text that has already been typed. Two of the editors that I use on a daily basis have case translation facilities, and I make heavy use of them. I doubt that I'm the only one that periodically accidently hits Caps Lock instead of Shift. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:43, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's easy to bump the caps-lock key (although I find that aiming for the tab key, rather than shift, is when I bump it). I also think it would be helpful for times when you're copying and pasting titles from sources, which sometimes use all-caps.

We could file a request for an enhancement. The only thing we can promise is that it won't happen any time soon, as fixing existing problems is obviously a higher priority than adding handy features. Would you like someone to do that? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:57, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. And I fully understand that doing things right would take time even without the presence of lots of higher priority enhancements and fixes. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

My fix for this problem has always been to prise the caps-lock key off the keyboard :) A pencil poked into the hole will turn it on and off when necessary. —SMALL JIM 10:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Special characters

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52296

It is awkward to enter special characters with the current editor. I would like to see a facility in VE to allow selecting characters from displayed Unicode pages as well as by typing their Unicode names. In additional, I would like a facility to automatically change certain characters to character attributes, e.g., . Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep; already in bugfzilla, the first bit. What's the use case for the second? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:58, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Support for Unicode names would allow easier navigation in the situation where you know the Unicode name but not the code point.

What about the suggestion for converting problematic characters to character attributes? It's awkward to type, e.g., &#91&#93, in contexts where wiki would otherwise interpret as having syntactic significance. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:45, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor doesn't normally interpret anything as having syntactic significance (see, e.g., half a dozen complaints that typing ] gets nowiki'ed rather than producing a link). You can already type text with single square brackets around it without doing anything special. Here is an example. Did you have something else in mind? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

As an example, if I ask VE to insert a {{cite manual}} with page=37, will VE escape the ? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

If you try to insert it as raw text, yes, along with the braces and pipes. If you try to insert it as a template, using the reference editor, no. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Then the reference editor would seem to be a case where an easy way to escape characters would be usefull. Easy escaping of brackets was the first example that came to mind, but needing to enter = as {{=}} would probably be more common. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Teaching users to escape sounds more complex than just having the template editor in the reference inspector, which is what we've done. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit and edit source links so confusing I had to disable Visual Editor in preferences

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

I disabled Visual Editor (VE) in preferences today due to constantly clicking the "edit" link instead of the "edit source" link. I am talking about section editing.

I almost always prefer editing with the source editor since I make frequent edits to tables, images, navboxes, and reference formatting. All at a deep level of formatting, placement, etc..

But since the source editing link only shows up after unintuitively mousing over the edit link I am constantly clicking the wrong link. So you have lost another beta tester. A good one too since I have written many comments and bug reports about VE here and in Bugzilla.

It would be better to use an icon for the "edit source" links for sections. For ideas:

commons:User:Timeshifter/Sandbox 10

The images below are all SVG except these:

(at native size of 23px).
(at native size of 23px).
(at native size of 22px).

15px:

20px:

25px:

30px: --Timeshifter (talk) 19:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate it's not immediately intuitive - I think that's always going to be the case for a subset of users with, well, any design. Icons are, I suspect, something that the community (at least on enwiki) would object to, and something that is very different from every other element of the interface, making them appear rather odd. If you look at the button below "enable the VisualEditor" in your preferences you will see there is an option to restore the old 'edit source' links as 'edit', without any mousing over; this is better than losing a beta tester, obviously. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

See: Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. Currently there are no more options listed after "Enable VisualEditor".

There are many icons used constantly on Misplaced Pages. Look at the editing toolbar in the edit window. Look at the top of the page at the star used to add and remove the page from one's watchlist.

Mousing over a similar, but incorrect, link to be able to click on another link is not intuitive. It is confusing. Many people might adapt to it kind of like adapting to cheap chairs. :) But that does not make something intuitive that is inherently non-intuitive and illogical.

"edit source" can show up after mousing over the icon. That is much more intuitive. Just like mousing over the watchlist star at the top of the page.

This could drive away many editors. Anonymous editors especially. They have no ability to fix the problem by turning off visual editor in preferences. Many anonymous editors just do not like to log in, and are very used to editing in source editor. Some will be very irritated by the confusing clicking. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:35, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Of the examples you've given, one of them (and it's a fairly tiny icon) is present in the reader-facing interface, which is what we're talking about here. I have serious concerns, as do others, that there would be understandable and substantial pushback from the community on introducing the icon, which would undermine any utility it provides since said utility is based on people accepting it. If you're interested in convincing us that this is worth pursuing, I invite you to start up a wider discussion about whether an icon would work better than the existing link. Again, I would ask for a citation on your statements about the habits of anonymous users. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I read what others write since I started editing Misplaced Pages in 2005. That is the citation. You can choose to ignore me, brush off my concerns, or otherwise pooh-pooh my complaints. You do this a lot concerning many complaints on this page. Your lack of respect in many cases, and true engagement in many cases, is an example of why many people dislike some of the WMF board members and staff.

I have seen your type of response many times on Wikia when we brought up the numerous problems with their visual editor. And so that visual editor remains unused by many, if not most, regular editors. Even worse this visual editor is now similar to that visual editor in that regular editors will have to disable it in order to be able to edit effectively. Wikia refused to provide an option to put the source editor tab on top of the visual editor tab. So people had to do a multi-stage process for every single edit in order to get to the source editor. Click edit, then wait tediously for visual editor to load, then click the source tab. For every edit...

Similar to here now. I have to use a multi-stage process to get to the source editor. Aim at "edit" link or the line it is on, mouse over that "edit" link or line, aim better if necessary, wait for "edit source" link to show up, move mouse over to that link, click. Many times I accidentally, or by habit, click the edit link, and then have to click the back button, and start over.

Here is a possible icon method. "Edit source" tooltip can show up after mousing over the icon. And the small icon can have a transparent left and right border that makes the area wider for mousing over. So people will have no problem understanding that the icon is an "edit source" link. The visible part of the icon will be small, similar in size to the watchlist star at the top of pages. But the clickable part would extend to the left and right a bit to allow easier clicking. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that my attitude is one of "brushing-off" complaints; I'd like to think that with the vast majority of issue reports I've been polite and reported them to the devs, who have ideally solved for the problems. But, here's the situation; my gut says that actually this is a pretty good implementation. The users here seem to agree - I see two contributors negative about it, three positive, which might not sound good but given the community's almost legendary capacity to speak up when it feels annoyed (and stay silent when it's comfortable with a decision) this would seem to suggest that people are generally okay with the change. My gut also says that the community is likely to be annoyed by an icon popping up in the middle of article text. I'm not brushing you off, I'm making a legitimate offer, here - demonstrate that this sort of iconography is something that the community wants or alternately is comfortable with, via a village pump discussion or any mechanism you choose, and I'll raise it to the developers. If you're not willing or able to do that all I can go on is the data I have in front of me, which, given the lack of shouting, strongly suggests most people are totally fine with it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:06, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

People shouldn't have to shout for you to listen. SHOUTING is frowned upon on Misplaced Pages. Several people in bugzilla:49666 also dislike multi-stage methods of getting to a link. It is clunky and wastes time. Anything that wastes editor time is a bad thing. The point of a visual editor is to get more editing done. It is hoped that it will make basic text editing and reference editing simpler for newbs. Making editing more difficult for more experienced editors is a bad idea. There are many experienced editors who do not log in. We can not afford to further erode the number of people who are editing. Nor can we afford anything that lessens the efficiency of editing.

Wikia's corporate execs and staff screwed up many things on Wikia, especially the visual editor. They had their gut feelings, and they have often been wrong. What is about execs and staff in organizations? I thing it has to do with groupthink, and the fear of telling the boss they are full of it on certain issues. So problems get glossed over, up and down the chain of command. Your gut feeling about icons is just that, a gut feeling. I highly doubt that anyone will edit less often, or edit less efficiently, because of an icon, or even a direct text link to "edit source". I am happy with either one. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:42, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying people have to shout at me, or that they should, just that they regularly do. If you think shouting is frowned upon you've clearly not seen many of the discussions around controversial software changes. I'm not a corporate exec - heck, I'm barely staff (short-term contractors ftw) - I'm a long-term editor and sysop who, my bosses will confirm, is perfectly willing to tell said bosses they're full of it. On this, however, I don't think they are. My gut feeling is, indeed, a gut feeling - the same is true of yours. Again, if you want to start a discussion and demonstrate that this is a wider problem than the evidence suggests, I will move forward. The alternative is that you're asking us to put our energies into a tweak with little evidence to show it is necessary. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I also dislike the new rollover system. The extra step is not justified by minor aesthetic concerns. If you want the buttons to look less in-the-way, I would suggest moving them back to the far right side of the page rather than hiding one of them. Speaking of which, if you set your account preferences to force the edit buttons back over to the right, you end up with an edit button floating about an inch to the left of where it should be and a big blank space waiting to display the edit source button.

Thatotherperson
Thatotherperson contribs 03:36, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeek, that's a pretty problematic bug. What's the preference switch in question? I can't seem to find it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:06, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Looks like it's actually a user gadget (Gadgets → Appearance → Move section links to the right side of the screen) so that's probably the issue, but I would still suggest moving the buttons over there as the default. I thought I remembered it being the default at one point, actually. Also, to be fair, it's not actually causing any problems in terms of functionality; it just looks really stupid.

Thatotherperson
Thatotherperson contribs 08:47, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Can I suggest a compromise? How about there be a setting in the Preferences that determines which edit link is shown first and which is hidden, make the default for all existing users, and make the link default for all new accounts created after it's implemented. The next time a user opens an edit window, they would receive a "setup prompt" that would ask them "which editor do you want to set as your default?", which could be saved as a cookie for IPs and saved as a user preference for users.

Also, those icons are hideous from a design standpoint, and could probably be represented with unicode and CSS. Maybe

]

—Love, Kelvinsong talk 13:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

A good suggestion, but it sounds potentially finnicky and raises some philosophical questions (do we include a preferences switch for everything anyone could object to? If so, what do we do about the implication that we then support that outcome? How do we avoid doing this in a way that hinders future development?). In my experience if people are legitimately peeved by this they're liable to write a CSS hack that solves for the problem anyway. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:02, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's important for mobile users, where the hover state doesn't exist. In fact, I just tested on my iPhone, and it is impossible to use the source editor.—Love, Kelvinsong talk 14:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but we're building a distinct and proper mobile setup as we speak, so hopefully the need to jury-rig the desktop interface on a mobile phone will go away. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:22, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Okeyes. We should solve as many problems as possible for as many people as possible. That is my answer to your question: "do we include a preferences switch for everything anyone could object to?" Or we use better designs where possible so that preference switches are not necessary. See talk section below for the reasoning:

#Monthly number of edits will continue its downward slide since 2007 --Timeshifter (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that Oliver's suggestion of a regular community discussion on this point, perhaps at WP:VPR, is a good one. Since this seems to be more "irritating" than "desperately busted", there's no immediate rush here, so it could be held whenever anyone wants to start it. (If it's soon, then perhaps a link here would be handy, in case the devs follow up on it.) It sounds like the Mobile version isn't going to be a problem, so I'll add accessibility as a possible concern that could be discussed. It seems likely to me that people who have physical trouble using a mouse would have trouble clicking a link that moves on hover. So if anyone decides to start this conversation, then perhaps he or she would invite WT:ACCESS folks to join it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The more problems, the less people will edit. See talk section below:

#Monthly number of edits will continue its downward slide since 2007 --Timeshifter (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Error saving

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52356

I keep getting "error saving data to server: failed request: error" for major changes. But the minor changes go through. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dampayi (talk • contribs) 03:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Uh-oh. @Dampayi:, can you give me an example on an article on which this is happening? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:40, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

@Okeyes (WMF): This is in all likelihood bugzilla:50356, which I have marked "critical" to try to catch the attention of the VE developers. — This, that and the other (talk) 12:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh no :(. This could really impact the test :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

The problem was with the VisualEditor; I couldn't reference to outside pages. I had to use Edit Source instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dampayi (talk • contribs) 01:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Invisicomments in VisualEditor

Has it yet been discussed that when using VisualEditor, it doesn't seem that invisible comments  are visible to editors? We often rely on these to tell editors things like "please don't change this to 'color'; this article is in UK English" or possibly "this wording was decided by a binding RFC; please don't change it", and it would seem to be a loss if we no longer have a way to make new editors aware of such things. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:46, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes this has been discussed. bugzilla:49603. — This, that and the other (talk) 06:04, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Urgh. Would someone be willing to explain what that discussion means in a way non-devs can understand? Like, what is actually happening with comments? Is something being done to deal with this problem or not? Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:11, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, I admit that that bug discussion is quite messy (most of the comments don't have a lot to do with the actual bug title) but I gather that this issue is being worked on. I don't know exactly what interface will be developed for this, so I await a pleasant surprise. — This, that and the other (talk) 06:16, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

In the meantime, try an WP:Edit notice for anything critical, since those were working fine the last time I checked. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

This has previously been discussed, and WP:Edit notice does not work for most hidden notes because notes are specific to specific parts of the page. Plus "All users can create editnotices for their user and talk pages, but editnotices for other namespaces can be created and edited only by administrators and account creators." Do new and old WMF staff drink some special koolaid that makes them not pay much attention to what people write now and previously on a subject? And then to pooh-pooh much of the feedback here? --Timeshifter (talk) 03:35, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the process for creating edit notices, as I have asked to have them created several times.

We don't know when the ideal solution will be available. There is a possible solution that may work today. I am going to keep providing possible solutions that may work today, even if you think that offering information and alternatives to people is "pooh-poohing much of the feedback" and even if you think that noticing that the OP's question was his first-ever edit to this page, and that he therefore probably hadn't seen the previous discussions, constitutes "not paying attention". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I think this is very important to fix. The addition of comments that are visible to all editors but not readers is a very helpful facility that saves an enormous amount of unnecessary to-and-fro'ing. I've used it like this:

colour

on pages where the spelling was being changed regularly, and it hasn't been altered once since. (I'd post a diff if I could find it). HTML comments are also useful when an article is undergoing active editing by several editors, to add short-term notes that aren't worth adding to Talk or the edit summary, but which save much confusion (e.g. ).

Even some sort of placeholder: colour, with a popup on hover would help. Even if one has to go to the source editor to change it. —SMALL JIM 11:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit summaries

I'm not pleased that this has not been automated. Edit summaries are more than just etiquette. They are profoundly useful when scanning your watchlist and it's something new editors usually do not provide. Looking at the VisualEditor, there does not even appear to be a place to provide a summary, let alone encouraging or requiring new editors to do this. When a new editor makes many changes to an article, having the summary lets you know what they did and that it was productive. Unless this is changed and is somehow automated (they can't save until they provide the summary), all you're doing is making more work for the regular editors, checking on the new editors' work, reverting vandalism and warning new editors to use a summary. freshacconci talktalk 15:01, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello freshacconci. There is an "edit summary" section. When you click "save", a box opens where someone can describe the changes they did or preview the changes before save it. TeamGale (talk) 15:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Still trying to get a handle on this. I'm one of those editors who thinks that you shouldn't be able to save your edits until you've provided a summary, but I don't think that's ever going to happen. I'm relieved to see that there remains an edit summary section as I've come across new editors using VisualEditor who are not providing them. freshacconci talktalk 15:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

You are welcome. Not be able to save your edit until you write a summary might be a good idea. I, personally, forget many times to write one after I preview my edits and I know it's not the best thing... TeamGale (talk) 15:25, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

There's actually a preference of "remind me to leave an edit summary" here (" Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary "). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

That prefs setting hasn't been working consistently for me for a couple of months.

As for the general idea, Misplaced Pages:Perennial proposals#Automatically_prompt_for_missing_edit_summary suggests that the overall community doesn't want edit summaries to be technically enforced, and it therefore will not be added to VE. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, that discussion shows a proposal to remind editors about missing edit summaries, but the reason for rejection is a reason for rejecting forcing them to add an edit summary. I use the preferences setting to remind me when I'm about to save without an edit summary (seems to work fine for me both in Edit Source and in VE), but if I don't want to add an edit summary I can just click Save again. I wonder if it's time to revisit that discussion? I'd be delighted to see that preference set as a default for all editors, and it is far short of "forcing". PamD 19:54, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe that WP:VPP is the usual place for that discussion. Check the archives there to find the most recent discussions. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:59, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

No "edit source" for section 0

When I hover over a section header link, it changes to "", except for the in the lead (i.e. Edit section 0). GoingBatty (talk) 22:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Since when did we have section-edit links for section 0? Wasn't that a gadget? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's the first gadget in the Appearance section on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. GoingBatty (talk) 22:34, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Then, yes; we're not writing code that supports volunteer-maintained, project-specific gadgets, I'm afraid. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

A request for help at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-edittop.js might work, or contact the gadget's original dev, via User talk:Alex Smotrov/edittop.js (He's not active here much, you might try his ru. talk) –Quiddity (talk) 03:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, the link as it currently stands goes to what is now called the "source code", rather than VisEd; as the only people who've enabled that gadget are more likely to be power users, I think it's fine the way it is (note: I have zero statistics on that, only my intuition). I'll mention it on the MW talk, though. Ignatzmice•talk 14:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
- This is still not fixed. There is no way to edit section 0. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
  - Yes; as said, this is a volunteer-made gadget. Gadgets are expected to be compatible with MediaWiki rather than the other way around. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Quirk editing Chad Griffin

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52474

References get misnumbered , the two refs in the infobox are properly numbered 1 and 2, but the count restarts in the main text. Reproduced in Safari and Chrome. --j⚛e decker 15:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Joe. Your link is to the edit screen, and I can't reproduce it in Chrome. :) (I added a couple of quick citation requests for the quotes that lack inline sourcing.) It doesn't look like you saved in whatever edit resulted in that issue - if you can replicate that, can you save it and link it? It might help determine how it's happening. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I should have been more clear, sorry about that. If you compare the first reference within the infobox with the reference at the end of the "Early Years" section, you will notice that they have the same number while being edited, but have different numbers when the article is viewed outside the editor (e.g., the "Read" tab.) I continue to see this behavior on Mac/Chrome. --j⚛e decker 16:13, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmn; could you grab some comparative screenshots? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:29, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Should be appearing in your mailbox in a sec. --j⚛e decker 19:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Now reported! Thanks for the speedy work - it's much appreciated. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

My pleasure! --j⚛e decker 18:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Template parameters

Currently, when editing a template, the template parameters list is taken from TemplateData (if exists), or from the actual page being edited.

Whenever TemplateData exists, everything is hunky dory. However, when there is no TemplateData, the user does not know which parameters are recognized by the template, if they are not already present on the page.

There are two possible solutions:

The more effective solution is for the backend to generate TemplateData based on parsing the template page whenever "TempalteData" does not exist. Presumably, in this case, only parameter names (or numbers) are available, and all other parts of the metadata will have their default values.
in the Visual Editor itself, run something like the following code to extract the parameters list from the template page if no metadata is available (this is an illustration, and uses "async: false" so it works correctly. in reality, there are better ways to do it than using async:false):

function extractParameterNames( tempalte )
	var
		result = ,
	$.ajax({
		url: mw.util.wikiScript(),
		data: {title: template, action: 'raw'},
		dataType: 'text',
		async: false,
		success: function buildParamsRaw(data) {
			var
				paramExtractor = /{{3,}(.*?)/mg,
				m;
			while (m = paramExtractor.exec( data )) 
				result.push( $.trim( m ) );
		}
	});
	return result;
}

we use this exact logic in hewki, with the "TempalteParamWizard": the wizard does not use metadata embedded in the tempalte page itself - we did not have the TemplateData extension available - but rather we have an optional subpage that contains the data in a form which is more human-friendly and less script-friendly, but is basically very similar to TempalteData.

When this optional subpage does not exist, we use code very similar to the above to extract the parameters recognized by the template from the template page itself.

Bug report. Unknown if new.

Footnotes are showing --- BUT only the most recent footnote, which appears 23 times on the edit screen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SLBohrman (talk • contribs) 21:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Can you provide a link? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:47, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I can't speak for sure for this other editor, but there's something weird going on at Atoka, Tennessee, one of the few articles this editor has edited recently, even before I get into visual editor, and most of the references that show in that article at "read" (around 9, but numbered very oddly) don't show in Visual Editor (only two do). Mac/Chrome. --j⚛e decker 07:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Ahhh, there are several reference groups, that's why the numbering looks odd in the unedited article. Without having dissected the source code, there does appear to be a bug there, which should be visible by comparing the reference list in the article as viewed and the article as edited. --j⚛e decker 07:38, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't post the link. Yes it was on Atoka, Tennessee. Could just be me. SLBohrman (talk) 14:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I need to know if I'm not supposed to be using the "group" attribute on references. I was trying it out just to see how it worked. Do I need to remove it from my references or is it ok to leave - Atoka, Tennessee? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SLBohrman (talk • contribs) 16:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

You don't need to remove reference groups--is the article working for you now? What I saw before at the time I looked was that you'd added a reflist only for the default reference group, so the others weren't showing. Is there another bug you're seeing now? I'm happy to try and help reproduce it if so. --j⚛e decker 04:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Audio size

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52448

Prince Marko: audio appears huge in edit mode. --Redtigerxyz 04:55, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, filed a new bug for this. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 07:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

This is likely a duplicate of 49689. --j⚛e decker 07:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

(Ahh, it is, I should have gone and looked in bugzilla first.) Looks like a fix is on the way--developed, but not deployed on ENWIKI yet. --j⚛e decker 07:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Make editing view more distinctive from article

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52456

I like the visual editor, and I predict that more people will edit WP when it's introduced. However, there is one thing that bugs me: After I clicked the "Edit" Tab, the view of the article does change only slightly - so sometimes I do not know that I am already editing, especially when I scroll down the article. I'd suggest a visual hint: A modal popup, a slim outline of the editing area or a more distinctive design of the tool bar, for example. Mateng (talk) 12:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Hear, hear! Perhaps a (faint) background colour? There needs to be some visual clue. JohnCD (talk) 12:17, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for filing this, John. Yes, a faint background color could work, too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jesus Presley (talk • contribs) 14:37, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

(Actually, I filed it, but would not have been able to do so without John's and your noting the request. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 30 June 2013 (UTC))

Any bouquets that arrive for me I will forward to you, Maggie. I would even give your username to the enthusiastic fan who put 16 barnstars on my talk page yesterday, if he hadn't been indeffed as a sock. JohnCD (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

LOL! I appreciate your thoughtfulness. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

To add support to this proposal, I've been dealing with a new editor who was frustrated that they couldn't edit - didn't realise that clicking edit called up VE and thought that nothing was happening. NtheP (talk) 22:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Citations (more)

So, the old citation button produced a box. Not ideal, but workable. Now, however, it produces a "what do you want to cite" one line field, and a "use existing"/"create new" button selection, which then takes you to the box to input the citation. I'm not sure what happened to just producing the box, but if anything, this is glitchy and half the time doesn't let me create a new reference (by clicking the button for create new), and if it doesn't, it closes and doesn't let me click any other VE buttons except close and save.

Also, if anything, shouldn't it be moving toward a "reftoolbar" type thing, instead of a "go learn how to make references look right and consistent on your own then come do it"? Instead of the textbox for "what do you want to cite", have a dropdown with common options (book, web, news, journal, etc.) and then an "other" or "not here" which would default to {{cite}}. The rest would default to the other templates, preferably with two options (standard and advanced/all parameters) as the current Reftoolbar.

This isn't super urgent I guess, as long as references are in the VE someway, I can ping the person who made the RefToolbar video about a new one :) Charmlet (talk) 18:39, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Most of those templates only exist on enwiki and a few other projects. What bugs are you finding with the existing setup? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:25, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

"this is glitchy and half the time doesn't let me create a new reference (by clicking the button for create new), and if it doesn't, it closes and doesn't let me click any other VE buttons except close and save" from above. I click reference, type something in, select the "new" option, and it freezes up and closes, will still let me type, but won't let me click any buttons other than save/cancel.

Also, saying that you can't add in a feature that'll work on wikis with the templates is not going to go well with some of this project - if anything, you're making it much harder to create references. It'd be great if you could work a little more with the community - when they say they want something, don't shrug it off with "oh but that's enwp specific". Charmlet (talk) 20:43, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

How do you think this should be handled? Would you be happy getting a list of citation templates, only to be told that the one you picked doesn't exist on the project you're editing? If they put all the templates into VisualEditor itself, then you're going to see things that only exist at the Spanish or Hebrew or Arabic Wikipedias, and they're going to see options that only work at the English Misplaced Pages. That doesn't seem likely to please anyone. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 08:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It is quite simple, or at least has been done before, that it would be programmed to work on the Wikipedias that have them. Maybe look at the old RefToolbar for ideas, I'm not a coder, I don't know. But what I do know is this is going to lead to more unsourced edits, more unsourced BLP edits, more unsourced stuff in general.

On projects where the templates already exist, code in something (hell, hardcode the word "citation" or "cite" in each language if you must) to find {{cite web}} {{cite news}} {{cite}} {{cite journal}} {{cite book}}, (es:Plantilla:cita web es:Plantilla:cita libro etc.) and any ones more common in another language. That's a big part of the old edit window, is the easy ability to add citations, and I don't support rolling this out to anyone more than it needs be before a referencing tool is added in that doesn't make people still learn the templates.

This is supposed to be for new editors, who don't know WikiCode. They aren't going to have any idea that they're supposed to click template, then type in "cite web", then type in some random paramater names that, frankly, aren't super intuitive, and then save it. They're going to be overwhelmed with another text box, and not know how to cite. So they'll give up. Isn't the VisualEditor supposed to eliminate that kinda situation? Charmlet (talk) 13:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I concur with the stated concern: if the purpose of the VE is to get more editors, then referencing has to be easy with it. Easier than the present system. Facilitate a minimal reference, e.g. <ref>http://url</ref> at the least (and I confess to doing reference links like that when I can't be arsed to do the entire tedious {{cite web}}) - David Gerard (talk) 16:23, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I just edited a couple of sections in an article, using VisualEditor. Fine, as far as it went; but slow to load and save, and the print size on the interface is almost illegibly small (I edit using a lap-top). And the citation templates? Strewth.... why are these presumed to somehow make it easier? It took me years to learn even basic Misplaced Pages markup, and I still find the various citation templates forbiddingly, unnecessarily difficult - intrinsically, in part, but also because I often need to append a note, cited to two or more sources for comparison of their viewpoints on this, that, or the other. I find it far easier, and more intuitive, to simply write my references in standard Harvard or Oxford format. Folks who find templates easier... um, just seem to find it easier. Why they do so is beyond me, but I can accept that they do - and perhaps envy them a little for it - but when the same folks convert all my footnotes to template formats, and what to me are incomprehensible doohickeys, I'm effectively locked out of editing the very footnotes I've written. Unless I restore the same to their original (or rather, my original) format. Haploidavey (talk) 13:30, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey; so, in order, yeah, the interface is tiny if you're on monobook - a bug that's being fixed :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Just to let everyone know; I fully agree that VE referencing has to be easy, and also that it has to provide at least the ability to add local wiki-specific workflows like cite web. Check out bugzilla:50458. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:29, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

References - first attempts - ouch

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52458

Just had a go at adding a reference to James Gordon MacGregor (to replace an existing somewhat malformed "links" section). Ouch.

Clicked on the icon for "Edit reference"
It seemed to offer me "Create new source" or "Use existing source" but neither link was responsive
Then there was a blank window asking what I wanted to cite - no clues about format
Eventually stuck the URL into it, as I didn't see what else it wanted. Superscript "1" appeared.
Clicked on the icon for "Reference list": nothing useful offered (can't remember exact detail)
Used the "Transclusions" icon to add "Reflist"
No visible response to that.
Repeated previous step
still no response.
Went to "Save page", looked at "See your changes", observed that Reflist was added twice.
Despaired of being able to do anything useful in VE except offer this feedback, and will now save the page and reopen in Edit Source!

Nothing intuitive, no indication how to get anything like the helpful prompts from the dear old RefToolbar. Oh dear.

Ah, when I save it, the two copies of Reflist take effect and I have a duplicated single-entry list of refs. But, as with several previous comments, we need to be able to see in VE the effects of our VE edits, because lack of visual feedback causes confusion!

Will now go into Edit Source to fix the article. PamD 20:35, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I guess I'm echoing what User:Charmlet said a couple of items above: it's a terrible step backwards to move from the RefToolbar approach into a blank "what do you want to cite" box. This is not going to help new editors to create full, well-formatted, references. If I'm editing an article and know I'm going to be adding references (much of my editing is wikignomish stuff which doesn't involve that), I'm going to have to remember to use Edit Source until VE can come up with something more helpful - and that's as an experienced editor. PamD 20:47, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll say that es:Misplaced Pages:Portada and other Wikipedias also use cite templates, so this would help out a lot more than enwp.. And if I remember right, those don't have the A/B test going on, so they may not even know that they're going to lose the RefToolbar. Charmlet (talk) 20:52, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a feature request already tracked at Bugzilla 50458 (linked above) that might be a good place to discuss this - I note that already under request there is a list of parameters to be filled in, which I agree would be enormously helpful. I'm not finding this feature very intuitive myself. :/ I link here in case either of you would like to add your support or your own thoughts. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Completely agree with PamD. VE is a huge step back for ease of use for references, which is THE core feature of wikipedia. Not only is it not intuitive, but it takes more clicks and time to use than wikitext. The Cite dropdown menu on the toolbar worked very, very well. Mnnlaxer (talk) 15:10, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

My Verdict

What is my verdict on the Visual Editor? MOST EXCELLENT! I always use the Visual Editor on Wikia, and have little idea how to use wikimarkups. Now making a table will be easy! --BNSF1995 (talk) 21:09, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad you like it. :) I hope we will continue to improve and refine it and that everyone will find it as useful as you do. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Poor response to problem of inability to see article while adding categories

Bug 49969 the response to my 21 June report seems unhelpful.

If I'm editing an article and want to add categories for birth and death dates, I need to be able to see those dates in the article while I'm adding the categories. The "Page settings" box totally obscures the article. I can probably remember one, but not both, of theose two dates. But I might want to add other categories too. Some categories involve unfamiliar placenames whose spelling is difficult to remember. The response seems to tell me that looking at the article while adding categories is undesirable multitasking. Can this bug please be bumped up the system: it's not a "low-importance enhancement" but a feature which makes doing a perfectly ordinary job very difficult.

When I'm stub-sorting I tend to add defaultsort and birth/death categories whenever I can, even if my main aim in opening the article was to remove {{stub}} and replace it by something more specific. I might add a maintenance category or two, as well as tidying up obvious typos, making a link or two, unlinking a date, etc etc. The response to this bug says "As far as adding a category or changing the default sort of a category directly from some other mode (such as reading, or editing paragraph text) we should look at those workflows rather than dissolve the intentional model-ness of the dialog." (I guess "modal-ness" is intended) - this makes my heart sink, as it seems to say that my sort of driveby wikignoming is not at all what editors are supposed to be doing, and we must categorise our activities into separate modalities and not expect it to be simple to make several quick improvements to an article in one short editing session. Deeply depressing. PamD 21:32, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Have now commented on the thread at Bugzilla, probably more appropriate than here. PamD 21:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for following up. I hope that your clarification there will make your issue more clear. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Monthly number of edits will continue its downward slide since 2007

The many problems with this visual editor may cause many anonymous IP editors to edit less. So the monthly number of article edits by anonymous editors may continue its downward slide since 2007. See:

File:Timeline of anonymous edits on English Misplaced Pages.png - more charts are needed.
commons:Category:Stats for anonymous edits on English Misplaced Pages

WMF board and staff are hoping that the VE editor will be easier to use by IP editors. But if those editors are being constantly reverted there may be a net loss in the monthly number of edits as many edit less. Post-and-run editors may edit more. IP editors who prefer wikitext source editing may edit less if they are as frustrated by the lack of a direct link to "edit source" as I am. See section higher up: #Edit and edit source links so confusing I had to disable Visual Editor in preferences. Registered editors can turn off VE. IP editors can not.

It is about net losses and gains. Some have asked whether the VE developers should try to please everybody. Well, they should try to please as many people as possible in order to slow down the decline in monthly edits, or to reverse it. If the loss is inevitable, then we need to make editing more efficient, so that there are less reversions, and less mistakes. So people get more done with less edits. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:52, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

@User:Timeshifter, I'm not sure if I understand this line of reasoning. Currently a small fraction of people edit Misplaced Pages, as IPs or otherwise. Those people are self-selected in that they're the ones who brave the Wiki-code. Wouldn't making it easier to edit result in more people editing, since we wouldn't be weeding out would-be editors who are afraid of computer code? Is there an underlying assumption that a higher proportion of edits will be reverted? (I'm a bit confused by the 2nd sentence in the 2nd paragraph.) ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

That is the theory. But that only works if VE actually makes editing easier for IP editors. If there are many reversions, then there may be a net loss in the number of IP edits over time, or only a small gain, or a gain smaller than it could be. Until recently IP editors could edit sections without having to check a preview for a whole page for errors introduced by VE. With VE they now have to check a preview for a whole page for every single edit they do. So the net effect of VE may be to make editing more time-consuming, but "easier". See what I mean about net losses and gains? How will it add up? Looking at Wikia's experience with its VE I foresee many problems with Misplaced Pages's VE. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:31, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we have considered these things and are working on them. 'dirty diffs' can lead to the same outcome, for example. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Until recently IP editors could edit sections without having to check a preview for a whole page for errors introduced by VE.

Last I heard, unregistered editors couldn't use VisualEditor at all, and thus are untroubled by the section edit links that bother you so much. I suggest that you log out and try it before worrying about the IPs' experience. The latest timeline that I've seen says the VE might become an option for them as early as next week. A couple of people over at Meta have encouraged the devs to postpone the switch for IPs until the core community has had a month to get used to it, and there are other reasons why it might be postponed (e.g., if the increased load might slow down the Parsoid system too much). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 10:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I mixed up who the A/B test was implemented for. I knew it at one point and forgot. :) It is good that VE has not been implemented for anonymous IP editors. I think it would be a catastrophe if implemented now for IPs. I keep thinking of more reasons why.

In the last few days I have been thinking of the last reason you mentioned. Since every single edit by VE edits the whole page that could add a crushing burden to the servers if implemented for IPs. IPs will not be able to opt out, and will click the "edit" link most of the time since they will not notice the hidden "edit source" link at first. I believe in its current state many registered editors will opt out of VE when VE is made the default, or they will not use it much. They will click the "edit source" link much of the time. They will be more likely to notice it since many people will be talking about VE on talk pages. So registered users may not be as much of a burden on servers if VE is implemented by default for them. So it would be dumb to make VE the default for anonymous users first. First see how much of a burden registered users put on the servers when VE is made the default. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

(unindent). See this related talk section:

#Note the many unhappy people who do not see the HIDDEN "edit source" link

If this many registered editors are having this much difficulty now that the visual editor has been made the default for them, then imagine how many problems anonymous IP editors will experience when the visual editor is made the default for them too. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to question your assumption implied in the original comment: "the monthly number of article edits by anonymous editors may continue its downward slide since 2007." I would guess you think that this is a bad thing. But I'm not sure why you would think so. Mnnlaxer (talk) 15:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Article edits per month on Misplaced Pages. See column for English Misplaced Pages. Edits from registered users, unregistered contributors, and bots. Bot edits need to be separated out since their totals can vary greatly from month to month.

There are more articles and less editors over time. So to maintain the quality of Misplaced Pages we need to slow or reverse the decline in the number of editors. And/or make editing more efficient so that more gets done with less edits. It is not just the number of edits by anonymous IP editors that is going down. It is true for registered editors too.

--Timeshifter (talk) 23:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Addition of and removal of categories._and_removal_of_categories.-2013-06-30T21:54:00.000Z">

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52481

Here's the diff. All I tried to do was move a quotation mark, and it added a bunch of underline markup in the References section and removed all the categories. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:54, 30 June 2013 (UTC)_and_removal_of_categories."> _and_removal_of_categories.">

Yeesh :/. What browser/OS? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:37, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Windows 7, Firefox 21.0. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:47, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I tried to reproduce this in the sandbox, but it looks like VE is only for article space. Do you know of a sandbox-type place where I can play with VE that's not going to cause problems in the main space? ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:59, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Okeyes I think that is a great suggestion if your still watching this thread. It should be fairly easy to extend the Article/Userpage functionality to subpages like /sandbox. Kumioko (talk) 00:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

@Adjwilley: Try User:Adjwilley/sandbox. Ignatzmice•talk 01:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, I did three test edits in my sandbox. The first was an exact reproduction of what happened in the article. In the second I wanted to see if it was my edit summary and/or use of the "minor" checkbox that did it, so I didn't check "minor" and I left a blank summary. It did the underlines and removed the categories, plus a whole bunch of other changes that I hadn't seen before. In the third edit, I wanted to see if it was my moving the quotation mark that did it. Instead of moving a quotation mark, I just added a "test" sentence to the Lead. I left an edit summary, but didn't tick the "minor" box. I got pretty much the same result as in the first edit.

Summary: Apparently no matter what edit I do to that particular article, it blanks the categories and adds the underline tags. If I don't leave an edit summary, it does even more. ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Anybody who wants to is invited to come play in my sandbox :-) User:Adjwilley/sandbox10 ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I tried to follow your footsteps and remove a quotation mark from the article (not the sandbox), and I notice that there is a bold note at the bottom of the save screen that says, "Warning: Your edit may have been corrupted – please review before saving." On review, I see the same issues you did. Do you see that note as well? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yup, I get that (I hadn't noticed it before...the save screen text is pretty small for me.) It actually doesn't matter what edit you make, by the way, you still get the "corrupted" changes. I did it just now by adding a single space. ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Automatic fixes_and_removal_of_categories.-2013-07-01T03:20:00.000Z">

On a related note, I just ran across this. The user was just trying to add a new section, but Visual Editor made some other repairs to the page, both good as I can tell. (It got rid of a stray </blockquote> and merged two a duplicated named reference.) Like I said, the changes were good, but above in the FAQ it says VE's not supposed to be making changes like that. (I'm fairly certain the user didn't do that himself, since he's very new, and would have had to do a lot of searching to find those errors.) ~Adjwilley (talk) 03:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added this to my list to ask about - if it turns out that it is meant to make changes such as this, we'll have to correct the documentation. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Minor edit checkbox; exit-X

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52508

The "This is a minor edit" label is truncated for me: I see ∆ This is a ∆ Watch this page. Happens on Safari 6.0.5, Chrome 27.0.1453.116 on Mac OS 10.8.4. I assume it's because of something in my CSS (most likely the fixed-navbar thingie), because it doesn't happen in my sock account.

Another thing: Also in the last dialog box before actually saving, there is what I assume is supposed to be an "X" in the top right corner. Clicking on it closes the dialog box. However, I do not see an X—it looks like an upside-down check mark (it isn't symmetrical). It seems all of the top half and half of the left half (of a regular X) are somehow truncated. Ignatzmice•talk 22:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a CSS hack, yep. Good catch on the truncation - throwing in bugzilla now (I see it too). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Still cannot view hidden comments

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51603

Despite the many changes made, hidden comments still cannot be seen or edited using VE. These comments are helpful in preventing unnecessary edits. Johnny Au _{(talk/contributions)} 00:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if a template can be made to give this a workaround? I'll try that in a bit. Charmlet (talk) 00:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Johnny Au: yep, this is something we're working on. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I know this is being worked on, but it's already causing problems. (See this edit) Jr8825 • Talk 18:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Slow minor copyedit on a big article

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52475

A very slow minor copyedit correcting one letter on the California article, FWIW. Djembayz (talk) 03:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added a note to an existing ticket about time-outs on even larger articles, as I suspect the two are related. Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect warning

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52441

When I try the following steps using Firefox 22, I get an incorrect warning:

For any article page on your watchlist, click the "hist" link to go to the Revision history page.
Click any "cur" link to go to the Differenve between revisions page. Note that there is a "Previous edit" link, but no "Next edit" link.
Click any "Edit source" link or the "Edit" link at the top of the page, and you can make your changes just fine. However, if you click a section's "" link, you see a big red warning stating: "You are editing an old revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed.".

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I encountered the same thing a few hours ago. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 08:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, I can't replicate it. :/ Are you encountering this consistently or occasionally? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

@Mdennis (WMF): - I encounter this consistently. Seems that Whatamidoing (WMF) knows what I am doing, so maybe you two can get together on this. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

My "you" was plural there. :) I'm interested in hearing from both of you, so we can make sure that this is properly reported. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I saw that, though I assumed it was accurate. I'm suspicious that it may have happened after I edited the page myself and tried to edit the same page a second time without a refresh in between. -- Beland (talk) 02:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I think this is bugzilla:50441. guillom 14:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

break minority input methods?

Will this break the ways that minority language Wikipedias (Cherokee, Navajo, etc) have rigged their special input methods? Is there a way to refuse the upgrade if so? Cheers, Nesnad (talk) 05:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe that it's been turned off on the Chinese Misplaced Pages because of language-specific problems. If there is actually a problem at any of these languages, then there shouldn't be any difficulty in doing the same for them.

On the other hand, if it works for minority languages, then I believe you'll want to keep it. It's already hard enough to find people who can write in a minority language, without eliminating anyone who doesn't have time to learn wikicode. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 08:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

References within templates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52474

I'd have expected this to be a known issue, but I failed to find such feedback: I see no way to add references to template parameters. See for example User:Huon/Test: The references within the template parameters are displayed as wikicode within the Visual Editor, the named reference <ref name="mojo"> that's used within the infobox is not available for re-use outside the infobox, and while all references are correctly listed in the "references" section, Visual Editor numbers the first reference after the infobox ; apparently it doesn't realize at all that the references within the infobox exist. If I add a <references /> instead of (or in addition to) the {{Reflist}}, that one won't display the footnotes within the infobox at all.

On a related note, I don't see how I could add templates within templates either - except by manually inserting the wikicode. Huon (talk) 08:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The tracking number I've added refers to the reference count. When I look at your diff, though, the reference numbering seems correct to me - the two in the infobox are 1 & 2, the one in the body is 3. Does it look different to you? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've seen something similer in that while editing the main body, the reference numbering starts from 1 regardless of the fact that there are references in the infobox. When the edit is saved everything then appears as expected so it's a quirk of the edit process that's ignoring refs not within the main text. Haven't tried the named reference yet to see if I experience the same. NtheP (talk) 14:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed the result is what I'd expect, it's just the VisualEditor itself that doesn't realize that references within templates exist (or indeed any formatting; links or italics would also have to be added manually to template parameters). VisualEditor doesn't allow me to add them, it doesn't allow me to refer to named refs that exist already outside the main body, and it doesn't count them correctly. The last effect is an entirely cosmetic bug (VisualEditor is not WYSIWYG here) that's just a symptom of the underlying problem.

In a similar vein I can't add a reference or a template to an image caption, though templates and images can be added to references. Huon (talk) 15:59, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

On second thought this seems to be a generalization of bug 50182 - I don't just want to nest templates within templates, I want to nest references in templates (though not in templates within references!), and references and templates within image captions. All that is unsupported at the moment. Huon (talk) 16:26, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The devs are actually talking this one through in IRC now :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

tables - nowiki tag, spaces

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52502

Spaces and nowiki tags are being added to a table on my users page when I'm editing elsewhere on the page using VisualEditor. SLBohrman (talk) 14:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems to have gone wonky in this edit. It looks like the markup, etc. might have confused something in there. I'm wondering if the issue you encountered in the welcome message has to do with the known problem with colored text in signatures (unless that was fixed while I was out of town). I'll poke about. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

After looking more closely, I think not. I've opened a bug about the duplicated character string here. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! SLBohrman (talk) 17:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't unwrap template within template

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52182

In this edit I wanted to remove one of the two templates which were nested in {{multiple issues}}: the only way I could see was to delete {{mi}} and then re-add the one template I still wanted. Messy. What if there had been 5 templates within {{mi}} and I'd wanted to delete one or two: can it be done in VE? PamD 15:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

When editing "MI", I see a "1" beneath it. Clicking on the "1" brings up the subtemplates, which I can remove individually. Unless that isn't working for you, it seems less a lack of feature than a lack of clarity. If you can let me know which, I'll see what we can do with it. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Being able to treat templates within templates in the same way that you can treat stand-alone templates is actually on the to-do list :). I am particularly proud of the bug name. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Awesomely titled, but duplicate. :) I've linked the main bug above. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, thanks Maggie, I can now remove one or more of the templates from within {{mi}}. But if I've removed all but one, so want to drop the {{mi}} but keep one of the inner templates, can I do that? It might be one with a long text parameter (perhaps {{cleanup|reason= some verbose description of everything that's wrong with the article ...}}, tedious to retype. See this example edit. (Only a low-priority issue, as copy-and-paste or retyping would work) PamD 21:15, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Templates have evolved since this morning, I'm happy to see. You can now see the name of the subtemplate. But, alas, I don't see any way to remove the top template without removing the subs. This would be a nice feature to have, I agree - I'll put it in, but it probably will be low-priority, as you say. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

VE picking up old version of file? - 27 ghost references!

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52521

If I open Queen Anne Grammar School in VE, I can see two superscripts linking to references - and 29 references in the reflist. Some of them perhaps most, are the refs which were deleted in a series of edits 9 hours ago while the article was being moved from AFC to mainspace. If I open it in Edit Source, it's a respectable little stub with two refs and no sign of the other stuff.

Extremely confusing. I've got a word doc with a couple of screenshots pasted into it, could attach to an email if told where to send it.

Meanwhile will edit the article in VE and see what happens.

... Have italicised motto, stub-sorted, saved page, all in VE. When I open it again in VE it still shows 29 references.

... Closed it, edited it in Edit Source, saved it, no sign of refs 3-29. Re-opened it in VE, they are still showing up. PamD 20:54, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for reporting this, I'll let you know something ASAP. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:56, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I was able to reproduce it as well, so I have thrown your very words into Bugzilla. Again, thanks for stopping by! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 21:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

"Submit" button doesn't show up

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52524

Sometimes, the "Submit" and "Cancel" buttons don't show up, leaving the editor no choice but to backtrack and edit the page's source code. Is there any fix for that? Epicgenius 21:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Epicgenius, can you tell us more about your browser, WP skin and OS? Which article were you working on? Have you experienced other issues that you feel might be related? Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 21:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I am using Google Chrome, on Windows 7, and I am using the Vector skin. I was working on DeKalb Avenue (BMT Fourth Avenue Line), but it wasn't a major problem since I was making spelling corrections. I haven't ran into any other problems with VE that are related to this. Epicgenius 21:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I Bugzillaed it (new issue, new words!), thank you, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Epicgenius, any chance to provide a screenshot of the problem? That would be quite helpful for the developers. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:50, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Strange result with a </nowiki> tag inserted_tag_inserted-2013-07-01T21:18:00.000Z">

I tried to edit the wikilinked word "Google" to the non-wikilinked word "Niantic" and got a strange result with an unexpected nowiki close tag:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Ingress_(game)&diff=prev&oldid=562432188

Any idea why? Thanks! Woz2 (talk) 21:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)_tag_inserted"> _tag_inserted">

Hi Woz2, yes, I think there were multiple reports about VE adding those tags. Will still look into that ASAP, thank you. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

This is expected behavior if only a part of a word was linked. Without the <nowiki/> the unlinked part of the word would be turned into a link trail. --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 23:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I don't understand what a link trail is. Also the whole of the word "Google" was linked, not a part of it. Woz2 (talk) 00:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

See "linktrail rules" in Help:Links. I suspect that Google was indeed the link target, but only the 'N' of Niantic was linked. --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 06:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Received error though edit was saved

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52463

I tried saving an edit to U.S. Route 377 in Texas (diff), it took a while and then finally I got an error. Sorry I didn't copy it but it was something close to "Error: Invalid error type." However, when I check the history it did accept the edit in spite of the error. FWIW, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Gyrofrog, did it edit exactly like you wanted to, no extra things or something? I'll try and see if it happens to me as well. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 21:52, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It worked for me, but was extremely slow - I think perhaps due to all the transclusions. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Just my guess, maybe due to the beta launch in these minutes? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I left a note in that ticket, though. Regards, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The edit was successful (though I only changed one letter), it was just slow (before I got the error). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I got a similar error when trying to add a space before a sentence in Travian. It was "Error: Invalid error code". The edit was successful. --Joshua Issac (talk) 09:10, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Akon discography

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52532

Look at the results of http://en.wikipedia.org/Akon_discography?veaction=edit . Notice how the visual editor treats html style tags as table entries.—Kww(talk) 22:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Specifically, look at the album for "Oh Africa", which certainly wasn't "Rowspan=3;style=background ...", or the album for "Lock Down", which wasn't style="background: #ececec....—Kww(talk) 22:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Is it looking something like this for you (I can't reproduce it ...) PEarley (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is what it looks like. I can see the HTML as well in edit mode. PEarly, I filed a new bug, feel free to merge it (or have it merged) if this is already in Bugzilla. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm thinking it's 50366, but we'll let the pros figure it out. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Loving it

Hey y'all...I have to say, in the past few weeks the VisualEditor has improved quite a bit, and I'm proud to say that, what the heck, Oliver, for the first time ever you didn't botch up a release. I'm just kidding of course -- kudos to the entire team. Keep it up! Theopolisme (talk) 22:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Error message: 'Error: Invalid token'

I just tried to test VisualEditor by removing some text from my userpage, and got the message 'Error: Invalid token'. What does this mean? Robofish (talk) 22:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems to have been a problem with the edit summary, I changed that and it worked. Are hyphens no longer allowed in edit summaries or something? Robofish (talk) 22:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

@Robofish: I tried a hyphen, a dash, an en-dash, and an em-dash, within edit-summaries, and all worked.

The only bug I can see that contains "token" is Bugzilla:50424 (VisualEditor: "Invalid token" message after period of inactivity leads to lost work). Might that be it? –Quiddity (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I can only assume so. I haven't had any further similar problems, I guess my first edit just timed out. Robofish (talk) 22:59, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad it's working better for you. :) I had an issue with really slow editing when it was first rolled out for all logged-in users (mentioned above). Seems okay now. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I can attest to that, I have done the same thing and so due to inactivity the 'invalid token' message is appearing. No idea what to do, currently my tab is still open containing my edits which cannot be saved, I don't want to start over (quite a bit of work here), any suggestions? Copy-pasting to a text editor is not an option since I did mainly lot of linking and minor fixes. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you review your changes? If so, you can copy the markup difference to the markup editor in a new tab. If not, I've got nothing. Thatotherpersoncontribs 10:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Tried it just now, now an error message pops up saying "error loading date from server: Unsuccessful request: Invalid token" :( -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Inline comments

First off, I want to say that the new visual editor is remarkable improvement over the version I tested out several months ago. This is an editor which I could actually use to manage articles! That said, one feature it currently lacks is viewing or editing inline comments to a page. These are useful in many different fashions. Could it be possible for Visual editor to display and/or allow editing of inline comments? Sailsbystars (talk) 22:21, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yup, tis a widely-requested feature. See above at #Still cannot view hidden comments for the most recent thread, and a link to the bugzilla entry. –Quiddity (talk) 22:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Feedback and some nitpicks I have

I've been trying VisualEditor recently, and so far, I've been pretty pleased with it. I do have two nitpicks, however:

1) The text size for edit summaries and reviewing changes is a bit too small for me. I sometimes find that I have a bit of difficulty reading what I write in the text box and seeing the changes I made without zooming in. I think the text size could be made a bit bigger.
2) When I edit a particular section of an article, it would be nice if the text summary noted which section I edit like editing the source would. Currently, VisualEditor doesn't do that.

Overall, it's good so far, even if I have some minor issues with it. Lugia2453 (talk) 22:38, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback, Lugia2453. Good point about the edit summary sizes and section edits being noted. We should certainly look into that. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, please do. The licensing information is in that window, which is pretty important information, and I can't read what's in there without putting on glasses that I don't normally need for computer use. I'd suggest a 20-25% increase in size; it can be smaller, but not 1/3 the size of normal print. Risker (talk) 07:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Are you using vector or monobook? If monobook - that's a known bug, and one we're working on. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Monobook, of course, because Vector is still too slow for some of my computers. It might be helpful to maintain a table on this project of the bugs that have been reported so that people will have a chance to (a) follow and (b) not duplicate work for each other. Risker (talk) 12:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem with that is that there are a lot of bugs being reported (go figure - big software project) and also that they're getting fixed admirably fast. I've usually got about 30 bugs in bugzilla at a time, and they're never the same 30 a week. Keeping it up-to-date would be substantial. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Old Editing Interface

The former edting interface of Misplaced Pages is way better than the current one. Windows55 (2) (talk) 22:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. You can still access the "old" editing interface by clicking "edit source" instead of "edit." Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Not for section 0. The new editor needs to be disabled until this is fixed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback#Section_0_edit_link_different. Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

How to disable?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

The Editing tab on my Preferences page doesn't have an "Enable VisualEditor" option under "Usability". Jordan Brown (talk) 23:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

If you do not wish to use VisualEditor, you can simply click "edit source" to load the wiki-markup editing interface. There is not an option to turn VisualEditor off or opt-out in your preferences- we do hope that you'll give it a try- but if you want to hide it from your interface you can add importScript('User:Matma Rex/VE killer.js'); to your common.js file. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd like an option to disable it, I think. Having the "Edit source" tab appear several seconds after the "Edit this page" tab appears is confusing. (Might be OK if they appeared at the same time.) Regardless, if there's not going to be a Preferences entry for it, the documentation about the preferences entry (like at the top of this page) should go away. As for why I think I want to disable it: maybe it's just that I'm an old dog (and hence resistant to learning new tricks), or maybe it's that I'm used to being very picky about exactly what wikitext I write, but my immediate gut reaction is that I don't want to learn a new tool and I'm not comfortable not knowing what wikitext gets generated. Jordan Brown (talk) 23:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

There's no plan to disable this in Preferences, but I can certainly put in a feature request for simultaneous "edit source" appearance, unless there's one already (I'll check). (Thanks much for the note about the Preferences on the top of the page. Overlooked in the beta release. :) I've removed it. ) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That hover thing is incredibly annoying: it probably wouldn't be so bad if the interface hadn't changed the definition of "edit". If it said something like "struggle to accomplish what used to come simply and naturally" or something like that, I probably wouldn't go through this cycle of clicking it, wondering why my screen goes dim and everything locks up for 30 seconds, and then realizing that I have accidentally engaged the visual editor, backing out, hovering, and then moving right to accomplish what I originally intended.—Kww(talk) 00:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hopefully they'll be able to accommodate the enhancement request, which I've linked above. I understand your annoyance with that - I've gotten used to it, but when they first changed section editing to VE only (before the "edit source" link was added), it kind of drove me crazy. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Opt out

Now that you've made the visual editor the default, I would like to have an option to switch it off again. However, I can't find the box to tick any more in my preferences. Could you please bring this back? I do not want to use visual editor, and the dual tabs for "edit" and for "edit source" are confusing. – Thanks.--Aschmidt (talk) 23:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. smileguy91 23:19, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've just tried the JS snippet from the section before, and it works.--Aschmidt (talk) 23:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. Awful, unnecessary, unwelcome and unwanted. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:30, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

@Smileguy91:, create the page /common.js in your userspace and copy the code above. The result is a page that looks like this and VisualEditor should be blocked off for you. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Having a switch in your preferences for switching this off would be the canonical way, though. Otherwise, you'll drive away the most important contributors to the project. Creating a JS file is only a work around. Make it a gadget, please.--Aschmidt (talk) 00:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Very slow and featureless

The entire process of this 'visual editing' is extremely slow, from the lag when altering some text to the long wait for an edit to be finished. I added a single space, and had to wait for about six seconds to finish my edit. This change adds nothing of benefit that I can see, and it looks to be useless for real article editing; how would one see or use wiki-markup in this interface? I have no idea.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52533

By the way, this feedback form constantly moves down my screen every time I hit a key, making me have to scroll down. It causes full screen flickering seemingly randomly too. I do not recall signing up for this, I hope that this feature wasn't suddenly enabled by default for everyone. Shirudo talk 23:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

One doesn't see or use wiki-markup in this interface. :) It's a VisualEditor. Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User guide offers information on some of the ways you achieve the same results in the interface.

While VE is activated by default for everyone, it is not forced on anyone - you have the alternative to "edit source" and need never use VE if you don't want to. But I hope you'll give it a try. It's grown on me since my first halting edits with it some months back. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, but the instinct is to hit "edit" so it's an imposition. I've used the code to kill it for me. When all the bugs are ironed out, I'll adopt it probably, unless it's too much time to learn given all the templates and so forth I use. After all, I've made it this far without it. That being said, you learn in Horror Movie 101 never to activate something that lacks an off switch.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, it has an off switch - the developers certainly can turn it off if problems develop. It won't be staggering about killing us all. :D In terms of the gadget, WMF actively supported the development of that because nobody is meant to be required to use VE. To make it easier to use, it's now been added to "gadgets" under your preferences. VE is there and available for everybody, but the old way has not been taken off the table. On the contrary, they've been working hard to accommodate both. That said, it hasn't taken me long to learn the difference between the two buttons. We humans are remarkably adaptable. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You are, I believe, younger than me and such things come more natural. My brother and his wife are amazed at the technological advancement of their two children, yet we are much further advanced than our father, who never learned the use of a computer. In any event, energy spent on such things is energy not spent on content, and pushes people further along the inevitable enthusiasm curves which takes us from our dawn to dusk here on Misplaced Pages.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

For your interest the scrolling issue seems to be handled in bugzilla:50533. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

HTML comments

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51603

I just noticed that there are now 2 ways to edit an article, the "edit source" way uses the familiar theme; the new theme now called "edit" is different. I have a problem with it. If you use the "edit source" option, there's an HTML comment at the top of Christine Jorgensen saying to use she/her to refer to Christine Jorgensen throughout her life. But with the new "edit" way of editing the article, no one will notice this HTML comment. People who prefer to edit with the new "edit" way of editing the article will change pronouns in this article the way they want to. Any thoughts?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

A very good observation. @Okeyes (WMF):, thoughts on this? Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Already tracked at bugzilla:49603 Theopolisme (talk) 23:58, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Alrea-dammit! @Theopolisme:, too fast :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

A/B test results

I'm assuming that the A/B test results must have been fantastic in order to justify doing this to us. Can I ask what they were, and where they are summarized and analyzed?—Kww(talk) 23:54, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey Kww, we have the data from the A/B testing and it has been gone through. Oliver and James are meeting with the research team tomorrow to finalize the results so that it can be presented to the community sooner rather than later. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Cool! --j⚛e decker 00:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

User:Keegan (WMF), forgive me for being so blunt, but is there a reason the community can't have the raw data, instead of the version that is "finalized" (to me that sounds like "how do we make this look like it's great", but assuming good faith I hope it's not)? Of course all identifying data (IP etc) would be stripped first (not sure if that was even collected), everything else would be almost public information, so why not just release the raw data? ~Charmlet 00:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

No, finalised means "we've been running tests for 7 days and want to analyse 7 days worth of data, not 4". I'm sure we'll release the raw data if we can find a way of properly anonymising it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You turned it on by default before analyzing the results of the entire test? Why would you have done that?—Kww(talk) 01:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

There shouldn't be any anonymising that needs to happen. No IP data should've been collected, nor other data (other than perhaps browser). It shouldn't be that hard. I share Kww's concerns about this being very rushed and not forthcoming. We don't need the analysis of the people who are pushing this against many wishes, we need the raw data so we can analyze it ourselves. ~Charmlet 01:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

a moving bullet

A strange, and quite minor bug, when editing Pickup v. Brown and Welsh v. Brown. When I edit this, and decrease my window width in such a way that the external linka at the bottom of the page requires more than one line, the bullet migrates to the second line improperly. Reproduced in Chrome and Safari/MacOSX/latest. --j⚛e decker 00:06, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe that's because the link is actually a template? When I try to edit in Chrome on my laptop, the bullet starts on the second line. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Could be. As for being on the second line, for me it depends on whether there is a second line, it sounds like we're seeing, likely, the same behavior. --j⚛e decker 02:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

visual editor

very annoying thing jumps out when I'm trying to read pages. Ellin Beltz (talk) 00:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Ellin. If it's the banner that tells you about VisualEditor that you object to, you can turn that off by hitting "hide". :) If that's not it, can you give more detail? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

My comment was left on a "leave feedback about" widget that popped out at me while I was trying to read a page. This remark "... annoying thing" relates to the pop out window that asked for feedback. I had no idea it would end up on some wikipage! However after having read several pages on this new editing system, I'd point out that many times when "new" software vastly changes user experience, it's the older users who flee leaving the techs to wonder "where did everyone go" because your old editors are the recruiters for new editors and from the looks of these comments, not very many people are happy with this project. Also the techs are getting very defensive in their comments. The whole thing is not good for the Wiki experience and I seriously don't see how a crippled Visual Editor is going to do anything other than keep the markup editors very busy fixing errors introduced accidentally or on purpose by newcomers, especially after 8 July when anonymous accounts can use it. Ellin Beltz (talk) 16:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Linking

Currently, there is no way to truly choose what you want to link to. For instance, if I want to link to Canada from "Canadian" (yes, I realize it is overlink, and wouldn't really do it) I can not, because Canada is not among the choice options, and there is no way to pipelink or input your own option. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 00:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Greetings! You can still link to whatever page you would like even though something may not appear in a dropdown box. All you have to do is type the word you want in the link box. Using your example of Canada, I created User:Keegan (WMF)/Canada with the text Canadian/Canadien, highlighted, clicked link, wrote Canada, and saved, all with VisualEditor. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Referencing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52458

Before I begin to truly use this, the referencing function must improve. To me, the "What do you want to reference" doesn't make sense. I want to place a reference where the cursor is. Clicking on "use new source" does not work. It would really be cool if a selection of cite templates were included in a dropdown menu, and then fields were provided. Speaking for myself, cite book, journal, news, and album-notes are absolutely essential. Thanks! 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 00:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; see bugzilla:50458 :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

What? No "Preview" button?

I will just say this: Thank goodness Misplaced Pages is not planning (apparently) to eliminate the "edit source" option. Apparently, "edit source" is the only way to be able to preview your work before saving your changes. I tried the new VisualEditor for the first time today (on CJQM-FM), but it was so disorienting that I cancelled editing numberous times before throwing up my hands and discovering the "edit source". One noteworthy source of my frustration was an attempt to add in image in the CJQM-FM Infobox; somehow, the markup codes for internal link (double brackets) appeared in the article, causing the internal link to be broken or at least appeared to be broken. (Luckily, I added the picture in "edit source" with no harm.) My preference is to always preview my work before saving, since it's important to make sure the edits are accurate before the world sees it.

So, for the benefit of the "new" editors, please at the very least add a "preview" button. If not, make them use the good old fashioned "edit source"; they'll learn.Darrel M (talk) 01:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The option to preview is included in VE. You can see the screencap with the "Review your changes" button in the Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User guide. I'm sorry that you found your initial experience with VE so frustrating. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by this, User:Mdennis (WMF). When I click on "Review your changes" the resulting box covers the entire screen, and I cannot see the underlying article at all :/ -- Diannaa (talk) 03:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

What Maggie means is that when you're editing with VisualEditor, what you're seeing is basically what you'll see after saving. There is no "preview" button, because you're essentially "previewing" all the time you're editing. guillom 07:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That is not the case though. The display with the Visual Editor does not match what you'll be saving. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It does: but if VE adds extra things while saving, you should not be able to see that with the "Review your changes" button: unexpected outcome is likely a bug and should be reported as such. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Support for Internet Explorer

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52085

Coming from a business background where support for IE (current and previous versions) was a far higher priority than other browsers, I wonder why this is not the case here. That said, I will be a tester of VE on IE10 when it is available. Can we please have a Bugzilla query that shows only outstanding IE10 issues. Downsize43 (talk) 01:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey Downsize43, IE remains a high priority and we hope to have it supported as soon as possible. To settle your wonder about prioritizing, curiously enough only around six to eight percent of our editing traffic use IE, which is startlingly low all things considered, and currently we are supporting about 80% of our users. Our goal is naturally 100%, and we should hit this target eventually. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 01:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

BUT you should be thinking about your TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC, not your current demographic. This answer just shows the attitude that I see (way, way too often) of thinking about editors rather than readers. Seriously...I see this ALL THE TIME. In this case, it is confusing "current editors of computer code looking interface" with "potential editors of an interface that looked more like the MS Office they have at work or at least like Google Docs".

Instead of looking at browser by current editor, consider looking at browser by current READER. I bet you get a whole different story. And I bet that some of these people (who are non IT types), could contribute quite well here as information workers, even though they are not code monkeys.71.246.147.58 (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You appear to resent being told that hard things are actually hard. IE is actually hard - David Gerard (talk) 20:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

No...that part of it was a good, relevant comment from you. Don't feel like you have to reply to every comment I make. I just want to leave the thoughts to sink in. Like HF on glass. Etching... Not some Wiki debate for you to solve with a talk page remark. ;-) 71.246.147.58 (talk) 20:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added a link to the bugzilla tracking item for IE support; the bugs preventing VisualEditor to work with IE are listed as its dependencies. It's not only about IE10, but I hope it's useful. guillom 07:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

VE incompatible with singlechart template

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52589

VE can't properly display any chart table using {{singlechart}}. Take a look at 5 O'Clock (T-Pain song)#Charts and certifications as a random selection, and try to figure out how to change the positions (or, worse yet, add a line). This is probably related to the fact that singlechart creates reference and table markup internally. It is, however, an extremely common template, used in most articles about singles.—Kww(talk) 01:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Citation templates

The old editor had a list of commonly used citations. This was extremely handy. It would be nice if that feature could be brought back. ¿3family6 _contribs 01:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, is it something much different from what is explained at Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User_guide#Editing_references? Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T50368

It also had a built-in find and replace function. That of course tends to be more useful in the source edit, but it's ridiculous that that and many other functions of the edit toolbar were removed. Reywas92 07:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll check Bugzilla for similar requests, although I would not say that features were removed, they are not ready yet (remember, this is still the beta version!). --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

There was one, as a matter of fact :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I figured that they weren't ready yet. I also couldn't find a link to the User Guide. Thanks!--¿3family6 _contribs 13:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

There's a link to that page straight in the VE interface: try and click the question mark. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Map display problem in Safari on iPad

The following does not display correctly in VE under Safari on iPad.

Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 391: The hemisphere "N" provided for longitude is not valid.'Bold text'Bold text

Downsize43 (talk) 01:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Could you elaborate how is it displayed incorrectly for you? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Not part of the previous item

I'm still not very used to it. I was planning to added one more ref into a sentence, but I have no idea what to do. Rochelimit (talk) 02:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Rochelimit:, How to edit references. I hope this helps! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Keegan (WMF): Now I'm very used it. I like it a lot, it's very easy, and because there is an option to edit classically as well (Edit Source). One problem is that if you want to continue another edit after saving the file, almost always that it will say that I am editing on an older version, forcing me to refresh the page.--Rochelimit (talk) 17:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Rochelimit:, I'm glad you're used to it and it's becoming enjoyable to use. As for the old revision problem, I've filed a bug. It happens after saving section edits as well. Happy editing to you! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Please get rid of this BETA editing tool

This new BETA editing tool is the most confusing and useless "upgrade" ever introduced by Misplaced Pages. Yes, it does look a lot fancier but Misplaced Pages is all about simplicity, which this new tool is effectively going to eliminate. We don't need this "chic" interface, make it go away! Permaveli (talk) 02:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If you wish to hide the VisualEditor interface, for now you can add the gadget under "Editing" in your preferences. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you should stop making it the default until it actually functions properly on most articles? That would be simpler than subjecting everyone to this thing unless we take steps to avoid it.—Kww(talk) 02:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Look, here's the basic thing. The WMF team has been working on this super hard, I get that. But when they're faced with this much dadgum opposition, you'd think they'd take a step back and wait a bit before forcing this on people who didn't even know it was coming - i.e. new editors, editors who didn't see the watchlist/other notices, etc. And now, it's forced as default for all logged in editors? This is too much too fast, and this response is more proof of that.

@Permaveli - if you want to disable it temporarily, there's a nice script that you can use to do such. Just add:

importScript('User:Matma_Rex/VE_killer.js');

to your Special:MyPage/common.js page and it should work right iirc for the time being. ~Charmlet 02:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I strongly believe this rollout was premature at best. I have no idea why anyone thought displaying edit summaries in the tiniest text imaginable was a good idea. I don't see why anyone thought a function which does not display the standard BLP policy notice when editing BLPs, especially in a feature intended to appeal to new editors, was a good idea. I wonder whether not displaying the standard language about copyrights, licenses, etc was a good idea, and might even foul up the licensing legalities. With all the klutziness and obtrusive features, this may do for Misplaced Pages editing what Windows 8 has done for PC sales. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I note there is a strong statement on the info page to the effect that WMF and the Devs do not care one whit what the community wants, we are required to accept this. However, as others have said, imposing it as default before it works adequately is a sign of contempt and a completely separate point from whether a WYSIWYG editor is desirable in itself. The default being something that doesn't work is not desirable, and that policy statement is to say the least peculiar in a volunteer project. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Many, many people, including LOTS AND LOTS outside Misplaced Pages, have been yelling for a visual editor literally for years. At this point, surprise is not actually credible - David Gerard (talk) 07:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's my own fault for not knowing this was coming? I'm not credible? That's insulting. You should apoligize for such a comment.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I find myself incredulous that with the amount of publicity it had on and off Misplaced Pages, including banners for weeks and weeks, you could have missed it.

I do not suppress banners on Misplaced Pages, unless they trip my adblock filters. I saw the banner the other day about the discount in the shop, and I see the ones about the fund-raising, but I don't recall seeing a single banner about the visual editor. Thryduulf (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That's easy: 1) Get a list of everyone on Misplaced Pages, and 2) Tell them. Now I have a question for you: what the hell if "off Wikipeda" publicity, where would I find it, and why would I be required to view it? Sounds like you told everyone BUT the ones who need to know and now you can't figure out what you did wrong.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Please tell me: what would you have considered adequate notice? Please go into detail - David Gerard (talk) 18:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Not many here are saying it was a surprise (or even that it isn't a good option to have - if it works). What they are saying is that making it available is not the same thing as making it the default, that the latter decision was premature since it doesn't yet work. (Plus all teh people putting in large amounts of work reporting exactly how it fails to work - and there were many of those before this was imposed as the default.) And I for one am also saying that the information about how to switch the default back to "view source" needs to be clearly displayed on the info page. Or even more obviously displayed. (For one thing, why on earth is it hidden away under "gadgets"?) Several people are also saying there was no clear notice that the default was about to change, and I would tend to agree. "will soon be enabled" is only read as "will soon be the default" by those who have learnt to mistrust MediaWiki and the devs. Like me. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, as an opt-in late alpha test it would be fine as the goal is desirable. It is not yet complete enough for the uses it's being put to though - such basic things as templates, tables, redirects and non-ASCII character input are presently not working. Without such essentials it's not ready for beta testing yet. Thryduulf (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Slow, WSYWIG is more confusing

I spend a lot of my time in code, so prefer modifying the wikitext, rather than an interface's attempt at rendering the text in real time gringer (talk) 02:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. In the end, it's all about choosing the right editor for the right task, and if you feel you prefer to continue to use wikitext for all your editing needs, that's perfectly understandable :) guillom 06:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Unable to close input box

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52553

Clicking "Page settings", or the reference, image, and category buttons in the top right brings up a dialogue box for input. To close this box there is an X in the top right. However, when I am not at the top of the page, this dialogue box pops up beneath the standard editing options. This makes it impossible to close the box without adjusting the screen magnification.

In addition, the opening of these boxes freezes scrolling of the underlying page, which not only furthers the problem above, but is also simply annoying and unnecessary, as I can no longer move to another part of the article I wish to see without closing and reopening the box. Reywas92 03:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Added a report for this. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 04:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Opinion and issue

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52441

Today, while editing Portals to Canaan (adding a link and removing a word) I tried out the VE, for these simple tasks I have found it to be pretty good for this. It was simple enough (once I knew what it was actually doing) and I liked the list of links that gave suggestions, to avoid linking to a DAB page. The one issue I had was when I saved it, I went to remove a duplicate stub templates, and it said I was editing an old version of the page (in VE), so I had to reload the page to remove it. Overall I think it is good, and I like that it is easy to switch back to old school and VE without having to change any settings. I will probably use a combination of the two in the future, depending on what I am doing. --kelapstick 03:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback; this is great to hear :) Regarding the "editing an old version" issue, is it possible that someone edited the page in the meantime? guillom 05:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

No, there were no edits between mine. My edits were eight minutes apart, which I would say was the learning curve for me to figure out the puzzle piece thing (which I think is alright). There were no intermediate edits. I haven't done much in the way of mainspace edits since, if I come across the same problem or any others I will post here again. I think the key is to make the source easily accessible, which you have done. Sometimes it is easier/faster to write in Wikimarkup, so it is always nice to have that option. I also did a multi-picture template edit with it since, again, after figuring out how it worked, not bad (but I will probably use edit source for that sort of thing in the future).--kelapstick 05:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Do let us know if you encounter the same issue again :) guillom 05:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes guillom there seems to be an issue with editing the same page twice in a row, I did it again on 2008 riot in Mongolia, first I added a word in a lower section and saved it. I then decided I would try again to see if I received the same message as I did in the first example. Sure enough I did, so I added a piped hyperlink to economy, and sure enough it edited on the old version. See this edit, and the one before it. Looks like the page does not refresh itself after saving I suppose. --kelapstick 06:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for investigating; I confirm this issue. I've reported it, but it was actually already in bugzilla under another name. This is a high-priority bug for developers. Thanks again :) guillom 06:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

button

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

The button should not shift to when you simply mouse over anywhere in the header line. It's very distracting and should only do that when you mouse over the button itself.

It's also distracting how it has to widen itself. Why add the spaces inside the brackets? Why widen or change text at mouseover at all? should be the link all the time. Reywas92 03:06, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe the expansion of the edit button behaves this way to improve discoverability, while the widening thing's goal is to avoid cluttering the interface. In the end those are design decisions, so only the designers could really explain them (I can only guess). guillom 05:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I would prefer it not to shift at all, but to have an button instead of . As pointed out, this is incredibly annoying when reading. /Julle (talk) 11:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

There's a request in for that. :) Updating it. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Issues

At first glance, my immediate reaction was to figure out how to turn this off. I much prefer editing using code, and am glad that option remains. This concept is not terrible, but the product it self really adds little (although it is beta). My suggestion here is twofold:

Allow users to set their own default in preferences. VisualEditor should not be the default at this point, because it is not even a finished product. Both systems should be treated equally.
Enable new users to choose which editing system to use upon the creation of their account. It is critical to not assume all new editors are opposed to a technically-rich editing experience.

I wish this project the best of luck, but I have no interest in using it at this point. Aside from that, this project misses a key point - editor retention. Making a new, buggy, unfinished, and not technically rich editing system the 'default' does not show that WMF values its current editors. Finding new members is important, but keeping the current ones is too. Toa Nidhiki05 03:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That last paragraph hits the bulls-eye perfectly. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

"The WMF" definitely values its current editors, and the weeks spent following up on their comments, bug reports and feature requests should be an indication of that. I'd argue that VisualEditor wasn't made "the default", since both edit tabs appear on an equal footing (and "edit source" is more understandable than jargon like "edit using VisualEditor"). While it is true that newer users may be more interested in VisualEditor than experienced users, I think VisualEditor will also be useful to experienced editors for some editing tasks. I've been editing Misplaced Pages since 2005, and I still can't get a full {{cite journal}} reference right from the first time; VisualEditor provides a really nice interface for this. VisualEditor also drives me crazy at times, and I think it's a question of choosing the right editor for the right task. This will be even more the case in a few weeks/months when it's possible to switch between the two editing modes while editing. guillom 05:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor/Feedback

I do not like the new Visual editor. I don't edit very much, I usually change grammar or remove vandalism. I like the old way of editing better. Can I have the old way of editing back? BeckiGreen (talk) 03:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Click on "Edit Source". --j⚛e decker 03:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Copying from my post above: to revert the imposition of VisualEditor as default: Preferences > Gadgets > under Editing, check/tick "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface". This needs to be posted prominently on the information page. People who don't like it - or prefer to wait until it actually works - should not have to perform an extra step before each edit. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Er no.... Currently Opera is not supported in VE, great news. But if I go and check that remove visual editor option I find the edit page tab disappears and I am unable to edit anything... Dsergeant (talk) 05:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Dsergeant: Trying to track your problem down a bit: Which Opera version do you use? On which exact page does the "edit page tab disappear"? Do you by any chance know which MediaWiki skin you are using? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Opera 12.14 (almost the latest, 12.15 has issues, I have not tried the new Opera 15 Chrome lookalike). I quickly checked a couple of my watched pages (eg Morse code) and as soon as I ticked the 'remove visual editor...' box in Gadgets it reloaded without any edit tab at all. Monobook skin. Cleared it and it worked normal again(in non-VE mode of course as I know Opera does not work with VE). Dsergeant (talk) 14:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Simple edit, simple mess

--NeilN 04:06, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Ugh, that's not very pretty indeed. Could you describe with some more details what you attempted to do? This will help pinpoint the source of the problem. guillom 05:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Wasn't me. I'm just looking over my watchlist for any VE edits. Maybe the editor was trying to use markup? VE should warn users who try to insert common markup syntax. --NeilN 06:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

D'oh, sorry, I didn't even look at who made the edit. Yes, I completely agree that VisualEditor should at least provide a warning. guillom 06:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's pretty clear what happened here. The user made a grammatical correction, changing "will" to "would", but VE added a whole pile of nowiki's. Risker (talk) 06:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The edit summary says "unlinked articles and...", so I assume it wasn't only a grammatical correction. guillom 07:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Highly disruptive

Not telling us that such a change was coming was highly disruptive to editing Misplaced Pages. Whoever turned this thing on should be blocked. Seriously.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This has been discussed publicly for more than a year and scheduled for June/July since at least March. Announcements appeared in the WP:Signpost, WP:VPT, the mailing lists, on the Watchlist, and other places. Whether or not it is a disruptive change, there was definitely a lot of notice that it was coming. Dragons flight (talk) 05:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention the banners at the top of every page. :-) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Not knowing this was coming would actually have required effort - David Gerard (talk) 07:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I didn't know it was coming. I took no effort to not know it was coming. I am, however, offended by your high-and-mighty comments as though you are a better class of Wikipedian than me.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

David Gerard and Philippe: actually, it seems that the banners were not displaying on some skins (see Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback#Banner). I, for one, was completely caught by surprise. (Not complaining, just pointing out.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I suspect a problem with cookies. I will be having Words with the people who are tweaking CentralNotice, and hopefully we can get some movement. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

A lot of users didn't know this was coming. Further evidence that the VisualEditor application is not ready for release. Kumioko (talk) 13:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Eh, I'm not too worked up, it's an understandable error. I just hope that once the crew at WMF gets this resolved, someone posts this. (Arrested Development, if you don't get the reference.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Unless something has changed, if you opt-out of fundraising ads, it suppresses all WMF banners. Remember the editor's survey was subject to the same problem? A lot of people aren't going to know about this. From my brief experience with it, my first impression was to try to get rid of it, quickly. It's not even half-finished. It's a good idea, just finish coding it before rolling it out. Gigs (talk) 16:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I also did not know it was coming because I never see banner ads on Wiki. The product is not finished, the documentation is incomplete. I agree with Gigs that probably best to finish it in a walled garden before rolling it out to the world. Ellin Beltz (talk) 16:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Gigs: In my case, I haven't opted out of fundraising ads, but I still didn't get the banners. (You're probably right that that opt-out is what caused a lot of people to miss this announcement; it just might not be the whole story.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Here is a list of problems I have encountered

Scripts are unavailable (regularising date formats, checking page size, general formatting, etc).
Citation Bot is unavailable.
References are far more difficult to add and correctly format.
BLP notices are not being displayed.
Editors are not being informed when they are editing a semi-protected or fully-protected page.
Hidden comments are inaccessible.
Section edits do not seem to be possible. These are crucial on large pages, to help speed load and save time.
The "Review Changes" box covers the whole screen, making examination of the underlying page impossible.
All added hyperlinks are displaying as blue, even if there's no underlying article.
If you can see mark-up errors while looking at the "Review Changes" box, there's no way to get at the underlying code and change them. People will potentially have to open the old-style edit box anyway, for a second edit to make repairs.
You definitely do Not want to be editing info boxes with this editor, as it's really easy to inadvertently remove the line breaks between parameters.
Unexpected formatting changes and gibberish code are being added on many edits that aren't merely simple amendments to the prose. -- Diannaa (talk) 04:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Diannaa: Thanks for reporting these :). In order: I suspect scripts and citation bot will catch up as the software matures. I agree, references need some love - it's an area in development, and if you have any ideas for improvement we have a bug here you can post them at (or just put them here and ping me, and I'll post it - bugzilla is one of the most fundamentally user-unfriendly pieces of software I've ever seen).

BLP notices not being displayed is a weird one; the VisualEditor should be surfacing page-notices. I've added that to Bug 50415, which also covers the semi- and full-protection issue. Hidden comments are at 49603; section edits, also working on. Can you send me a screenshot of the "review changes" problem? Hyperlinks is being worked on, and I totally agree about the markup errors; I think the plan is to move towards more of a wordpress-like environment where you can toggle between the two, edits intact. How are you removing the line breaks in infoboxes? And, if you can point me at gibberish code, I am happy to take a look at it.

Sorry for the TLDR; thanks for all your bug reports thus far. They're most appreciated :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi @Okeyes (WMF): The info box problem: Suppose I want to change the contents of a parameter of a line in the info box. I open up the info box and click on the parameter I want to change. The existing contents of the the dialogue box consists of the current contents of the field, plus a following line break. If I remove all the contents and replace it with something new, I inadvertently remove the line break. Sample diff of Kidz Bop 20.

Problems with gibberish code being added: other people have reported this problem. If I personally have this occur, I will report it.

The "review changes" box covers the whole screen. As does any dialogue box such as those that open when editing an info box or adding a citation. This is probably caused by my using 125% zoom on a small laptop. Note that without this magnification, I am unable to edit the encyclopedia. When I take the zoom down to 90%, I am able to see some of the underlying article (but I am no longer able to read it or edit it; it's too small). File:Overlapping dialogue boxes with visual editor.JPG shows a dialogue box covering the entire screen when my zoom is set to 125%. Notice how it's tucked under the bar at the top of the screen, a problem that has been reported elsewhere. If I could pick up the dialogue boxes and move them around, that might help. But presently they're locked in place.

For the kind of editing I am doing right now, the old-school edit box works better. Full citations are not added inline; the books are added to the bibliography down below and are called using {{sfn}} templates. Sample diff of Oskar Schindler. The new prose is added, and once the book is listed in the bibliography, all I have to do to add my cite is copy-paste a wee bit of mark-up, such as {{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=39}}, and change the page number. Same deal if people are using named citations; it's likely easier to copy-paste their existing named citation rather than open up a dialogue box to add their cite. Adding cites needs to be the easiest thing in the world, as at this stage in the wiki history, we are no longer accepting unsourced content.

I notice you did not address the issue that section editing seems to be impossible. Clicking on a section edit does not open up that section but rather the whole article. For a big article, section editing is really important, because it's so easy to get lost. And it took 23 seconds for the visual editor to allow access to the article Adolf Hitler when I tried to edit a section. This does not compare favourably with the one second it takes to open a section edit in the old editing interface. I suppose I could go make a cup of tea while I am waiting, but that doesn't really make very good use of my editing time, does it?

For the type of editing I am doing right now, the visual editor does not help me. In fact it gets in the way and slows things down. So I am unlikely to use it. Unfortunately that is probably true for most of us who have been around a while. What this means is that the majority of the feedback you will be getting on the new system won't be from long-term editors like me, but from people who are new. If you were expecting long-term editors to use the new editor and report back on bugs and problems, I expect that is not going to happen once the initial flurry of excitement dies down, because in its present state it's more cumbersome to use, especially to add the citations, and gets in the way of productivity. Thank you for promptly replying to my list of concerns. -- Diannaa (talk) 14:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Diannaa: Sorry about the section editing thing :/. It's a known issue - see bugzilla:48429. So, I see just what you mean with the infobox - I've filed it as a bug here. The zoom problem is here. On referencing, I totally agree; it needs to be a lot easier. Our current work on that front is threefold; first, making the UI a lot less unfriendly. Second, building support for wiki-specific templates, like the cite setup. Third, making templates like sfn and efn easier to use. These aren't trivial, but the developers understand they're a fairly high priority (as do we - some of my biggest articles use sfn).

I agree there's a risk that a lot of power users will stop contributing bugs, which is disappointing, but actually we've been handling bugs from power users since last December; we're in, I think, a pretty good position on that front with some really awesome people helping us out - off the top of my head PamD and This, That and the Other have been indispensable. Still, I agree the VE has quite a few problems that may drive experienced users (including, heck, myself) to avoid it; that's one of the reasons we're trying such a labour-intensive and immediate deployment cycle: to try and get as many bugs identified and fixed quickly as is possible. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Okeyes (WMF): I thought of one more thing on my way to work, something which already may be obvious to you: When I have the visual editor turned on in Preferences, I can't access Section editing at all, no matter what button I push. This makes maintenance of large articles like Hitler or Nazi Germany a lot more difficult. To access section editing, I have to go into preferences and shut off the visual editor. Once I shut it off, it's unlikely I will turn it back on, as it makes my editing life harder, not easier, for the kind of editing I do and the kind of articles I have on my watch list. We may end up with a class of established editors who don't use the visual editors at all, and a class of newer editors who use it and love it and don't understand what the problem is. But more likely all users, as they gain experience, will be forced to discontinue use of the visual editor altogether as they discover the need to use more sophisticated editing techniques and mark-up, unless these become more accessible as improvements to the software are implemented. -- Ninja Dianna (Talk) 15:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh wow, that's weird :/. Section editing with the VE, or with the markup editor, or both? (What browser/skin/operating system?) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Never mind, I figured it out. -- Ninja Dianna (Talk) 17:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Saving of the page

I have just started using the new visual editor feature. I notice a lag in the saving of the page which is much more than when editing the source. A m i t ❤ 04:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Concur with this. A page that I edited with VE took 28 seconds to save compared to less than 3 seconds using source code. Aside from the learning curve that comes with having to relearn how to do things I already knew how to do (I'll get over that part), this is the biggest frustration with VE. And I haven't even tried it on my 'slow' computer yet. Risker (talk) 05:30, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The speed of opening and saving the page in VisualEditor is related to Parsoid, the program that converts wikicode to annotated HTML, and vice-versa. Parsoid has a "caching" feature, which means that it will work faster if it already has a recent version in memory. The cache sometimes needs to be cleared, and therefore re-built little by little as editors edit with VisualEditor, so this might explain some of the slowness you've encountered. The lead developer on Parsoid says: "Basically, as long as the progress animation is animating, Parsoid is working; on cache hits and large pages the animation is only active for a split second". So speed should get better as cache increases. guillom 05:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That would explain the slowness of the first save. It would not explain why the second save, some time later, was equally as slow. Risker (talk) 06:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, you're correct. Unfortunately, I'm out of Parsoid developers to ask at the moment, but I'll try again when they wake up. guillom 06:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I just tested with the relatively large San Francisco article, and both loading and previewing (same as save) were relatively quick. Loading was basically instant, although client-side VE processing took ~8 seconds (some optimization potential there). The preview took about 5 seconds to prepare client-side and ~4 seconds in Parsoid and the PHP differ while the progress animation was spinning.

Which page was slow for you?--Gabriel Wicke (talk) 01:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

rail icon templates

when previewing a change in a rail icon template, it does not render the new page correctly aligned but breaks up the icons and also misplaces them BT14 (talk) 04:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you give an example? I don't have the template to hand, I'm afraid :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Template with show/hide template opens to "show" position after saving

Twice when I was editing Lois Brown, the large template at the bottom of the page with the show/hide toggle defaulting to "hide" has opened after saving the edit, and the show/hide toggle disappeared. This reverted to normal after a few page refreshes. Risker (talk) 04:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

InMemoriamLuangPu (talk) 05:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

References

Very difficult to add references. What happened to web templates? NovaSkola (talk) 05:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that. Does the user guide help at all? You can add templates in references by clicking the "Transclusion" icon (puzzle piece) in the reference editing window; it should even provide you with fields for the possible parameters. Do let me know if the user guide doesn't help. guillom 05:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I meant, visual editor don't have button named "cite", which includes cite web or other refs, so where I can find that function? Furthermore Blablablaarticle doesn't work. Brackets stays but article isn't linked --NovaSkola (talk) 08:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, in the guide I read If you're adding a new reference and you want to include a template in it... and see the Cite template in the images. Doesn't this work for you? In order to create wikilinks, use the chain button. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 08:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit buttons

I really hate the that shows up. It took me a few to actually figure out what the difference between them was. For as long as I can remember, on Misplaced Pages meant "Go to a new page so you can make some changes and submit them." It didn't mean, "Stay on this page and make some changes in a reduced capacity. You want to make bigger changes? Click the OTHER button that is so obliquely-labeled good luck figuring out what it actually means. This new button, despite its confusing name, actually is the one that now does what the OTHER button used to do!" Great, so now I have to unlearn what has become so second-nature to me here on Misplaced Pages.

Can we PLEASE change this? It's annoying as crap to have to work with it like this. LazyBastard Guy 05:50, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

My question is, can the buttons be relabeled? I for one am used to the "edit" button being the one that lets me take a comprehensive look at things. LazyBastard Guy 06:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem with that is priority; because the VE is the default, it's going to be the default for newcomers, too. If we have "edit" link to the markup editor and "edit " link to the VisualEditor - denoting that it's something 'advanced', or something complex, basically - it sorta screws with the prioritisation. Ditto if we move the buttons about so that markup-editing is, from a LTR perspective, prioritised (i.e. one of the first things people see, reading from one side to the other). My advice would be to give it a week and see if it's still a problem. I know from my end that it's initially frustrating, but eventually adaptable to - I've had it enabled for a month now, and can't remember the last time I mis-clicked. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

My response to that is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yes, I'm sure you've seen it plenty of times on this very page. But why does the Edit button need to be changed? As far as I know, Misplaced Pages was doing just fine with the way it was labeled before. Maybe a better idea would be or something like that. With all due respect, your analysis of the situation is backwards - for example, the benefits will be minimal: More people will be used to the way it was before than there will be people who are used to the way it is now. I don't understand why the function of the button must change; it seemed to be just fine before. That would be like trying to find a substitute for the word "the" in the English language and forcing everyone to use it, with the rationale that "People who are raised into cultures thinking this way will find it useful". What's the point of changing it to start with? That's all I'm saying. LazyBastard Guy 00:07, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

You know what, forget about it - as long as I can keep VisualEditor disabled I shall do so. Consider my complaint withdrawn until further notice. LazyBastard Guy 00:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

I find it annoying that it has to change when you're just mousing over the entire header line. Make it static! We also NEED a link from the VE interface to the source interface. We still can't edit galleries, infoboxes, and such in VE, so there ought to be a quick link to the source edit. Reywas92 06:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I think I can safely say that a better integration between the two is on its way :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 06:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Reywas92: With regard to mousing over, there is a request in bugzilla:50540 to always show both. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a much better idea. As it is now, it has a negative effect on the (or at least my) ability to concentrate on the articles when reading. /Julle (talk) 11:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Could they be swapped around so "edit" is always the one for editing? On every page? I keep hitting "edit" by mistake and then having to wait a minute while the Visual Editor fiddles around before I can cancel out of it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by "always the one for editing"? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

On this page, "edit" is used for editing, whereas on a main page, it would be "edit source". So "edit" now has two meanings, depending on what sort of page you are on. This is inconsistent. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree on standardisation, but I think that standardising in that direction would be a problem; if you have "edit" and "edit with ", which sounds like the one you should pick? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Complaints

(1) I was editing when suddenly I had Visual Editor thrust upon me. How do I revert to the old style of editing? (First you want to spy on veteran editors, then you use them as unwilling guinea pigs. Are you trying to drive us away?)

(2) Have Misplaced Pages's Dear Leaders ever heard the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? How is this an improvement?

(3) Is it really a good idea to make editing easier? Do you want to make it easier for 14-year-old boys to insert the words "fuck" or "penis" or "my girlfriend is a whore" in the middle of an article on atomic physics -- which will require someone else to clean up their mess? (If you want to do something useful, how about installing a filter just to eliminate words like "fuck", "asshole", etc. -- or repeating characters? Then other people wouldn't have to waste time cleaning up articles after they've been vandalized.)

(4) Where the heck are the special symbols / alphabets? How can I use Greek or Cyrillic or other special letters?

(5) The new editing system is slooooooow.

(6) Want to do something useful for a change? How about displaying footnotes when they're added or altered? At present, when I add a footnote, I don't see it until I save the page; then I notice a typo and I must edit the page again. Save people some trouble by displaying, during "preview", footnotes to a section.

Cwkmail (talk) 05:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The "old style" of editing is still right there; just click "edit source". Many willing guinea pigs have enabled VisualEditor early and provided a lot of feedback, which has allowed developers to fix bugs. VisualEditor is now in better shape, and stable enough to be made available to all users. It's not completely bug-free (no software is), but developers have been fixing bugs at an impressive rate.

Regarding vandalism, there's an item in the FAQ about it, but basically, it's just as easy to add "fuck" with the wikitext editor; it's not like vandals particularly care about breaking wikitext. And I'm pretty sure there are already AbuseFilters in place to catch those words.

I do miss the special characters as well; there's a bugzilla request about it. Regarding speed, although a lot of improvement has been done, a balance needs to be struck between ease of editing and speed. If you're more comfortable with editing the wikitext source code, that editing mode remains available both for whole pages and for sections. guillom 06:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Cwkmail:, that filter you mention has been in existence since 2007; it's called the AbuseFilter. And actually, the VE does allow for footnote display. When/where have we tried to "spy on veteran editors"? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Wow, you guys respond pronto! I only wish that the real world worked like that. (1) "Edit source" is what's called "non-intuitive". May I suggest "Revert to traditional editing" or some such? (2) Glad to hear about the vandalism filters, although apparently vandals still find ways to delete entire sections of articles, add comments that come from a public men's room, etc. (3) If I edit a section of an article and add a footnote to it, the footnote isn't displayed during "preview". If there's a way around this shortcoming, I'd be glad to receive instructions. (4) A few days ago, editors were asked if they wanted to make their edit data (time, date, frequency, etc.) public. Hence the accusation of "spying". (5) Most important, if Misplaced Pages is trying to attract new editors, perhaps making editing easier will help somewhat. (It took me months -- imitating others' examples -- to learn the old system.) However, I suspect that a more fundamental problem is: all the easy stuff has been done. To write a beginning "stub" article about, say, Sir Issac Newton, is easy -- providing dates of birth, death, etc. But to add information to a more fully developed article -- e.g., to explain how his hypothesis of an inverse-square law explains the dynamics of the solar system -- is something that only a few people know. On the other hand, there's a continual stream of current events and popular culture to provide fodder for new editors and new articles. However, I think that most people don't enjoy doing the boring homework of finding and citing references (although I enjoy it as a kind of treasure hunt). Finally, the novelty of Misplaced Pages has worn off. There are new on-line activities to absorb people's time and efforts. Good luck with your new Visual Editor. Maybe you should steal some of Apple's staffers. They seem to be especially good at these things. Cwkmail (talk) 07:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

So, in order: (1) "revert to traditional editing" makes it sound like a preference, and makes the button gigantic. (2) yeah, they're only as good as the volunteers maintaining them. (3) In the markup editor? No, nothing is - it's not rendered until save. In the VisualEditor, which renders as it goes, the references should be viewable (if they're not, and you can give me a screenshot, I would be most grateful). (4) that was a conversation amongst volunteer editors, about a tool built by volunteer editors. It has nothing to do with the foundation - moreover, it's data that is already totally public and can be pulled out of Special:Contributions. (5) I agree totally; there is a hypothesis about editor decline called "africa is not a redlink" that basically says precisely what you are - a lot of the easy stuff is already done, and this is a problem. I'm also a fan of the novelty hypothesis (which I refer to as the "ooh, neat!" hypothesis...mostly because I'm a sucker for vocalisations). These are worth investigating, and some research has been done on (for example) the "africa is not a redlink" theory. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Not Default?

Can the powers-that-be NOT make this default. How about Opt-in and not forcing people opt-out?

WYSIWYG editing is gonna lead to dragging down contributors to the low·est common denominator J. D. Redding 06:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is really that hard. VisualEditor isn't the "default"; it's just another editing mode offered as an alternative to wikitext editing. You're free to choose the one you want to use; in my experience, each editor is suited to specific tasks, and I personally use them both, depending on whether I'm fixing a link (which is more straightforward for me in wikitext) or editing a complex reference template (which is now easier in VisualEditor). guillom 06:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

"Is wiki-syntax really that hard to grasp?" Yes, actually. Don't get me wrong - for contributors with the level of dedication that you or I have, I think wiki-syntax isn't that big a challenge; we have an identity vested, at least in part, in our contributions to Misplaced Pages. We're long-term editors, we've got great experience contributing, and we joined in a time when actually having to learn a markup challenge to contribute to a work wasn't that big a deal (heck, even MySpace, back in the day - and that's as social as it's possible to get - had HTML and CSS editing). But nobody starts off with this level of dedication, they have to build up to it, and most people don't start off wanting to write great big articles; they want to start off...adding a reference. Or correcting a typo. And to do either, they need to be able to parse syntax; not just because many types of small contribution require it, but because being able to read the editable text of an article requires it. Hitting "random article" brought me to Detrended correspondence analysis, for example. If I spot a typo in the page and go to fix it (hey, it has a cleanup template, it might need it) I'm confronted with template syntax, dash-style bolding, square brackets for linking, pipes for linking, list syntax, header syntax and a massive table. If I want to fix something, I need to be able to read it to identify the element in the editing view that I saw needed fixing in the reading view. And that means learning a big chunk of wiki-markup...when all I want to do is fix a typo.

@At the same time, the internet in 2013 isn't a place where people expect to need to learn markup to contribute; pretty much all the nuanced interfaces I can think of (Wordpress comes to mind) features a rich-text editor. Users don't expect to have to learn wikimarkup, and when you combine "I didn't expect to have to learn this" with "I have to learn a big chunk of it to fix a typo", you get people going "this isn't worth the effort" and leaving, regardless of their intelligence. Nobody is saying "we want people too stupid to learn markup!" Far from it (heck, bits of the VE still require markup, just far less of it). We're a community of pretty brilliant people and we'd like to keep it that way - we're not doing this because we want the lowest common denominator editing. We're doing this because we want to reduce the initial cognitive overhead to contributing. And that means reducing the complexity that users are initially faced with - which is not the same as reducing the complexity of what they eventually might have to learn.

Having said that, I appreciate the VE isn't for everyone. If you look at the gadgets menu in the preferences, you'll find functionality to hide it - taking that option means you'll get the same editing interface you got last week. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It is not really that hard for someone to use wikisyntax ... Me'the data is skewed . Please do NOT make this default. Regardless, allow opt-in ... and the problem is solved. --J. D. Redding 06:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC) (ps., "reduce the initial cognitive overhead " = "lowest common denominator editing". 'Nuff said. As to contributions ... if someone wants to contribute text, contribute it, let someone else mark it up. Real simple. Been that way since the beginning of the project ... goodness the early years were so much better.)

I appreciate the utopianism in your above message, but you have to understand that in practise that isn't how Misplaced Pages has worked for...quite some time. New contributors submitting text without, for example, references, do not get someone showing up to add markup. They get it deleted. I'm not sure what you mean by "twain and statistics". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Lies, damned lies, and statistics is a quote from Mark Twain.—Kww(talk) 06:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha (the lack of proper nouning confused me). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Bell's First Law of USENET. --J. D. Redding 08:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Arguing that the button presented as the only option for section editing unless you learn to hover (or edit your preferences) isn't the "default" is a little disingenuous.—Kww(talk) 06:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, non-default would imply you have to make an active preference choice to enable it, imo. Different terminology, maybe. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

But Steven Walling only mentioned how it is difficult for women... SL93 (talk) 10:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This is terrible

Don't use this new VisualEditor. It sucks. Brosensu (talk) 06:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't use it if you don't like it, I can't agree more. But perhaps everyone should make their own opinion on the matter? :) guillom 06:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks like everyone has. The jury is in--it's terrible, turn it off.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Brosensu:, are there any particular things not working for you? We can't improve it if we don't know what's wrong with it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Text shifts up

When I click to edit, the Table of Contents understandably disappears. However, this results in everything on the page to shift upward, causing my desired section to either be obscured at the top of the page by the edit toolbar or shift off the page altogether. This should not happen; all contents should stay at the same level on the screen when in edit mode. Reywas92 06:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

May I perhaps trouble you for a screenshot? I'm not sure I understand properly the problem you're explaining. guillom 06:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's the process taken when I go to enter VE from a section edit, it can't be captured in a screenshot. I wasn't clear that this is for section editing, not from the top edit tab. Click the section edit button of the section directly below the TOC, and the TOC disappears (as it obviously isn't editable), causing everything below it to shift up to fill the space. This means that I have to scroll back up to reach the point I wanted to edit, especially if the TOC was large. Reywas92 07:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

To maybe be a little clearer, even if the section header is at the bottom of the page when I click edit, it automatically moves to the top of the page when VE is loaded. However the toolbar floating at the top covers the header and the first few lines. Reywas92 07:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This is fairly annoying. I tend to click edit in the expectation that I will see the section I want to edit, and not have the page jump upwards and the section header disappear. Ideally the text should not move at all. Next best, the section header should be clearly visible at the top of the edit window. • • • Peter (Southwood) : 09:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Just making sure it's not related to the browser you might be using: is it among those listed here? Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm hitting this too, using Firefox Nightly on Mac. The section header is always covered by the floating toolbox, and if I'm zoomed in (I usually am because I have a high-res screen), the first few lines of the section are also covered. Jruderman (talk) 10:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I need to be sure about Nightly, so I'll ask. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey Jruderman, can you a) try a different browser in an "official" version which we are sure it's supported or b) manage to take a screenshot for us? Thanks! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

New editing format sucks

I did read the feedback page, and it looks like the people behind thins don't give a damn about the complaints, so i'll just put it simply; this new "idea" sucks. The old way was better and simpler. 293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 07:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I can see why you prefer the classic editor, but I don't get how we might be overlooking complaints. People have been answering requests 24/7 on this page, so it sounds a bit unfair. Of course, we'd love to help you as well if you have a technical issue, beyond not liking the new interface :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the complaints demanding that this new way of editing is an optional thing for starters instead of being default? The complaints that this was thrust upon the editors with little to no warning? The fact the interface was coded by a script kiddie hyped up on Energy Drinks? Just answering and acting like it's all hunky dory is not the way to address the problem. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 07:30, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You'll find here a list of all the places where this was announced in time (I think banners were not included), so I think it is actually safe to say that enough notice was given - and with it, enough time to test it before today. If you had never heard about VE before, would you mind sharing ideas about other places that could be used to inform users about it? I would actually add that most of the complaints do not seem to come from new users, but rather from more experienced ones ;) As for the code, it's really just in beta now. I'm not a coder myself, but I don't expect perfection from software at this level. Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah yes, notices where me, as a casual editor, have not been to in my years of Misplaced Pages editing. Did anyone even bother to factor in the editorship that does casual edits (which should be many) or have little to no interaction to the more "specialized" areas of Misplaced Pages? --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 09:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. As well as the announcements listed there we ran a centralnotice for a week and a watchlist notice for (iirc) 3. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Which as a casual editor on Misplaced Pages, I have not availed myself to and my response of "What the bloody hell are you talking about?"--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 09:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It had years, months, weeks and days of warning as far as I could tell. Could you please detail what, to you, would have constituted sufficient warning? - David Gerard (talk) 07:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Front page warning? Banner warning? I can't understand why I'm informed of nominations to the WMF Board or some site wide project like "Misplaced Pages Loves Monuments" on the top of pages yet this interface is thrust out "quietly." --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 09:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's too bad that the warning of it happening isn't the big issue. SL93 (talk) 10:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If default, make the new option appearance to the right

If default, can the 'programmers' make the new option _appearance_ to the right ?

Current implementation (poor)

[Edit Viz | Edit source)

Alternative implementation (better)

Better yet, just make it opt in. But, I digress ... --J. D. Redding 07:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

As explained above, with a similar request, this would totally undermine the entire point of it being the default. People read left-to-right; the options that are the default or the expected mechanism should be the ones closest to the left, as it were. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Should be opt-in ... "new" features should be _added_ to the side ... J. D. Redding 07:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's been in an opt-in form since December 2012; a wider release is actually allowing us to tackle and identify a heck of a lot more bugs and bring this up from being an alpha, to a beta, to a release version. Adding new features to the side was, as said, conflict with how people identify functionality. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Please keep it opt-in. Been going good with opt-in form since December 2012, seem like. The "functionality', your opinion, is thrust on everyone. Sounds like Democratic centralism. ... the new "default" option is really a _new_ feature. It should be added to the right. Not taking the place of the edit source. This is, upon consideration, also why the license should have been kept under GPL (and not made artistic). --J. D. Redding 07:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

We seem to be going in circles, here. Actually, opt-in form was going fantastically - we got a host of bugs - but there's no substitute for the "many eyes make shallow bugs" philosophy. A lot of the issues we've encountered and solved for over the last 24 hours would've been hidden for months or potentially years more without it. I'm not sure how the GPL relates to this. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

... and that misunderstanding ("not sure") may, nay does, lay at the root of the problem. --J. D. Redding 08:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Evidently, particularly since we've never used the GPL. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages never used the gnu copyleft license? Riiight. Now that is funny. --J. D. Redding 08:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC) (ps., next one will hear, "It's not a bug; it's an undocumented feature!")

The GNU copyleft license for text would be the GFDL, which we did use, but at this point I think we're down to the micro rather than the macro in our disagreement, so it probably isn't worthwhile to continue. If you have anything you're more willing to elucidate on, in bug terms, that we've not explicitly said we won't solve in the way you want, let me know. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Why cannot you just give them the eff'ing source text as the default and not the buggy editor ... god speed the bug squashing, until then 'Edit Hell'. --J. D. Redding 08:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC) (ps., will say one thing positive. Like the flashy edit transition, but edit source should be first; Source to the people.)

Defaultsort now editable - thanks

Brilliant: I needed to change the DEFAULTSORT from "The New Elizabethans" to "New Elizabethans, The", and this time I didn't need to retype the whole lot but could just delete and retype the "The ". I reported this as a bug a while back and it's been fixed. Thanks. PamD 07:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Awesome! Do let us know if you run into any other bugs - or if some you've already reported haven't been moved on. I'll try to kick the devs a bit. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Resolution of references

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51555

Firstly, I welcome the introduction of this editing tool. I hope the developers are not too discouraged by the negative reception here – this is very much to be expected. Now retired (thankfully?) from a career doing this sort of work I know the impossibility of introducing any new development in a way and at a time that suits most people. Or at any rate "most people who comment".

Having said that I have found a problem with nested references although I expect the article is using references in a way that developers wish would be deprecated. Here in the "Notes" section, the references are just being displayed by the Visual Editor in "raw" form (perhaps this is inevitable?) and in the body of the article there is an extraneous "</ref>" in the second paragraph of the lead and in the first paragraph of "Enduring influence". I haven't tried editing or saving so I don't know what the effect would be. Best wishes and good luck! Thincat (talk) 07:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll look into that ASAP, thanks. Generally speaking, yes, VE does not really like workarounds in pages and recommends we do not use them ;) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It has to do with the bug above and/or linked bugs. Regards, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for getting back to me. It does indeed look to be this bug. Some people were deploring this method of referencing long before Visual Editor was on the scene. It is, however a powerful technique although one that many editors will be unfamiliar with. Thincat (talk) 17:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Slow

I mean, sloooow. After klicking the edit button, I have experienced loading times of up to 30 seconds. Completely unacceptable, basically you're wasting contributors' precious lifetime. How can you go live with this thingy as the "standard experience"? Stefan64 (talk) 07:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

VE being slow is a known thing, especially on long pages, I think. But it might also be there's a hiccup of some sort, since the next report seems related? The "standard experience" is only at beta stage, and asking for some faith :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Would be great to know which browser and browser version you are using, plus an example page that loads that slowly. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Too slow - can't re-edit article

Twice just now I've edited an article and wanted to edit it again immediately: first time, I did one group of changes, wanted to save them before starting a second batch, different edit summary, for clarity; second time I tweaked something, saved the page, then realised I wanted to change something else (I'd edited a line in a dab page, then realised I needed to move that line to preserved alphabetisation).

When I go back to re-edit in VE I get an error message: "You are editing an old version of the page...".

Even after the time I've taken to type all the above, I've just tried to re-open Robert Edwards and I still can't do so. ... OK, couldn't a moment ago for the nth time, but just immediately now can do so. What's that, about 5 minutes? I hope it's only a temporary glitch. PamD 07:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

See above, maybe a temporary thing? Also, would clearing the cache help? Anyway, I already heard of (and filed about) similar conflicts, it might be another case. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's actually a bug: bugzilla:50441 and it's a high-priority task for developers. guillom 09:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Unnecessary extra references

This edit, which is tagged VisualEditor in my watchlist but not on that diff, added a <references /> which was unnecessary, since {{reflist}} was already present. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, the label does not show up in diffs, in my experience. I'm 99% positive that this was already reported, but will check and report if it isn't, in the meanwhile, thank you. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 08:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

My point was not so much about the absence of the tag in the diff, but the addition of an unnecessary <references /> --Redrose64 (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion: Saving and loading template definitions.

So far, good work on the visual editor. I would definitely suggest some polish before it is implemented for all editors , but it is a step in the right direction. One thing struck me as a bit odd while using the Visual Editor though: There is an entire interface for adding templates, yet the editor still expects me to enter each template parameter manually, which still requires me to remember what fields are used in a taxobox, or that "1=" happens to be a deletion reason, while "2=" is intended to be the signature in another template.

What I would like to suggest would be the ability to save a template definition for later use - one could actually go as far as creating default definitions for every commonly used template (and load these definitions by default when a template is selected in the editor). Since idea's are nice but examples are better, I added a quick mockup of this idea. The Pseudo-XML code below is an example of a saved template definition. The thumbnail would be an example of the result right after this definition would be loaded.

<Template>
<Parameters>
 <ParaMeterGroup1 displayname="General Information">
   <Parameter1>
     <ParameterName>Taxo_Name</ParameterName>
     <ParameterFriendlyName>Name</ParameterFriendlyName>
     <HelpDescription>The common, non scientific name of this animal</HelpDescription>
     <DefaultValue>Paraplatypoides longipes</DefaultValue>
     <Type>Text</Type>
   </Parameter1>
   <Parameter2>
     <ParameterName>Template_Image</ParameterName>
     <ParameterFriendlyName>Image</ParameterFriendlyName>
     <HelpDescription>The image that should be displayed in the taxobox</HelpDescription>
     <Type>Text</Type>
   </Parameter2>
   <Parameter3>
     <ParameterName>Regnum</ParameterName>
     <ParameterFriendlyName>Regnum</ParameterFriendlyName>
     <HelpDescription>The regnum under which this species falls</HelpDescription>
     <Type>Selection</Type>
       <Selection>
         <PossibleValue>Animalia</PossibleValue>
         <PossibleValue>Plantae</PossibleValue>
         <PossibleValue>Fungi</PossibleValue>
         <PossibleValue>Protista</PossibleValue>
         <PossibleValue>Archaea</PossibleValue>
         <PossibleValue>Bacteria</PossibleValue>
      </Selection>
   </Parameter3>
 </ParaMeterGroup1> 
 <ParaMeterGroup2 displayname="Diversity">
     <Parameter1>
     <ParameterName>diversity_link</ParameterName>
     <ParameterFriendlyName>Diversity Link/ParameterFriendlyName>
     <HelpDescription>The article that the text specified under the "Diversity" parameter links to.</HelpDescription>
     <Type>Text</Type>
   </Parameter1>
   <Parameter2>
     <ParameterName>diversity</ParameterName>
     <ParameterFriendlyName>Diversity</ParameterFriendlyName>
     <HelpDescription>The amount of species in a specific taxa</HelpDescription>
     <Type>Text</Type>
   </Parameter2>
 </ParaMeterGroup2>
 </Parameters>

Most of the data should explain itself - "ParameterName" is the name of the parameter that is to be used in the template. The other data fields are only intended for display, help and automation sake. I suppose the same set up could also be used to edit an existing template. As long as the editor could parse the existing template parameters it should be possible to map parameter data back to their respective parameter fields in the visual editor. Excirial 08:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Excirial, it is my understanding that Bugzilla can also be used for similar suggestions, since it's what devs actually read. Do you think you can submit this, or prefer us doing it instead? Thank you, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 08:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Excirial: this actually already exists! Take a look at the TemplateData extension and the tutorial on using it. Things are still being rolled out at the moment, simply because it's we've got a lot of templates and have to write TD for them all; if you'd be interested in helping we have a long list of the most commonly-used templates here. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Okeyes (WMF): I should have known to ask you this on IRC first, but it is great to read that this actually already exists! I've experimented a but and added templatedata to a simple template, Template:Red/doc. Mind taking a quick glance to see if this was done correctly? Excirial 12:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Display of interwikis ignores namespace

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52565

Editing User:John of Reading with VisualEditor, the "Page Settings / Languages" popup claims that my user page is related to the Swedish article sk:Ján z Readingu. But actually that's linked to the article John of Reading. John of Reading (talk) 08:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Great catch! I'll throw it in bugzilla now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Section 0 edit link different

Section 0 edit link should work the same as all the other sections, but does not. It only shows as and only functions as edit source.
It took me all of about 10 seconds to work out how to get back to the old editor once I realised that VE had been rolled out, and I have not trialled it. However there might be a better (more immediately obvious) term than edit source for the old editor. • • • Peter (Southwood) : 08:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Peter, browser/WP skin/OS? :) Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Chrome at the moment, Vector, XP. I also use Firefox, IE8 and IE10, but not yet with VE.• • • Peter (Southwood) : 09:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, sorry it seems the browser is not the problem here, as explained by Oliver. Still, remember IE is not supported yet for VE. Regards, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood:, the section 0 edit links aren't a MediaWiki feature, they're a gadget a volunteer wrote for enwiki - so they aren't going to get updates that MediaWiki does, I'm afraid (one of the disadvantages of user-generated code). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That is a pity, because it is useful and this bug is annoying and confusing. No doubt the confusion will soon go away, but the annoyance is likely to remain. Not getting VE is less of a problem than expecting it and getting the old editor instead. I can live with it. There are far more annoying things on WP that I manage to ignore. • • • Peter (Southwood) : 09:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing got more complex

"ultimately, a lot of people leave because editing is just too complex" . Visual Editor is a good idea, but this implementation is way too heavy and clumsy. On Firefox 22 / Lubuntu 13.04 / Core i3 / 4GB RAM typing is so slow I can type a sentence and wait to see it appearing while sipping tea. In comparison, Wordpress is fluid and responsive. Complexity is an enemy, no doubts. However, the complexity is in the formality of the content (and ultimately in how Misplaced Pages is organized), not in the markup or in the editor. I am confident that the editor was not a significant factor of why people left. I was considering returning and this visual editor would be a motivator not to. Thank you for edit source. Good luck with visual editor, at some point you will get it right. Yuv (talk) 09:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it was Stu I heard in Milan back in April talking about how it took 10 years for Wordpress to get a decent VisualEditor. We are still in beta stage, so I am quite optimistic there's still plenty of time to improve it. Thanks for your feedback, Yuv. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If it's still in the "beta" stage, why was it forced down our throat? It should have just been limited to people who were willing to test this lousy dreck until the bugs are worked out and then rolled out when it was ready. No, this is not the "beta" stage--this is release 1.0.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I beg to differ: it's beta (devs should know, right? This was their answers to me hours ago.), and you're obviously free to ignore VE undefinitely while other people help us so that it reaches a better stage. More people will find more bugs in less time. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It is certainly too heavy. the creator of VE said that in 2001, wiki markup was acceptable, but in 2013 it's driving away contributors. You sure may get a few new contributors, but you're driving the old ones away. smileguy91 13:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Naming references after first creation

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52568

name reference isn't an option when it's subsequently edited

So when you first create a reference you can chose to name it for re-use later on, great! But if you didn't name it when it was first created then it doesn't appear you can edit the reference to add a name later. Click on the reference and the only option that comes up is group; name is not an option. NtheP (talk) 09:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Nthep: good catch! I'll throw it into bugzilla now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Now tracking. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Correction to my earlier comment, I now seem to have lost the ability to add name in the first place. NtheP (talk) 10:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't do it

For some reason I have been forced to use this and don't have the option anymore to not use it and use the standard method of editing. It is horrible, it is slow, it is confusing. You say this is going to help wikipedia expand as everyone will be able to easily submit information but they won't. This is so much more confusing. How do I disable this? I do not like being forced to use an editor that is still incredibly slow and buggy. --Lolcakes25 (talk) 10:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lolcakes, you can just use the "edit source", and everything will work just as usual, or take a closer look at the Gadget section among your Preferences. I fully understand today's discouragement, still hope to hear from you soon when you get to test VE again. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

So if it is not ready, how do we turn it off?

I do not want to be forced to use a new tool now. So how do I turn it off so I can learn how to use it (assuming that it works since there is a disclaimer that says some parts of it are not working yet) when I am ready to do so? Shouldn't that be the first thing that you add prior to rolling something out? Stevenmitchell (talk) 10:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Stevenmitchell, see my comment above. IMHO, reading Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User_guide (which features images as well) is more helpful in learning than shutting the whole thing down ;) and in the meantime, keep using the "Edit source" tab whenever you find it appropriate. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC) - PS: actually, it's testing that takes it from a beta stage to a really ready now stage, so I hope you'll be part of that process, at some point.

I found it in my list of gadgets (in preferences) and switched it off there. Might also want to tick the box to exclude yourself from future experiments too. I've edited mainly at work this year and if i am forced to use this new layout my CPU usage with firefox is between 80-95%. That's unrealistic and leaves me with no way to comfortably edit articles.

Please don't force this crap on us Wikimedia. It's pointless making editing "easier" to attract more people if you make it more difficult for the people who already edit. I really do resent having these decisions made for me without any discussion or option to participate or not. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 11:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jenova20, this is interesting - is your CPU usage between 80-95% when you click on Edit source? Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

52-70% when i attempted on the same article (Peugeot 3008). Still bad, but then this is an old computer. A lot of the annoyance with VisEd was waiting for the page to show up after it had already loaded (i assume that's down to Javascript?). Thanks ツ Jenova 20 12:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

So it's not that disruptive after all even on an old computer, I'd say. I kinda feel for VE, having to edit a page featuring that biiig template - also, we don't know whether it likes French cars or not. But of course, it's a known thing, and they're working on it. Thank you. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure a lot of good hard work was put into it but i'm not appreciative of spending time figuring out ways to disable a feature i dislike and didn't have a choice to opt out of this morning when i could have been editing instead. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 18:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Impossible

I am severely disappointed with this. It is more complicated than learning the HTML code and I think the only fair thing is to allow registered users to choose whether they want to use the visual editor or do traditional HTML editing. Sonoflamont Sonoflamont (talk) 11:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If you would like to remove VisualEditor from the user interface you can go to the Gadgets tab of your Preferences page, check the option "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" in the "Editing" section, and click the Save button near the bottom of the page.--Rockfang (talk) 11:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You also have the option to simply use the other interface, every time you edit. :) Both are active. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Banner?

Why is there not a banner at the top of all pages (or at least on top of watchlists) mentioning this change and providing a link to more information? I was caught entirely by surprise by this and had to take some time (granted, only like 2 minutes) finding how to disable it. We get banners asking for money all the time; this is an even more major change, and judging by the number of people coming here asking how to disable it then it seems like having a banner would obviously help the transition. Where's the appropriate place to bring this up? rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Rjanag: this is the right place and still, I promise you, there is a banner (also a message in the Watchlist page!, and it' also going on for a while now. Trying to understand why some of you can't see it - apart from using specific software which blocks similar messages and/or dismissing it days ago without realizing/reading it, of course. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I'm using the Monobook skin (with Firefox 3.0, on Windows 7), I wonder if the skin is the problem? In your link I can actually see the message in the wikitext but it's not showing up when I preview the page (or of course in my watchlist), I have no idea why. Best, rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

From what I read around it should have something to do with cookies, mostly. Thanks for your reply, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Where VisualEditor will be used?

I noticed that right now VisualEditor is only happening in article space and presumably user space, and per the list at the bottom of Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor#About the VisualEditor it doesn't look like anyone's planning on taking it to other namespaces anytime soon. The reasoning behind this is obvious--presumably users who are straying outside of mainspace are more experienced and can handle MediaWiki markup--but I wonder if this reasoning is true everywhere. For example, I think AfD, and article talkpages are people that inexperienced editors might come to and even be making their first edit at. I wonder if seeing a totally different edit window when going from mainspace to somewhere else might confuse these few newbie editors more than VisualEditor helped them? rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, we are planning on taking the VE to the discussion spaces - sorta. A different engineering team is working on Flow, which will apply to a currently-unknown chunk of the discussion space (certainly user and article talkpages, potentially things like AfDs, too) and that will include a stripped-down VisualEditor. We decided it was probably more trouble than it was worth to implement the VE for those namespaces now, and then have to totally redo it in 6 months. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanks for the explanation. rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

No problem :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

non sense

non sense Murrallli (talk) 12:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, you're saying pretty much all :p Anything in particular you might use a hand from us with? Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:06, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Coords not displayed in title when open in VE

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52577

Dunmallet has its coordinates displayed in the title line, as do so many WP articles. I opened it in VE to make another edit, and noticed that the coords were displayed at the bottom. I assumed that this meant that the coords template parameter was wrong (ie assumed that VE was displaying the coords in the position they were displaying in the article - WYSIWYG, isn't it?!) I fiddled around, worked out how to check the "display=" parameter, it was set to "title" so I concluded that this had to be wrong and perhaps the correct parameter was "in title", tried that, checked documentation, verified that "display=title" is right, cancelled VE edit and of course the coords popped back to their correct display.

In short, VE is being non-WYSIWYG with regard to title-line coords display. Please fix it, apologies if it's a known bug. (Surely must be, if it affects every occurrence of coords displaying in title line?) PamD 12:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I can only find a bug in Bugzilla related to coordinates, so I am throwing this in. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Sinhala not working

This is a must needed one! This'll make more help to get new contributors who've starter knowledge in scripting too. However, sinhala unicode isn't working on this. That means si.wikip won't get this for ever. Please look in to this and try to have something good to Sinhalese people too! --තඹරු විජේසේකර _{(Thambaru Wijesekara)} 12:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Thambaru, AFAIK the only languages who are not getting VE soon are those listed here. There's a reason if the deployment has not involved not-en wikipedias right now, but if my colleagues see something that calls for a bugzilla request, they'll certainly file it. Regards, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Waiting for a quick fix. Please be kind to make our stuffs better too :) --තඹරු විජේසේකර _{(Thambaru Wijesekara)} 06:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Attempting to add a reference

Trying adding a reference now. Confusion in the interface:

I click "Insert reference". I don't understand what the "What do you want to reference?" box is for.
I click "Create new source", am surprised nothing happens. I look for a moment and click "Insert reference".
There's a box called "Reference content" with a string of unlabeled icons. (Bug report: PLEASE ADD TEXT LABELS, not just tooltips. Mystery meat navigation is bad.) I click on "Transclusion" ('cos I happen to know that's arbitrary new jargon for "Template") and go to add "Cite web". Fine. Add template.
btw, this stage seems actually fine for complete newbies, because they could add a URL here and they've referenced their content.
Now I have the box to "Add parameter". No guide to what the parameters are for the template, so good thing I remember them. But please, make this two boxes: name and value. Those go together. I add "url" and click "add parameter".
I have a box to paste my url into, I do so. Now ... I want to add another parameter. How do I do this? The only actual button to press is "Apply changes". But I haven't finished yet!
I know the answer, btw, that I click back onto "Cite web", because I found it by experimentation last week - but this bit is really not obvious. Please add an "Add another parameter" button.
Enter all my parameters, hit "Apply changes" ... it doesn't, it drops back to a different box that has an identical "Apply changes" button. This is confusing - was the first one lying? Did I do something wrong?
I know I didn't, but that's the sort of thing that springs to mind.
I have no idea what "Use this group" means, perhaps that's just me. I hit the second "Apply changes" and my reference is inserted. Yay!
By the way - if you X out of these nested modal dialogues (nested and modal strikes me as bad), you get a "reference" link which may or may not have anything in it.
Also, you can't cut'n'paste references.

Is this useful? Please make the references interface less annoying than just remembering the parameters to {{cite web}} - David Gerard (talk) 12:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

No David, are you kidding me? How on earth can feedback about the interface itself be useful? :p Thanks, noted, I'll also keep this in mind ro review localization to the Italian language. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'd be a bit harsher than David. Having new users guided even more toward adding bareurls makes our work here at ENWIKI harder, not easier. Users should be, by default, guided toward screens that make the task of cite news/cite web references easy. In refToolbar, I stick in a URL, I press a button, and I get some of the fields automatically filled in for me, I get formatting, and I get prompts for the rest of the fields.

Why are we regressing? --j⚛e decker 16:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I have nothing against bare URLs, because they are way better than nothing, and constitute a positive addition to the wiki. But something that encourages better would of course be even better - David Gerard (talk) 18:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely. I think refToolbar is the interface to beat. Visual Editor could easily do that if the devs tried, but the existing design of VE doesn't evidence any understanding of why refToolbar works, and is, without restructuring, doomed to being worse than refToolbar. --j⚛e decker 20:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Somebody explain this to me

Please, somebody explain to me how it is that major changes in the daily use and editing of Misplaced Pages happen with only a few people even knowing that it is coming, and with so many people literally hating the results. How many people were involved in this, who were they, and how could the channels they went through possibly have been considered the "right" channels. I'd like to call for an independent third party to audit this new ~~"feature"~~ nightmare. This is clearly not working through consensus.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd point you to previous threads (there are others) where answers were already provided. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I see nothing in that link that even remotely supports moving ahead with this initiative at this time. I do, however, see a huge amount of opposition. If this were WP:AFD discussion, it would be closed delete.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You still haven't said what would have constituted sufficient notice to you - David Gerard (talk) 18:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes I have. You should have notified me. And everyone else that this affects. Why is that so hard to comprehend?--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

And why should I have notified you? (And there were banners on every logged-in article space page, so your condition is satisfied.) - David Gerard (talk) 19:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I saw no banners. I recieved no message. I don't know if you should have notified me, but someone should have notified every user this would affect. No matter how much you cry "I put up a banner" that clearly has fallen way short of community expectations of notification.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Beta for new edits

CRAP CRAP CRAP AND MORE CRAP! Crazyseiko (talk) 13:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Crazyseiko: Can you point to any specific elements that can be improved? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
- (RATED R) Imagine this scene: a customer at a restaurant is given a shit sandwich and calls the waiter over, and says, "You gave me a shit sandwich, take this out of here!" The manager then comes over and says, "Can you point to any specific elements that can be improved?" -- What do you want, "Well the bread was actually quite pleasant" or "Maybe if you used spicy mustard instead of mayo" ??? -- get real. The only thing that can improve this edtior is its removal from the system.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
  - No. There is a new sandwich on the menu, liked by the new customers, and the good ol' steak-sandwich-in-a-kit the regulars are used to. You are welcome to order your usual, but you are complaining that the restaurant dares offer a sandwich you do not like. Perhaps your imagination should track reality a little more if you intend to use it as analogies to the real world? — Coren 15:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
    - Except the "new sandwich" is actually made of dog shit. So you can continue serving the dog shit, but you're going to lose the customers that want actual food. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 16:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
      - I sat down to edit last night (ordered a steak sandwich) and got something else. It wasn't just "on the menu" it was what was delivered to my table and I was not given a choice that I could find. The analogy fits exactly.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Let's assume for the moment that ranting about shit sandwiches will have approximately zero effect except on your reputation - David Gerard (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's an example. And one that seems to work well for this situation. Kinda gross though, isn't it...--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Script and gadget

If you use both the script provided above to disable VE and the gadget, ditto, you lose the ability to edit as the edit tab no longer appears, the section edits go away and you can't edit by double-clicking on the page if you have that activated.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If you use both together, or if you use each of them individually? What skin, browser and OS are you using? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If you use both of them together. I use Safari, OS X (I have a MacBook Pro) and Monobook skin.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding stub tags

I haven't played around much with Visual Editor yet, but I can see the potential. When I tried to add a simple stub tag to an article, I liked that it would give me a list of templates, and let me choose the proper one. However, the editor did not place the stub tag where it was intended, or follow the basic MOS of WP:FOOTERS. If the goal is to make Misplaced Pages more user friendly, by eliminating the need to know wikitext and formatting, those things should be built into the software, so that editors don't have to worry about it. Fortdj33 (talk) 13:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I think we'll do that as much as possible, but fwiw the MOS is different on each of our 200 wikis, and we have to build something that works for all of them :/. Can you give me examples of "what it does" versus "what it should do"? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is that you're working to a layering model that doesn't reflect editors' perceptions or (and this is the point here) what is expected of the editors. There isn't an easy answer, but "not our problem" is probably not long-term viable - David Gerard (talk) 13:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't really think this is what Oliver meant, quite the contrary. If we find out more about this, it is definitely making its way onto Bugzilla! I guess the problem is that some templates are being misplaced when added?--Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I raised this 11 days ago and was told, pretty much, that VE couldn't be bothered with "project-specific" things like WP:MOS which is specific to English wikipedia. Seriously bad news: editors editing an article expect to find certain elements in defined places - stub tags right at the end, categories before them, etc. AWB is intelligent enough to sort this out as part of its general fixes: VE ought to be capable (and "willing") of allowing editors to make edits which comply with WP:FOOTERS, which is part of MOS. I've had to go back and tidy up in "Edit Source" after many of my VE edits, though have continued struggling on with VE out of good will and to help its development by reporting bugs etc. Please put templates such as stub tags into the right places. It should also be possible to identify those "maintenance templates" such as {{unref}} which must always go at the top, before everything except disambiguation hatnotes (which are a finite set of templates and therefore clearly identifiable), and to put those templates at the top - not wherever the cursor happened to be left after the previous edit, as has happened to me. PamD 14:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If you're looking for a specific example, I used the Visual Editor to add a stub tag to Anachronism (comics). I placed the cursor at the end of the article, but as PamD points out, the editor did not take into account the categories already on the article: . The stub tag should go after the categories per WP:FOOTERS, and it would be beneficial for Visual Editor to automatically place templates in the proper location, similar to the basic rules when using AWB. Fortdj33 (talk) 14:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The MOS-specified way of working is what is expected on a given wiki. Saying "sorry, out of our scope" just isn't a good enough answer, and people will justifiably think of it as you making their editing experience harder, not easier, and making a mess - David Gerard (talk) 18:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Images

Why is the Visual Editor not displaying images at the correct default sizes? Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7:, can you give an example? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I was working on Operation Crossroads. My thumbnail size is set to the maximum (300px) in my preferences. The thumb images down the bottom do not have sizes hard coded. Enter the Visual Editor and they are not displayed at 300px any more. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Because the VisualEditor operates off article text, not user preference. Images ideally should include a size. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Roger that. Will hard code the sizes in all thumbs. . Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

OHHHH NO THEY SHOULDN'T. From Misplaced Pages:IMGSIZE#Displayed_image_size:

In general, do not define the size of an image unless there is a good reason to do so: some users have small screens or need to configure their systems to display large text; "forced" large thumbnails can leave little width for text, making reading difficult. In addition, forcing a "larger" image size at say 260px will actually make it smaller for those with a larger size set as preference unless you use upright with a scaling factor, so the use of upright is preferred wherever sensible.

So (1) please don't do this (2) the VE forcing this is a bug - David Gerard (talk) 21:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikitables

I'm sure someone asked this already, but I couldn't find this question myself - How do you add rows or columns to Wikitables? List articles often have most of their content embedded in tables.--¿3family6 _contribs 13:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not yet possible to edit the structure of tables (like adding rows or columns), only to edit their content. guillom 15:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I thought so.--¿3family6 _contribs 17:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Old Style

Can I switch back to the old method Crelache (talk) 13:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Clicking "Edit source" will allow you to do so. Or, you can look for a gadget hiding VE among your Preferences page. Still, give it a try before quitting for good, will you? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's pretty frustrating... smileguy91 13:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Display of maintenance tags

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52640

Probably not the most pressing issue :), but during editing the display of the maintenance tag "unreferenced section|date=August 2012" is corrupted (the text is extending outside of the screen to the right side), see article Otto I at "Consolidation of Power". I have actual FF installed, my current screen resolution is 1280 x 1024. GermanJoe (talk) 14:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@GermanJoe: Great find! Now reported :). Let us know if you see any more problems. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Missing link

So I still love the little animations for the buttons. But could you switch the stupid buttons around? Every time I go in for an edit, I wind up missing the link and accidentally clicking on the Visual Editor link. Then I have to wait a while for the Visual Editor to load, hit the back button on my browser, and then scroll down to whereever I was before. Maybe muscle memory would adapt if I only edited in the Article space, but you seem to be forgetting that Misplaced Pages editors do occasionally make talk page edits (like I am right now), where the button does something totally different. The end result is me constantly missing the links.—Love, Kelvinsong talk 14:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree this can be confusing, especially since, like you say, the behavior is inconsistent across namespaces. bugzilla:50540 might help, even though it's not exactly what you want. guillom 15:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I concur with Kelvinsong on this. I've also one the same several times on the editor, especially at the edit link at the top of the page. Switching them could be ideal. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 22:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Attempting to add a reference - another editor's experience

Following on from #Attempting to add a reference above:

I'm an experienced editor, have been experimenting with VE for 11 days, decided to have a go at adding a reference. Even with the User Guide open as I work, I cannot see how to get at any parameter list for {{cite web}} (ie something like the functionality of the old RefToolbar).

I opened Dunmallet to experiment with adding a reference.
Moved cursor to right place, clicked on the "Insert reference" icon
I see a box saying "Insert reference". It has a fill-in box labelled "What do you want to cite?". It does not look like the one in the User Guide which has the words "Reference content".
"Create new source" looks clickable... but just turns blue.
Ahah! I wonder whether I'm now supposed to click on the jigsaw-piece "transclusion" icon which I can't see because the "Insert Reference" box is large and unmovable and obscures everthing else?
If I abandon trying to add anything new, I can manage OK to add another citing of an existing source ... except that the display in the reflist is "1.0 1.1" rather than the "ab" we're used to.
Though when I save it, it reverts to "abc": yet another non-WYSISYG feature.

I literally cannot discover how to be prompted by parameter names (from {{cite web}} or {{cite book}} etc) when adding a reference: and surely this is one of the most helpful features we can offer to new editors, to encourage them to provide decent references. If it's a book, we want them to include author, title, publisher, date, page number, isbn. If I can't even find this, with my background, it sure as hell isn't going to be obvious to and easily used by our new editors. Or am I missing something blindingly obvious? PamD 14:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree--the existing system for references, which has only been available to us for testing at any opt-in level for a few days, is horribly puzzling. The very first thing a new user who manages to decode the heiroglyphics of "add reference" sees is a place to add a reference group--an incredibly rarely used option. Is it any wonder I'm already seeing editors create articles with references in reference groups that never get displayed, because, although they added a reflist, they didn't know at all what a reference group even was, and that they'd need a different reference list to display it?

The VE reference screens are very logical, from an abstract development point of view, but their usability is more or less zero. I look forward to seeing how many completely new users have been able to navigate that system in such a way that they've been able to create an article that survives deletion attempts down the road, I'm sure those statistics will take some time to gather, however. --j⚛e decker 16:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

"Page notice" box gets in the way

When I click "Edit" on an article page, there is a wide shallow box near the top with a "Page notice" link. After clicking the jigsaw icon to add a template, this "Page notice" box remains in front of, and partly obscuring, the "Add template" box. It can be moved up out of the way by scrolling, but it's a nuisance. (Win7, FF21.0, standard 1366 x 768 screen).

If it has to be displayed, it should not stay in front of the "Add template" dialogue.
I don't think it should be displayed by default at all - creating a page notices is a fairly advanced activity. There is a link that says "1 notice" which makes it go away; better to have it concealed by default and brought up by clicking the "1 notice" link.

JohnCD (talk) 14:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This isn't actually meant to display by default, and doesn't for non-admins :/. Some volunteers here on enwiki decided to have it always pop up, even if there are no page notices, to remind admins that they can add them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
As a volunteer on ENWIKI, I've decided to not have it display. How do I make that happen? ;-) --j⚛e decker 16:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
More seriously, can ANYONE point me at where the discussion happened on this? "Some volunteers here on enwiki" is vague. --j⚛e decker 18:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You're talking about a discussion from five years ago. It was somewhere in the vicinity of WP:Editnotices, but where exactly, I don't know. However, it is Visual Editor that turned an unobtrusive red link to the edit notice page into an annoying pop-up box. Dragons flight (talk) 18:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Me, too! It is extremely rarely that I need to add an editnotice, and I absolutely do not need to be reminded that I could every single time I edit an article, by a notice which actually gets in the way. I certainly want it off myself, and I think most other admins will, too: who were these volunteers, where did they decide, and how can we get their decision reversed? JohnCD (talk) 17:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If you click edit source, you'll see a little red page notice link at the upper right above the edit box (only works for pages with no edit notice defined). Enwiki added that function about ~~3.5~~ 5 years ago as an easy way to be able to access the page notice functions. As far as I know, no one has ever complained about the little red link. Unfortunately, Visual Editor is now transforming the unobtrusive red link into an annoying popup box. Dragons flight (talk) 18:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

If it were as unobtrusive as that little red link, I would have no problem; but when that is re-implemented as a floating box obscuring the place where I want to edit, I definitely do have a problem. JohnCD (talk) 19:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC).

+1 with John on this. There is a warning triangle above that tells me there are or aren't page notices (although currently I get told there is alsways one - the redlink), I don't need a floating box getting in the way every time, especially when at first it's not intuitive on how to get rid of it. Aren't the development team into little X in the top right hand corner to close? NtheP (talk) 08:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

This pig should not have been rolled out until it allowed special characters to be inserted

I was startled when VisualEditor lurched onto the scene yesterday, but then I actually found it kind of cute, and enjoyed playing with it. I thought the folks who complained about it were being harsh and unreasonable. But I have come around to their side after realizing that Misplaced Pages is going to sustain a lot of damage when it comes to en dashes, degree signs, prime signs, minus signs, etc. I know how to fetch these characters and use them (with considerable difficulty), but those who will not go to that trouble will be using superscripted 'o' for a degree sign and a hyphen or two instead of en dash, em dash and minus signs. This shortcoming needs to be addressed with a high priority, but it is being handled as a bug (50296) with a very low priority. If I had a button that would drag this oinker back onto the drawing board until it is really ready, I would press that button right now. Chris the speller 14:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree If User:Chris the speller isn't on board, just how far off the reservation have we strayed?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

India National Youth Orchestra - problems with the VE or a new user who can't understand how to use it?

Could someone take a look at this article. The old version looked like this. It was then edited by a brand new editor using the visual editor and looked like this (a bit of a mess). I reverted primarily because the edits introduced blatant copyvio. They returned to re-add it plus more and produced an even bigger mess (reverted by X-Link bot). Can anyone tell if the awful formatting problems were due to the VE or simply a new editor who couldn't figure out how to use it? Voceditenore (talk) 15:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

They appear to be new-editor based, I think. Normally VE problems are more amusing or weird (we had an ASCII turd introduced once. And an infinite loop of chess pieces.) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing within a multi-column list (ie between {{colbegin}} and {{colend}})

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52182

Tried to link some unlinked entries in a simple-looking 2-column list in The New Elizabethans. Managed it, but it wasn't one of VE's finest hours.

Clicking on any link turned the whole list blue - what will a new editor make of that?

Realised that they were within a template - so ended up having to use old "Edit Source" editing skills to edit the list of links which appeared in the "template content" window. Not a very elegant solution. Is it going to be possible to edit links within templates? There must be thousands of multicolumn lists out there which people will need to edit occasionally!

Thinking further: presumably this means that at present absolutely all edits to multi-column list items will have to be done manually (if someone is persistent enough to find the wikicode displayed!) ... not just links, but adding text, formats, etc? Ouch. PamD 15:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

And a further problem: I can't click on any of those links, while in VE, to check that they go where I want them to. I just get the blue box. Even right-click doesn't work (I think I raised a similar issue way back and was told that right-clicking links in templates would work... not this time). I've just fixed a link but wanted to check it before I saved the page (an unfamiliar spelling, would have been fastest way to check that I'd got it right). PamD 15:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it's an annoying problem :/. Having a template/link/everything else editor within the template editor is on the to-do list. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Just discovered in Unicorn#See also that it's a problem with {{div col}} too. PamD 15:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

feedback

it is much more user friendly than the previous version .in all it is quite good Bsamiwalaa (talk) 15:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to let us know. We're glad you like it :) guillom 15:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I notice that when someone posts "I like it" the response is "thank you" but when someone posts "I don't like it" the response is "Why not, can you be more specific?" -- maybe the project should ask the people who say "I like it" what specifically they like about it instead of discriminating against those who do not and attempt to treat people fairly in an attempt to make Misplaced Pages better.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if you've read the purpose of this page, but it could help explain that. :) This page is expicitly here so that Wikimedia's developers can learn about issues that people encounter when using VE. It's not really as necessary for them to know specifically why people like it (although they are certainly grateful that people do!) as it is to know what problems people have in using it--so that issues can be repaired and new features can be considered. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I would find it useful if someone would list the things that it does right.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's OK for straightforward text edits, and quite useful for that, and I'm sure it'll get better at the other stuff fairly quickly. Eric Corbett 18:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm finding it better than trawling through 100kB of computer guacamole when I just want to fix something in one sentence. (I'm doing more complicated stuff with it to shake out bugs, which is what all this is for.) - David Gerard (talk) 19:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Turn it off

This is horrible. Turn it off and fire whoever developed it. Nathan Johnson (talk) 15:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You can turn it off via the gadgets in your preferences menu. Can you give some explicit things we can improve on with it? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I've already turned it off. That should be easier. That's the only constructive thing I can suggest besides turning it off totally. I can definitely think of explicit things to say about it. Unfortunately, they would likely earn me a timeout. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 16:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I just came to this page to congratulate the authors. This seems to be a good place :-) So, wfa,

Congratulations! This is a very nice and welcome surprise. Thanks! Saintrain (talk) 17:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

edit vs edit source

going back and forth between 'edit' and 'edit source' should keep interim changes -- rather like switching between edit source and preview. That way, you won't have to save interim edits when switching modes. Darkonc (talk) 15:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed; I expect that feature will be incoming at some point at which time I am probably going to switch to VE by default even. — Coren 15:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

VE only works in article space, and you haven't made a single mainspace edit since February, long before even the earliest beta went live. How are you in a position to comment? 78.149.172.10 (talk) 16:06, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

And userspace, and has been live on prototype wikis and mediawiki.org and, well, every other wiki for quite some time now, and the beta went live in December; Coren having experience using it is not something dependent on his enwiki contributions. I would note that given that the VE is only accessible to logged-in users, this is probably not quite the time for us to start a debate over who is able to speak with experience about its use. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

inefficient, randomly inserts a blank line. Unsuitable for gnomish edits.

My first few experiences of the visual editor have been very mixed. I edit on a fast connection but a relatively slow computer, and find the way that the VE loads the entire page for a section edit means I have to wait 1-2 minutes before I can make my changes. If I ask to edit a section then there is no need to load anything other than the relevant section and doing so is very inefficient and potentially confusing.

When I edited Bermuda to disambiguate one link, the VE randomly inserted a blank line in a section way down the page . I don't know why those items are commented out from the bulleted list, but the VE should not be making changes like that without being explicitly told to (per the FAQ on this page) and I had to make a second source edit to fix the problem it introduced.

The VE also disguises piped links so it is not possible to see at a glance whether there are other links that need fixing. Together these mean that the tool is not currently suitable for wikignome editors.

Copying and pasting text within the visual editor should retain the formatting (bold, italic, etc) of the source text, rather than just being plain text requring manual reformatting. If word processors can do this then it must be technically possible.

Finally, strongly object to the way that this tool has changed the meaning of the "edit" link. Instead of changing the meaning of that well-established term and introducing "edit source" (which is not what you are doing anyway, as the wikitext is not the html source) it should have left the "edit" tab doing what it has always done and added an "edit page visually" or "wysiwyg edit" option or something.

Overall, it's not bad for a work in progress, but it feels like an early beta that should still be opt in. Thryduulf (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Not sure which bug this might be...

Came across this edit on Sean Bean. I know the editor who performed it was using Visual Editor and was probably trying just to add information to the lede but "nowiki" code got added around their edit... Shearonink (talk) 16:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

There was a wikilink within ] in that edit. VE is not able to handle wiki markup (and is not intended to), so when some is inserted it puts "nowiki" tags around to disable it. I don't think this is the right response: I have seen it cause chaos when someone attempted to insert a wikilink, and subsequent increasingly desperate attempts to make the wikilink work all failed because they were all within the "nowiki" tags VE had introduced with the first edit, which of course were not visible to the frustrated editor. The right response would be to pop up a warning. I think there may be a bug for this. JohnCD (talk) 17:50, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

edit one section only

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T50429

When I click edit on a section, it opens up the entire page for editing. Why? I'd rather save bandwidth and save information overload, and just see the section I asked to edit. --99of9 (talk) 16:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. I'm not sure if this targeted opening is possible yet or ever will be, but I'll try to find out. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It is a problem to change well-understood behaviour. The hover-links show a vsection=N, but the editor then still tries to edit the whole page (if indeed, it ever finishes loading rather than just freezing). —Sladen (talk) 16:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that the interface is basically just lying about editing the section is highly problematic - David Gerard (talk) 18:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Maggie, I appreciate your reporting it. Frankly I'm bemused that a developer would think it was better to show the whole page when we ask for a section. --99of9 (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Aaarggghhhh... the WMF is not going to do anything about this! (see bugzilla) --99of9 (talk) 08:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Removing/editing non-existant categories from pages

On the Mogwai page, there is a non-existant category I'd like to amend, but VE appears to only shows up categories that exist. It would be nice if I could edit/remove non-existant categories via VE. Insulam Simia (/_contribs) 16:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That category I'm talking about isn't even on the page, even though for some reason when I viewed the page it showed up. VE does appear to show non-existant categories as well. Please excuse me. Insulam Simia (/_contribs) 16:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Removing arguments in template

From {{about|the concept in Hinduism|the 2009 film|Avatar (2009 film)|the animated series|Avatar: The Last Airbender|other uses|Avatar (disambiguation)}}, I removed 2 arguments in the middle. It resulted in {{about|the concept in Hinduism|the 2009 film|Avatar (2009 film)|6=other uses|7=Avatar (disambiguation)}}, but I wanted {{about|the concept in Hinduism|the 2009 film|Avatar (2009 film)|other uses|Avatar (disambiguation)}} --Redtigerxyz 16:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Section disappears

I just don't understand how this new system works. Just now I tried to edit, and when I clicked on "Edit", the section I wanted to work on completely disappeared! I had to use "Edit source" instead. AlbertSM (talk) 16:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That's alarming. :/ What section did you try to edit on which article? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Re-using refs

I'm getting a problem where if I want to use a reference already listed, the editor only lets me choose the first three. Is there a way to scroll down to see the rest? I can't seem to do so on my browser. Thanks, this new editor does look promising, once it's developed further. ¿3family6 _contribs 16:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

WYSIWYG: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo

Shp0ng1e (talk) 17:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Zabadinho (talk) 17:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's horribly confusing, you can't tell for certain that you're editing, at least not at first, not enough changes (edit box or something around the visual editor would be clearer. Montanabw 17:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's great to get some design feedback. Thank you! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

More seriously; @Montanabw:, @Shp0ng1e:, @Zabadinho:, are there any specific problems you're encountering? The problem of making the editing environment more defined is a known, and is being worked on. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:42, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

My quick solution is to not make VE the default for "edit this page" but instead have the two buttons BOTH clarify if you are using VE or source syntax -- at least ESPECIALLY not make the "edit source" button show up AFTER the other one when editing sections and subsections. Make both tabs show immediately. For another thing, I can't seem to convince the server to even save my edits when done that way, at least, no time in this century! (FYI Mac OSX 10.8.4 with Safari, MacBook Pro less than a year old...it ain't me) My biggest personal gripe; however, is when you hit "edit this page" you can barely see anything change, and it's not obvious you're editing until something goes totally haywire (and my watchlist is showing me that I'm not alone in having this happen) Also takes far longer to use the buttons than to just type in syntax, and oh yes, I'm female and no, the interface isn't what makes me want to reach through the router and rip things out! VE is a solution in search of a problem. Slow, buggy, not ready for prime time, should not be the default. Montanabw 15:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Spell checker?

As long as you are producing a new editing tool, could it please include a spell checker?

I try to be careful, but when I make a long edit to an article, often a typo slips through and then I must make an edit to my original edit. A spell checker would reduce the frequency of that problem. Cwkmail (talk) 17:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Most browsers have spellcheckers these days and they work with VE. Personally I don't think it's a good idea to bring something like that into the scope of the VE. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed; @Cwkmail:, what browser are you using? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Report

Tried to use it as much as I can, but right now only can manage only simple text editing. Things like templates, links are way easier and I just learned how to do it. But there is a bug regarding the window which pops up for writing the edit summary. When you click on "save page", the field given for typing the summary is bugged (whatever keys are pressed affect the background page not the newly popped up window field) Ugog Nizdast (talk) 17:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I've seen that one before. :/ Can I ask what browser and operating system you're using? I can't replicate this myself. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Gentoo Linux, and currently having Firefox 21.0

Especially when pressing space in the text field, the whole background page starts to scroll. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 18:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I've seen this scrolling too (Firefox 22.0, Xubuntu Linux). My guess is that the text you enter into the edit summary field is being passed to the background as one or more "find in page" strings (I have firefox set to do this when I start typing, not only after explicitly asking it to). Thryduulf (talk) 18:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Also is this normal? After making an edit and saving it, trying to do it again results in a notification saying that I'm editing an older version, the page needs to be refreshed. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 18:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Ugog Nizdast: does the edit summary bug occur consistently, or only with find active, or...? The older version problem is a known; bugzilla:50441. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit button shouldn't pop out like that

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

Please make the button pop out only when the mouse hovers over it, not whenever it passes over the header, far away from the button itself. It's distracting to the reader and it gets annoying fast. CesarFelipe (talk) 17:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Some people have requested that the edit|edit source be visible always to avoid this. Would that help? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, that would certainly fix this issue, but I don't know if having the entire edit/edit source button visible all the time wouldn't also be annoying for the reader. I've always liked that the edit button is small and unobtrusive to the article one is reading. CesarFelipe (talk) 17:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you think it would be too obtrusive to have side by side? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Too obtrusive no. Misleading and confusing, yes (see the various other discussions about the terminology used). Thryduulf (talk) 18:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps not obtrusive per se, but at least more distracting than the old edit button, I'd imagine (if it's kept with the same font size, that is). I'd have to see it in action to actually be certain, I guess. CesarFelipe (talk) 20:50, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's bad UI design to hide functions from people. Definitely put both side by side. Also remember, you can't "hover" on a phone or a pad. Don't make people hover. Gigs (talk) 01:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

On iOS at least clcik on edit and it brings up both edit and edit source links side by side. so it's introduced an extra click into the process. Not a big issue to me, just an observation. NtheP (talk) 09:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Image sizes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52379

After puzzling over edits like this, this and this, I've worked out that the image position is based on where the cursor was at the time that the user went for the "Media" button. But where does the 200x200px size come from? Is there any reason that it can't simply be omitted, in accordance with WP:IMGSIZE "do not define the size of an image unless there is a good reason to do so". --Redrose64 (talk) 17:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

After reading #Adding stub tags above, I suppose that on some other wiki the manual of style may say "define the size of an image as 200x200px unless there is a good reason not to do so". Not that this would be good advice but, sadly, our own MOS has even poorer advice on occasion. Thincat (talk) 18:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Removing fixed sizes for images like this is covered by a bug, 50379. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing section results in dirty page cache -- have to reload page before doing additional edits

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52596

Chrome on Windows 7. Click edit on a section, edit the section using VE. Save. Click edit on another section edit, you get the "You are editing an version... will be removed" message. And, in fact, saving edits to another section will revert the first changes just made by you.

This seems like a pretty serious limitation. Dovid (talk) 17:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for finding this. I've filed a bug, 50596. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Why can't there be two panes?

This may have been suggested before, but why can't there simply be two panes visible simultaneously, one with the visual editor and another beneath it with the source editor? I've used several CASE tools that work like that: change the diagram and the currently displayed code generated changes; change the code and the diagram changes. Eric Corbett 17:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Excellent idea. WordPerfect managed to do this for decades without problems. 78.149.172.10 (talk) 17:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a great idea. Insulam Simia (/_contribs) 18:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

See also Adobe Dreamweaver, which managed it for HTML c. 2000. --j⚛e decker 18:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I hope to see this sort of feature in the future as well, it would be quite useful. Currently there is no real easy way to do this as Parsoid is not translating wikimarkup into HTML (and vice versa) in real time. I think this would take a large amount of machine resource to make this practical. Here's to the future development of VisualEditor, though! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I suspected that might be the case; the long-term solution might be to offer a downloadable visual editor that has all the bells and whistles people expect these days and to cut back on the expectations for something written in Javascript. Eric Corbett 19:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Parsoid can translate back and forth between wikitext and HTML on demand, but the difficulty is maintaining a clean diff in the process. On the way from wikitext to HTML and back, we get to associate round-trip information with the HTML that makes it possible to still produce clean diffs. If we switch back and forth between HTML and wikitext a few times before finally saving back to wikitext, that information is very hard to preserve. We have some research ideas on how this might be possible eventually, but at this point that is really just a research idea. You might also like this technical blog post for some background on the challenges we are dealing with in Parsoid. --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 01:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Impossible to create redirects

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T49328

Unless there is some button I've not correctly interpreted the unlabelled diagram on, there is no possible way to create a redirect in the visual editor. I tried just entering the markup, but it silently shoved it in "nowiki" tags . If the visual editor is to be at all useful it must never insert nowiki tags without being told to. Thryduulf (talk) 18:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably a related bug, but it again inserted "nowiki" tags when that was the exact opposite of what I wanted. It's increasingly clear that the VE is not yet fit for purpose. Thryduulf (talk) 18:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey User:Thryduulf, you are correct. It is currently not possible to create or edit redirects with VisualEditor, it still needs to be done in source. It is being worked on though, you can find the bug report here. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Whitespace

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52598

I'm sure this is far down the list of problems, but I think the transclusion editor (and other bits with similar display) have way too much white space. For each parameter one gets two blank lines for every one line with parameter name. That is annoying and when templates have dozens of parameters, as many infoboxes and citation templates do, it creates a lot of extra scrolling to find what one is looking for. I'd suggest reducing the whitespace between parameter names by half. Dragons flight (talk) 18:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

On the other hand, a bit more whitespace would be useful in some places - see this edit where I added a hatnote and it was jammed up against the start of an infobox! Please ensure that hatnotes, infoboxes, start on a new line, for legibility. PamD 18:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Dragons flight, I've put it in as an enhancement request. :) Pam, if I could request clarification - is VE behaving differently from the regular editor there? The link looks kind of normal to me. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Maggie, I'd say it's behaving differently from "regular editor plus intelligent human editor". There may be a tiny minority of Editors who would stick in a hatnote template like that, running straight into the infobox, but the vast majority would certainly follow it with a line break, and probably a blank line too for legibility. Yes, in VE I can: position cursor at start of text; up-arrow; Return to create a blank line; then hit "transclusion" button and hope it will put the hatnote in the right place. VE is producing code which functions perfectly well but is sub-optimal for a human editor who comes along next and wants to edit the article. There are very strong views about white space: I know of one editor who removes(d?) it whenever he thinks it appropriate (and would support VE's approach here), while the consensus is that white space and newlines are helpful for other editors: that editor has been very strongly criticised (possibly topic-banned) for removing whitespace and newlines. PamD 08:52, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

And see another example: I added two stub tags in this edit, and would have put them on separate lines if using Edit Source. I don't know if there's actually anything in MOS that says that stub tags go on separate lines, but it's certainly the normal way. PamD 13:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

And WP:Stub says "It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it." - again, virtually impossible to do in VE, but AWB does it as a Genfix. PamD 13:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Blue cover that shows when hovering over a template makes VE toolbar unusable

When trying to use the VE toolbar to add a wikilink on Palms (album), the blue cover that appears when hovering over a template (the track list in this instance) obscured the VE toolbar and made it impossible to use. Please fix. Insulam Simia (/_contribs) 18:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Can you tell us something about your browser and operating system? I am not seeing that issue when I try to edit the article, and more information would be helpful. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm using Google Chrome 28.0.1500.63 on Ubuntu 13.04. Insulam Simia (/_contribs) 18:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Does it look like this? If so, we can add the details of your experience to Bug 50285. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes. That's the problem I'm getting. Insulam Simia (/_contribs) 19:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I've added your experience in. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

A few question of the poor VizWiz ...

Since the poor implementation of the , and 'VisualEditor' (hereafter, VizWiz) is being forced upon everyone (not opt-in) ...

... any userscript to switch this position of to ?

... can there be a preference in VizWiz to switch this default behavior for the User: editor?

... is there a way to goto the source after entering into the VizWiz?

--J. D. Redding 18:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC) (does notice the VizWiz implementation is not on this page)

Off the bat I can answer the third question: we can't currently switch from VisualEditor into source. Quoting from above:

"We'd love to provide simple switching, but sadly doing so would make it very hard to still provide clean wikitext diffs. This might have to wait until wikitext diffs are replaced with HTML diffs." --GWicke (talk) 21:06, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

It's something we'd like to be able to do in the future and it does make sense to have this functionality. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I see the #Switch to edit source above, thanks.

So the source is going to be replaced? Totally removing the source text?

Now that thought is scary. ~~Is there a technology roadmap that Users can go view about the VizWiz?~~ Found Roadmap#VisualEditor (and Goals), I'll have to look closer there ... got the bugzilla up and looking around there too ...

Starting to see that this is another incremental step to the style and flashy presentation, instead of the early value WP and focus on content and text. --J. D. Redding 19:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean "the source is going to be replaced? Totally removing the source text?" --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

To quote "wikitext diffs are replaced with HTML diffs".

That is the plan, remove the basic txt with the light wiki markup with heavy syntax html? Or is that something behind the scene with the coding cabal? --J. D. Redding 19:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Behind the scenes, we (the Parsoid team) are planning to store both wikitext and HTML of a page to speed up visual editing and page loads for logged-in users. We also intend to provide a visual diff that lets users without wikitext knowledge check content changes. Do not worry though, wikitext editing and -diffing will not go anywhere. --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 00:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I've answered you below, since you opened a new section for this. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

How do I turn this junk off???

I've been editing Misplaced Pages for years and I'm used to the way it worked before. How do I turn off this visual editor and go back to the old way? I hate it! - Who is John Galt? ✉ 18:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I dont' know how to turn it off in general, but if you press "Edit Source" whenever you would have previously pressed "Edit", I believe you will otherwise continue to enjoy the classic Misplaced Pages experience. --j⚛e decker 18:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Preferences > Gadgets > Editing > "Remove VisualEditor from the interface". Join the club ツ Jenova 20 18:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! - Who is John Galt? ✉ 17:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Templatedata on Template:Main/doc not showing up

I just added templatedata to this important template, but it doesn't seem to be used when I try to edit a {{main}} template on a normal page using visual editor. Did I do something wrong? @User:Okeyes (WMF)--99of9 (talk) 18:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I am having an issue where no TemplateData shows up for any templates in the interface, including those that are marked as "done". I can add templates ("Transclusion"), and the editor suggets and finds templates to add alright, but no pre-filled parameters show up for any template unlike in this screenshot. Using Firefox 21. I have tried both Monobook and Vector skin. --hydrox (talk) 19:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey; thanks for the ping :). Yeah, at the moment there are site-wide slowdowns in the job queue - TL;DR it's taking a while for the software to go "Oh! TemplateData! Neat, I should include that". We're trying to work out how to speed things up and clear the backlog without bringing down the site. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I don't mind waiting. As long as the job queue knows about it and I haven't done anything wrong, I'm happy. --99of9 (talk) 08:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Julius H. Kroehl article

I tried to add a link to the Koszta Affair in both modes but it still shows it as text, not a link. Perplexed, Shir-El too 19:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. :) Thank you so much for trying out the new VisualEditor! The transition can be a little challenging to those of us who know something about Wiki markup already. :) If you insert some of the familiar Wikimarkup code (like ] or {{}}), the VisualEditor thinks you are trying to type these things and puts "<nowiki>" tags around it. To actually achieve the same effects, you just need to use the link, template and other icons in the VisualEditor itself. (For more detail, please see Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User guide and the Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/FAQ.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That is what it does, but it is not what it should do. It can obviously recognise wikicode, so instead of surrounding it with "nowiki" tags it should just place that verbatim into the code it produces - this is what everybody seems to expect it to do. Thryduulf (talk) 19:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This has indeed been requested in bugzilla; see bugzilla:49820 for a warning and bugzilla:49686 for automatic conversion. guillom 05:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Marked as low and lowest priorities though, which is a poor show (imho) for something that's causing problems on the live wiki.Thryduulf (talk) 09:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Completely agreed. We need a resolution to this problem. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

bugzilla:50527 is related to this issue as well. Thryduulf (talk) 15:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

General Comments & Bugs

Firstly, I'm glad that this change has finally come - although I may prefer the 'traditional' way of editing, (which I find quicker) I expect this will be much more friendly towards new users. However, there are a few important issues that I would like to see addressed soon (I know some of these have already been mentioned):

Editing infoboxes is unintuitive and slow, there should be a way to just click on each line of text in the box and change the text.
Route diagram templates are screwed up while in the editing mode, sections of the diagrams seem to be shifted towards the left. This does not affect the look of the template when the page is saved. (Here's a screenshot.)
Template editing feels clunky - once I've entered the template I need, I expect the dialogue box to immediately disappear and the template to be placed on the page. Instead, nothing appears to happen until after I click 'apply changes'. Also, I'd recommend renaming the button from 'transclusion' to something like 'insert template' to make it more clear what it does to new editors.
I'd also like an easy way move text around on the page. For example, if I accidentally click in the middle of a word and insert a reference, there's no way for me to just select the reference I've created and move it to the end of the word, I have to delete the reference and start again. Perhaps you could consider implementing a copy and paste feature in later versions?

I haven't used the new editor much, but from the number of bugs around it's clear that it still needs a lot of work. Regardless, I think this is the right way to go, and I like the overall format and presentation of the new features. Jr8825 • Talk 19:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Re #4: in other GUI editors on my (OS X) machine, I can select a bunch of text and then drag it around to a different place. For simple moves I think that would be even easier than copy/paste. It would be nice if that worked in VE. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Jr8825: thanks for reporting these :). I agree that template editing needs a lot of work. What should be happening is that when you insert a template, it automatically adds in all the possible parameters, with human-readable names and descriptions, and invites you to fill them out. For some reason that's not working - we suspect cluster-wide problems with update queuing - and we're trying to work out a way of fixing that that doesn't bring down the site. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

"Ship it" but why not working in IE

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52085

1. IE is a pretty normal load. Maybe the most common. Or at least most common for non-techsavvy people, office workers, etc.

2. Ignore the screams and roll stuff out. It's the one thing that you can really impact on site, without endless arguments with the stuck community (e.g. look at the miserably laid out main page, with a huge discussion a year ago...but no changes).

3. I personally would have been happy to see you ignore the reference citation templates and just make the references not be inline (whatever it looks like after that). this is a normal feature in word processing software for at least 2 decades. (and I hate the freaking cite templates....really prefer to type them out manually...also the load time issue of the cite templates).

4. I don't get people screaming about having learned sfn and all that and wanting to keep it. I would like the average English professor, journalist, engineer, or business worker able to edit this place just like he does when he uses MS Word (for the last 2 decades). Just like when I work at a real job and write a document! Let's bring more (good) content people in and less techy gearheads (especially the Linux, Mac types).

TCO (talk) 19:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

As noted above #Support_for_Internet_Explorer, IE is actually a very small percentage of Misplaced Pages edits, and it's not for nothing that every web developer hates trying to develop for IE - it really is much, much more work than its percentage of users. IE 10 is a little less worse than previous versions. Bug 50085 is IE work - David Gerard (talk) 20:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

YOU DON'T GET IT. That just totally shows the "entrenched user" mindset. You don't even know you have it. There are a HUGE number of information workers and academics in the free world and they use IE on a Dell with MS Office. This is normal. Instead of obsessing on how your...sort...can be taken care of, realize that the purpose of this thing is to make it for non-gearheads. The sort of people who when they get a prompt on the video that says "change browser", just go off to another site. There are a huge, huge, huge number of people who are good at writing or who understand science, art, history, but who don't want to play computer programmer and write out code (html, wiki, or Unix or Fortran).71.246.147.58 (talk) 20:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Which is why there's plans to add IE support, rather than just saying "go away" - David Gerard (talk) 20:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't bother supporting old versions of IE. IE9 and 10 are actually more standards compliant than Chrome or Firefox in many ways, in that they won't accept broken code. Supporting IE10 would actually ferret out several errors that Chrome and FF are tolerating, I'm sure of it. Gigs (talk) 01:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Gigs: yep, that's pretty much our attitude. We're working on support for 9 and 10; the only way to support 8 would be to create an entirely new VE for 8, and then watch users choke in it because of all the components 8 simply can't support, full-stop. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Phantom reference URL inserted in strange place

In playing around with adding a new reference, I somehow got the URL to be appended to the end of the previous reference.

The bad thing: I can't figure out how to fix it now, even if I delete my changes. Here's the diff: Where the URL I was trying to use for ref. 12 got appended to ref. 11 (and I can't figure out how to get rid of it). Woodshed (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Good news: your reference addition worked just fine! The appended URL was already there. Looks like the previous reference tag is the one that needs fixing. I hope you continue to try out visual editor and let us know of more feedback in the future. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Woodshed: I have fixed the problem, which was already extant when you did your edit. -- Diannaa (talk) 19:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I am completely thick. I thought I saw the editor add my URL down there, but it was a different one from the same site. Sorry to waste your time. Thanks! Woodshed (talk) 22:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hybrid Mode

I completely understand the logic for why typing ] generates ] and not Foobar in the visual editor. However, this also means that people who might otherwise like VE have to stop and click a link to add a wikilink. I would like to suggest that a hybrid editing mode could be very useful for editors who like the VE interface but find the workflow sometimes annoying. Specifically, I would suggest a mode where when a user types ] it would automatically be detected and translated into Foobar. Same for other basic wiki syntax such as bold / italic and templates. The editor could monitor what you are typing and automatically do the translation at breaks between words, etc. That would allow advanced users to continue using the simple syntax elements that makes wikis so easy to use, while also allowing such users access other aspects of the visual editor interface. Such a hybrid mode might be controlled as a configuration option to continue to allow the present behavior if that is seen as optimal for other users. Dragons flight (talk) 19:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a truly dreadful idea. Eric Corbett 19:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This might be too complex a change to be implemented in the near future. However, you don't have to click the icon to add a link: you can use the Ctrl+K keyboard shortcut (or ⌘ Command+K on Macs) to open the link dialog directly, and type the page there (with autocompletion). Same for bold and italics (see Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User guide#Keyboard shortcuts). I'll also point to bugzilla:49820 and bugzilla:49686, which are related. guillom 20:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that, as guillom says, this is probably very complex. What I'd like to see is, in the short-term, auto-detection that someone is trying to use markup and a warning to them, and in the long-term, a wordpress-like setup where people can easily tab between the different interfaces. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Loving it!

I have edited standalone wikis via VE for three years now, and I'm glad to see that Misplaced Pages has finally adopted it. While I, as copy-editor, will likely not encounter many problems because I will likely not need its more in-depth features, VE's quick, slick, and intuitive interface has greatly eased my editing. :)

If to age is to callous over one's sympathy, then I shall remain a I child forever. (talk) 19:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Duxwing: thanks! Let us know if you spot any issues. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Screen jumps around with each keystroke in Comment field

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52538

As I save an edit, when I'm typing in the comment field, the screen jumps around with each keystroke. This may be the same issue as Bug 50538. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I have noticed that too. Firefox, Windows 7. ~Adjwilley (talk) 01:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Darn :/. Okay, I'm going to fling a note at the bug just to make sure people get it's a multi-user problem. Sorry about this :(. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikitext diffs are replaced with HTML diffs?

Is there a plan to totally replace wikitext diffs with HTML diffs? Is the basic text (with light wikimarkup) planning to be removed? Almost depressed about that thought. --J. D. Redding 19:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I believe he is talking quite literally about the diffs, not the text. :) @GWicke:, can you clarify if I'm wrong? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we are talking about the diffs. Wikitext editing and -diffing will not go anywhere, but we would also like to provide a visual HTML diff that lets users without wikitext knowledge check changes. --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 00:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The basic text with wiki-markup, is it going away? Seems like, to me, that is the push here ...

Haven't been this depressed about Misplaced Pages for some time. --J. D. Redding 20:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain wiki markup isn't going anywhere, since we've been assured that there were no plans to retire the wikitext editor. What I think is meant here is that, in order to facilitate the clean transition from VisualEditor to source editor while editing, HTML diffs between versions may need to be used, but that would only be internally to the software, to ensure clean diffs. I don't think the HTML would be visible to the user. guillom 20:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed; that's how I understand it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:42, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't copy/paste templates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52421

This is probably a known limitation, but a really important one: currently it's not possible to copy a transclusion of a template from one article to another. There are many situations in which the easiest way to add a template to an article is to copy a use from another article and then adjust the values of the fields slightly. It would be nice if all the standard copy/paste hotkeys and menu items just worked, but it's also acceptable if a separate copy/paste button is necessary. Dcoetzee 19:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I know what you mean, Dcoetzee. I think for some editors (myself very much included) for work like that I'll just continue to use the source and copy/paste that way. Old habits die hard. As for copying and pasting with VisualEditor, most of those bugs are worked out but there are a few left that should be gone very soon. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added the number of a related feature request; Derrick, do you want to add your request there? It seems to me that enabling one should enable the other. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Well this is certainly annoying

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

Don't like that the "edit source" button appears and disappears as the mouse pointer goes past. It's very distracting when just reading the article. There should be one static "edit" button, and individual user preferences can determine what you want that button to do when you click it. Kafziel 20:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree. For simple text editing it's very helpful to do away with all the computer-technie bum fluff. Eric Corbett 20:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The fact is that both VisualEditor and source editors are imperfect, and they complement each other. Depending on the editing task you want to perform, one is more suited than the other. Having to go to your preferences to change the behavior every time would be impractical. guillom 20:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Both of you are telling me how much nicer it is for editors. I'm talking about readers, which is what we are supposed to be focused on. Kafziel 20:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Concur on the magickal floaty interface thing being annoying - just the two links would be preferable - David Gerard (talk) 20:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree. It doesn't bother me either way, because I immediately went into my own settings and turned this crap off, but for the casual reader it makes no sense to have one static button and one that flashes on and off. At the very least, they should both be static and unobtrusive. Kafziel 20:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

We've got a request in on this one. :) Feel free to add comments or subscribe to the bug to get updates. Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

List-defined references not working

Not that I expected them to be, but just making sure it's noted- list-defined references, aka where the actual filled-out ref tags are down in the reflist template as "|refs=", have no VE way of being edited- you can't edit the references as linked in the article proper as the references are located within a template, and if you edit the reflist template itself, it just lets you edit the wikimarkup of the |refs field. For an example of an article that uses LDR, see Journey (2012 video game). I know it's a minority method of doing references, just thought y'all should know. --Pres N 20:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks :). I think the answer to this is (1) to have proper template editing inside template editing and (2) for people to stop using that. It's...a very weird way of doing things. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

What's weird is that you believe cluttering up the text with citation bumph is a good way of doing things. Don't any of you lot actually write articles? Doesn't seem like it. Eric Corbett 14:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Dislike new editing system

Is there a way to opt out of the visual editor, I am not use to this new editing system which does not appear to leave an ability to leave an edit summary, and appears to be more difficult then it's worth. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Per Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor: "VisualEditor is still in beta phase, and we hope that you will give it a try. While many users are more comfortable with wikitext, some features will be really useful to experienced editors as well, like dialogs to edit complex templates and references. Also, your help in identifying bugs and training new users will be invaluable. That said, if you really can't stand the extra tab, you can completely hide VisualEditor from your interface by enabling an experimental gadget: go to your preferences, scroll down to "Editing", tick the box labeled "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface", then scroll to the bottom and click "Save". You can reactivate it at any time by unticking the box."

Regarding the edit summary, you should see it when you try to save the page (see Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User guide#Saving changes). If you're not seeing this, it's probably a bug and it should be reported. guillom 20:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Inserting weird script tag stuff

Where is the URI for this script coming from? Could this possibly be a VE bug? I just looked through some of this user's other contributions, and none seem to have weird script tags in them. Is it possible that a client-side feature/bug is corrupting this? Or is it just a coincidence that this was added with VisualEditor? πr (t • c) 20:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This is caused by FoxLingo. πr (t • c) 20:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

New Editing Format

I hate this -- put it back!! DRosenbach 20:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/FAQ - "How do I disable VisualEditor?". More info in Wikipedia_talk:VisualEditor#FAQ:_But_What_If_I_Hate_Visual_Editors.3F. πr (t • c) 20:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

In a bit more detail: If you would like to remove VisualEditor from the user interface you can go to the Gadgets tab of your Preferences page, check the option "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" in the "Editing" section, and click the Save button near the bottom of the page.--Rockfang (talk) 23:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Issue with preview of Location map template

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52610

When I attempted to insert a transclusion of Template:Location map in East St. Louis Riot using the visual editor (see diff), the generated wikitext is correct and it looks correct when the page is saved, but it does not render correctly in the preview - I see this: . Dcoetzee 20:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Reported. If that image is temp or something, please let me know, as I've linked it. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Note the many unhappy people who do not see the HIDDEN "edit source" link

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

As I predicted would happen when the visual editor was made the default editor (see talk sections linked below):

#Edit and edit source links so confusing I had to disable Visual Editor in preferences
#Monthly number of edits will continue its downward slide since 2007

Also, the ability to disable the visual editor was removed from its logical location in the edit tab of preferences and buried in the gadgets tab. I am sure many people stopped editing Misplaced Pages today, or greatly lessened their editing.

In bugzilla:49666 several people pointed out their dislike of a multi-stage process to get to "edit source". Please provide a direct link to "edit source" on each section. So that people will continue editing on Misplaced Pages. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. In my opinion, both options should be permanently displayed. I dare say that so far, I have not encountered any advantages of the visual editor for my work at Misplaced Pages, which is why I chose to stick with the original way of editing. I don't like it that it has been decided to make the visual editor the standard editor, and hiding the opt-out somewhere deep in the bowels of the user preferences. Instead I would have appreciated if every user had been asked which editor he/she would like to work with by default.--FoxyOrange (talk) 13:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Not suitable

I can report that I could wait for ages until its loaded, half-fade-out and loading-bar repeating all the time. Don't know where's the reason for - whether it's my praehistoric machine nor NoScript blocking, but it doesn't report any new scripts. That sucks. This way I will stay with the old textarea-field. That's the fastest way. --Kai Burghardt (talk) 20:30, 2 July 2013 (UTC) Finally, I don't understand why "we" want to simplify editing-procedures. Typing plain wiki-code is a kind of filter against lusers. Though they still have the chance doing vandalism. --Kai Burghardt (talk) 20:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The second part you mentioned is addressed on MW.org πr (t • c) 20:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Also in the FAQ above, "Are you worried by the potential for a large increase in vandalism?" πr (t • c) 20:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Am I reading FAQ? Actually it is not a Q. The recent banner for all WP-Pages says "give feedback", not "read already given feedback". So that's my fb. However, hardly surprising my issues aren't new. Move on. --Kai Burghardt (talk) 21:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

User Council

Leading out of discussion above, I have made a proposal for a formal User Council to represent the needs of Misplaced Pages users to the Foundation on issues such the roll out of software changes. --RA (talk) 20:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Misleading warning about old version

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52596

If I'm viewing a page diff for the most recent edit to a page (example), there are section edit links. If I click one of these, I immediately get a popup with a pink background and bold text "You are editing an old version of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed", which is somewhat misleading. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, I filed a bug about this earlier. It's not misleading, it really is using the cache of the page since you first clicked edit and wants to keep modifying that. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

But it also happens for pages where I was not the last editor - pages where my last edit was several weeks ago. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Trying to edit a section with that link in place got me a Parsoid server error. Hm. I'll look further into it, this is not normal :) Keegan (WMF) (talk) 03:10, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Support for Firefox 17?

Is there any chance of Visual Editor supporting Firfox 17, or is that still too old? Thanks. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably too old, and getting older. I've just been prompted to upgrade to FF 22. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Firefox 17 is the more recent version that has extended support (see here), which means probably the latest version a lot of companies will use. That's really bad if even this kind of versions are not supported... --NicoV 22:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not clear from that that FF17 is actually it - that chart is the original proposal to have an extended-support version at all. I can't find anything clearly saying there is an extended support version beyond FF10, and I just went looking - David Gerard (talk) 23:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The chart is indeed the proposal, but just above the chart you have an update line saying that the proposal is approved, announced and published. Otherwise, if you go the download page for Firefox Extended Support, you clearly see that FF17 is indeed the current version for extended support. So, that version should also be supported by VE, because many big companies will stick to Extended Support versions (like the company I work in with 70.000 employees). --NicoV 23:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

aha, thank you! Yes, it should be, ideally. Presumably later, though, I fear - currently it's 0.27% of readership - David Gerard (talk) 23:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Cancelling out of adding a reference adds an empty reference

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52609

Editing bug! If you go to add a reference, hit "create reference", find yourself hopelessly confused by the template parameter interface, X out of it, then save the edit ... turns out you didn't cancel out like the interface left you thinking. Cancelling out needs to actually cancel out. - David Gerard (talk) 21:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, good sir. Reported to Bugzilla. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

First Time

Pretty darn cool SirBob42 (talk) 21:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

So glad it worked for you. :) Please do let us know if you find any issues so we can help make sure they get straightened out. Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

"Error contacting the Parsoid server" while editing a section in a diff.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52615

Interesting one that i just wandered across while looking at an old Articles for creation backlog drive, that causes a very interesting error popup to appear (Tested in Firefox 22)

Navigate to http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Baylor_University_Institute_for_Oral_History&diff=555106174&oldid=prev
Try to edit the "Mission" section in the VE.
Result: An error popup stating Error loading data from server: parsoidserver: Error contacting the Parsoid server. Would you like to retry?

This seems to be caused by the "oldid=prev" part. Normally this loads the revision prior to the Diff part of the URL, but it seems the VE cannot handle that correctly. Excirial 21:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. :) I've tracked this. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Bad performance

The classic editor is fine for me, thanks. KAMiKAZOW (talk) 21:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Me, too. I'll stick with Edit Source. Openskye (talk) 00:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Citations adder is incomprehensible (LET ME OUT OF THIS)

I want to add a citation. I click on the "add reference" button. It asks if I want to add a existing reference or a new reference. I click "new reference". Nothing happens. I wait. I click it again. Nothing happens. I realize I'm supposed to click "new reference" and then the "next" button; this was wildly nonobvious. I clicked "next" and was presented with a second screen saying, I'm trying to see if I can remember the exact wording, "Add to group". There is a text box to type into. There is no hint what this means or what I'm supposed to write in there.

"Add to group"?! Really? What does that even MEAN?

Going back to the source editor, I have no idea how but somehow that was less confusing than your GUI. Awk (talk) 21:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

+1 - David Gerard (talk) 21:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding references is quite confusing compared to the normal editor. That is the only real complaint I have with the interface itself, though it is a pretty important complaint.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This is high priority. Emulating the RefToolbar would be the best approach, imo. In regards to the group thing, it's about grouped footnotes. As these aren't used very regularly (in my experience), that option may be more trouble than its worth. TDA, describe your dream reference interface, and we can add it to the report: PEarley (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Anchor templates - Not shown, but still easily messed up or deleted by accident

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52633

I noticed that when editing (e.g.) TRS-80 that anchor templates, such as the ones I'd included within the section titles (e.g. )- for links that don't break when section titles change- don't show up in the visual editor... but they're still easily (inadvertantly) deletable, simply by backspacing over the hidden markup.

You couldn't blame a newbie- or even nontechnical editor- for deleting something that wasn't even shown to them(!), but this is the sort of thing that could be a major pain in the neck.

While I'm in favour of the visual editor in principle (the ability to contribute content shouldn't be reliant upon geekish markup skills), this *was* an issue that concerned me when I heard about the idea- namely that the large amounts of complicated templates and markup (which IMHO will never be entirely representable in the visual editor) would be inadvertantly messed up, either by users or by oversights within the design of a "helpful" visual editor itself.

Ubcule (talk) 22:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

On the specific point, I've made a request for anchor display/support. On the general one, it's an uphill battle getting the many complex templates in use on en to work with VE. But we're making progress. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 02:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

They won't *all* work. *Ever*.

That's not intended as a criticism, it's just a fact. It'd be too much work to get- and test- a visual representation of every obscure template working in an entirely WYSIWYG fashion, though the common ones should definitely be made accessible.

The aimed-for situation should be that the visual editor is designed such that it doesn't *break* existing templates. Ubcule (talk) 09:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Bug #50602

(Text auto-submitted in preparation of bug video )
Impossible to use; even trying to use this leave dialogue re-scrolls the whole window on each and every single keypress, this makes it somewhat hard to use and it is unclear how one is supposed to press the OKAY button afterwards… Sladen (talk) 22:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC) Clarified —Sladen (talk) 22:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Alonsodono (talk) 22:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Problems with/suggestions for the new editor

Hey all. I definitely appreciate the attempt to make editing easier for the "common person" but I'm having so many issues with this new editor that it's very frustrating. Among my biggest beefs/suggestions:

Need instruction manual to be clearly available. Even just Edit vs. Edit Source right off the bat... Throwing in a new term without explaining it is going to frustrate many an editor. And I had to ask a friend to find this feedback thread. It should be available in a big red button while this function is in beta.
When you first open a page to be edited, a cursor appears on an empty line before the first line of the article. This prompts you to want to delete the empty line...which is no bueno because if there is a photo or an infobox or something else in the code before the main text starts, you will delete that infobox (or whatever) if you try to delete the empty space. Why does there need to be an empty line space at the beginning?
Undo command is too easy to miss. The little forward and backward arrow buttons might be familiar in some Word Processing programs, but there should be absolutely no mistaking UNDO and REDO, and I had a hard time figuring out whether I should press command-Z or what. I should not have to go looking for these buttons if they exist. I would spell it out in letters if at all possible... (And yes, I realize that means versions would have to be created for the various languages.)
Don't love how the page looks pretty much the same when you're editing as when you're not, with the exception of the edit bar. There should be some clear indication when you're editing a page that you're editing a page, that changes have not been saved, etc. I recommend some color, a warning sign, etc.
References: I tried, but I couldn't figure this one out. It felt like there was too much guessing as to what you're supposed to press... The old reference bar worked great; can we reproduce that somehow? I literally got to a point where I didn't know what else to enter so I had to go in and do it on the Edit Source, which defeats the whole purpose.
Removing an existing link: Wish the command for this weren't a little trash can symbol. It implies to me that you're trashing the entire word/term, rather than simply unlinking/removing the link. Might that symbol be an unlink symbol instead?

Anyway, thanks for listening. Looking forward to updates... Girona7 (talk) 23:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Girona7, thanks for taking the time to give a detailed report.

On the first point, do you think adding a link to the user guide on the toolbar is a solution? The demand for space is tight on the toolbar, but I think we could make a case for it.

As for where the cursor lands, I can see whether there's some options there ...

The page display is greyed out when you click on VE, I suppose it could be more noticeable, but what's the argument for it?

References - very much so, improvements forthcoming.

What were you thinking for an unlink icon? A broken chain, maybe? Could work.

Thanks again, PEarley (WMF) (talk) 03:29, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, PEarley (WMF). Yes, I think adding a link to the toolbar would be very helpful. On the coloration while editing, it just seems jarring to me that it's not really clear you're editing the page. That the title might be greyed out is not really noticeable. When you're editing the source like usual, there is no question. Aside from just being inside a page of code, you notice that above the edit area it says "Editing Misplaced Pages:Article (section)" in big, bold letters. It gives someone who might be tentative with editing a little extra comfort to know they are doing it right. While you later see that there are safeguards and checks before changes are saved, you don't have a sense of this up front with this new system. Also when you hit Preview when editing the source, there is the big warning on the top that says, this is not a live edit, you must press save, yadda yadda. Just having that extra visual display -- a simple banner across the top, for instance -- I think would be a good idea. Lastly, on the unlink icon, yes, I was thinking something like a broken chain. If you google "unlink icon" you'll find some examples. Hope that helps... Thanks for your work on this! Girona7 (talk) 22:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The new reference tool - wordse than the old one

It's not at all an improvement over the old cite tool, there should be an option to use the old way of adding references on the Visual Editor. eh bien mon prince (talk) 23:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox bug

I'm not sure how widespread this problem is but in the Andrew Waterworth article I wanted to remove a piece of vandalism from the "full name" line in his infobox. However when I clicked on the infobox icon in VisualEditor this line was not available meaning I was not able to remove the vandalism until later after turning VisualEditor off. As I say I don't know how widespread this issue was as I've only used the new system once (and have no intention of using it again to be honest) but somebody might want to look at fixing it. Cheers. Keresaspa (talk) 23:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I just tried and couldn't reproduce the issue; the parameter is named "fullname" and is available in the template's list of parameters. I could have changed the value if I wanted to. Huon (talk) 01:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Tried it again and it definitely isn't listed for me - "birth_date" is the first parameter listed when I use it. It's cool though as I said I won't be using VisualEditor anyway as the old system works prefectly. Keresaspa (talk) 01:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The parameters are listed in alphabetical order; you may have to scroll down a bit to find the "fullname" parameter. Huon (talk) 04:02, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah right, I've found it now. Still reckon I'll stick with the old system though :) Keresaspa (talk) 18:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorting template parameters

The template editor sorts parameters alphabetically. That sounds logical until you cite a book with mutliple authors and find that "first1=", "first2=" and so on are grouped together well apart from "last1=" and so on (for example, "isbn=" comes in between). Would it be possible to have the parameters sorted in the order in which they appear in the template itself, at least for those templates which use TemplateData?

On an unrelated note, yesterday we had an editor in the IRC help channel who wanted to thank you for how much easier VisualEditor makes editing, but couldn't figure out how to do so because this page can't be edited via VE. Huon (talk) 00:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Section headers flickering between and

I think its great that the existing editing functionality is being retained - however the way this is being done for section edits seems obtrusive to me. Today I was reading an article, as I scrolled each time that my mouse cursor was in line with a section header it would flicker from.

Section Heading

which drew my eyes from the text I was actually reading.

Would it be possible to either:

give everyone the choice of Edit / Edit Source when editing the full-page, but only display one option or the other for section editing? Ideally which of these two was displayed would be set via a user preference (probably defaulting to edit source for existing accounts, and edit for new ones)
always display both Edit and Edit Source

Thanks, davidprior /_c 00:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The "Review your changes" page should have a save button

What the heading says. When I review my change, my only option is to "Return to save form". I'd prefer that the save form just sit at the bottom of the review panel. One less click. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

False "You are editing an old version of this page" message

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52596

After saving my first VE edit, above, I decided to make another change to the article but when I clicked the "edit" tab I got the message, "You are editing an old revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed." In fact, no one had edited the page since my edit, and I was editing the current version of the page. Clicking the "Article" tab and then the "Edit" link got rid of the false warning. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:52, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm getting the same thing.--¿3family6 _contribs 01:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a pretty fundamental error that shows no real testing was done before this premature deployment of an unfinished piece of software. My guess is that those on contracts felt the pressure to do something, and this is something. Eric Corbett 01:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Citing sources in re VE

See Misplaced Pages talk:Citing sources#Visual Editor and reference addition - only plain text supported?. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't really like it. ApprenticeFan 01:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

*headdesk* --j⚛e decker 01:41, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Slow save speed

Took about 45 seconds to save an edit. Needs extra efficiency. Don't know if that's the server's fault or VisualEditor's. XndrK (talk · contribs · count) 01:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Which page was this on? --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 01:49, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Withdraw deployment temporarily

A number of serious bugs and missing important features have been identified from this initial rollout, which was the stated goal. So now that this set of major bugs has been identified, the sensible thing to do would be to turn it off until they are fixed. I'm not saying it needs to be bug-free, just take a couple weeks (or less) to address what's been brought up, after that, turn it back on for registered users for a week, and then complete the deployment schedule barring any more serious problems. To me this does not feel like beta software yet. Beta software is feature-complete, even if it may contain bugs. Don't press forward with what amounts to an alpha to a larger audience, it will be a disaster. I see no downside to going back to opt-in for a week or two. Gigs (talk) 01:45, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

+1, as already voiced out several times. --NicoV 02:10, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't you just click on 'Edit Source' so what's the problem? Many of us will continue with 'Edit Source'. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we can use 'Edit source', but the problem is not us who have found this button and also know that VE is currently having a lot of undesired side effects on saved pages. The problem is that most people don't know that (as said by many people, it's far from obvious for a lot of people), and will use VE in its current state without even checking their edits. Who is going to fix all the mistakes VE is saving in pages ? Why is it such a problem to pause a little time to fix a good part of the hundreds of bugs currently opened before making the default editor for everyone ? --NicoV 06:10, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep. You have enough bugs to be working on. Remove the VE, fix those bugs, then put it back for another trial. That would be the respectful, responsive thing to do. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, if this genuinely is a "trial" or "beta" (which I'm not certain of, particularly given recent attitudes towards editors) then you need to fix all the critical and major bugs (as defined by impact on editors) and a good proportion of lesser ones and finish the missing features (tables, templates, redirects, etc) to avoid damaging the live wiki. As it currently stands it is not ready for high-volume use, and feels more like an alpha release than a beta one. Thryduulf (talk) 10:02, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I tried to do a cite, and There was no where for me to say

Book, so I put book in the bottom and then book showed up in the superscripted text. HelpFindaCure2013 (talk) 02:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VE adding spaces, messing with citation access-dates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52636
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52637

I noticed something odd when using VisualEditor. I decided to use it when snooping around for various "it's" typos, for removing apostrophes seemed/is faster with VE than the old fashioned way. However, some of my edits seem to have done more than take out apostrophes. Seven times today ( ), VE added an extra space in a random place in the article (if it's hard to tell, on the last one it added the space right after "its"). And then it altered references on another, including changing access-dates. I don't think that's supposed to happen... Green green greenred 02:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I can reproduce the space issue locally and am looking into it. Thanks for the report! --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 03:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The space bug 50636 is fixed pending merge and will be deployed tomorrow. I created a separate bug for the accessdate diff. The accessdate removal itself is OK to me as the template was edited and that parameter was passed in twice. The removed version was never used, and Parsoid merely cleaned that up a bit. There are however several minor whitespace diffs in completely untouched ref tags which should not be there, for which I created bug 50637. --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 05:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Curmudgeonly response

I don't understand the attraction of graphical interfaces. Everything comes up faster if you take out the gee-gaws and graphics. I could take a run around the block in the time it takes for this thing to save an edit. Then again, I still miss DOS and Unix. So I am a curmudgeonly minority. Does no one else know how to touch type? Kauffner (talk) 02:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

./

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52428

I spotted several edits by separate users who managed to add ./ to the beginning of wikilinks. ,,. Look like a bug to me.--Salix (talk): 02:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, that's a known bug. Marking the tracker, in case you're interested. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 03:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Old version message

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52596

I have today encountered the warning message 'Saving to an old version, subsequent edits may be discarded' (paraphrase) several times when making serial edits to the same article, despite the fact that I know this is incorrect. The only way I've found to work-around is to reload the page, then re-do edits and then save. o_O. Meclee (talk) 02:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That's the work around I found as well when that bug was pointed out here earlier today. I filed a bug, linked in the tracker box. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 03:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Examine refs while editing on iPad

How can I check to see the content of a reference while editing on an iPad? I.e., see the same content as clicking on it in reading mode would show? Is there any way to name and copy a ref by that name in the VE on iPad?

As slow as it is, and as much as it seems to depend on right-clicking which long-press doesn't seem to duplicate, I'm not sure this is really ready for prime time on the iPad yet. EllenCT (talk) 03:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Were you using Safari or another browser like Chrome? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Future Customization

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52458

Are there any plans to create a process such that communities or users can add customization to the VE interface? For example, we might add tools to help with enwiki specific citation templates. I suspect we might be able to make small changes now with CSS, but if there was some sort of extension framework then I imagine community members might help to add things that they perceive as missing. It is probably too early for such things right now, but I'm wondering if future plans are likely to provide opportunities for community customization. Dragons flight (talk) 03:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

@Dragons flight: - on cite templates and the like, check out bug 50458. General tweaking frameworks, I'm not sure of. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:15, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Mangled message boxes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52640

I suspect this has already been reported, but some message boxes are messed up in edit mode. The box at the "Prevention" section mentioning lack of sources on firefighter is an example of this. Dragons flight (talk) 03:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

@Dragons flight: yep; a known :). Thanks for reporting it anyway - I worry very much about people assuming we know there are bugs and not saying anything. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorting categories

Is there an easy way to change the order of categories? I think one has to remove and re-add them to change the order in which they're listed, which can't be efficient for articles with dozens of categories if I want to add a new one in the middle. Huon (talk) 04:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Not at the moment; is there a reason there needs to be? (I'm not arguing with you - it just helps when convincing the devs they need to do something to have an argument as to why :)). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:13, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

From WP:CAT: "The order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first." In particular eponymous categories usually are the very first ones. We could interpret "not governed by any single rule" as "let's be happy with whatever VE produces", but I'd consider that a step backwards. Huon (talk) 12:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

"Happy to announce"?

"Misplaced Pages is happy to announce the live Beta of VisualEditor"? What announcement? Might I suggest an unambiguous notification in the new "edit this page" process that points out the new "edit source" tab for the old system? The first notice I got about VisualEditor (which I'd never heard of) was actually editing a page like always, only to find a visual editor (didn't see the name or a link to info) which wouldn't let me add and preview a citation, my most common WP work besides copyediting. I only found Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor by clicking on the mysterious "BETA" that appeared at the top of the page. ("BETA" what?) Yes, I eventually found "edit source", but given WP's recent proclivity for adding and moving around top-page tabs, I didn't notice it initially. Even without using VE yet, from my quick look, I suspect VisualEditor will be a tremendous help for all editors. But dropping it on everyone by default without warning is bad practice. (If there was a warning, I didn't notice it, which suggests it wasn't a very effective "notice".) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

There's been an opt-in beta since December 2012, and we sent out a centralnotice, but it looks like a cookie problem meant it didn't go to some users :(. The opt-out is pretty prominently displayed on the VE portal, which is both where the banner drops you and a single click away from where the current popup in the VE drops you; hopefully this will help. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Need to separate this long, long article !

This article needs to be separated now that VisualEditor is in place. I wanted to give some positive feedback on the simplicity of the interface — it works for me, an old-timer with over 3,700 edits. I'll be sticking with < Edit Source > and leave it to younger or more experience editors to test and improve VisualEditor. Meanwhile, Can a different article be used for usage questions and feedback? I had to search on the homepage (which clearly identifies 1. how to learn, and 2. where to go to give some feedback) and when I get here, it is all about bug reports and complaints about VisualEditor, which I am not yet using.

So many of the comments are complaints about VisualEditor and replies about fixes or why the complainers are not understanding. This is why I would suggest having a new article or archive much of what was discussed in June. Instead, end up with two areas (two articles):

Usage questions and feedback
Software bug report and fixes

I want to give some feedback on the user interface and the new editor training, but such feedback is totally 'lost in the weeds.' — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

How do you wikify a link?

Well, before this new editor went live, I went into my profile and ensured it was off. Sure enough, you screwed me....

Now, I am trying to edit an article with the broken editor. I can't even wikify a freakin link (add the double braces).

Great idea, and if this keeps up, I'm out of editing for wikipedia. Jeffrey Walton 05:01, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

You can continue to edit wikitext as before, using "Edit source" instead of "Edit". If you do want to use the new editor, the user guide explains how to add links. Let me know if you have more questions. guillom 06:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Post-edit re-edit loads old revision of page to edit.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52441

How to produce bug: 1. Edit the page in VE. 2. Click Save Page. 3. Click edit again.

Result: It will edit the old version of page again, which you loaded before editing. I think, after the page is saved it should be reloaded, so if I want to edit it again, it will edit the latest version. ★Saurabh P. | ☎ talk 05:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is annoying :-/ It's a highest-priority bug currently being addressed by developers. guillom 06:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

But why has the VE been rolled out and turned into the default way to edit Misplaced Pages when there are such huge bugs? That's what so very annoying.--FoxyOrange (talk) 13:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Because when it comes to bugs, many eyes make them shallow. This is a good example; it's not a problem we'd noticed prior to the wider rollout despite having the VE available on an opt-in basis since December 2012. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Is it really because it was not seen ? I really doubt that it would have been unseen for so long and the title of this bug says its a regression. It's detection now has nothing to do with VE being rolled out to many users. --NicoV 13:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Okeyes, you should know that "many eyes make bugs shallow" refers to eyes on the source code, not user eyes being subjected to software with numerous serious known issues. As I said before, you've identified a lot of new bugs, so this test was a success. Now turn it off for a while until the biggest ones are fixed. Gigs (talk) 17:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Any plans to make infoboxes appear?

The new visual editor looks great BUT it is that easy for a novice user to accidentally delete an infobox because they simply don't know one is there. Can someone please attend to this as a matter of urgency? Given most project maintained pages have an infobox, I can't believe this wasn't thought of before it was deployed. See West Swan, Western Australia for an example. Orderinchaos 06:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Er. It was; the infobox appears fine for me. What browser/OS are you using? Can you send a screenshot? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggested feature: template forms

Several people above have noted the need for something similar to the ref toolbar, allowing people to fill in cite templates using a form interface. Taking this one step farther, I think it would be valuable to permit template authors to provide a form description (for example on a template subpage like Template:Foo/form) which is translated into a form for their template. Then whenever that template is inserted using Visual Editor, that form interface would be used by default. The form description would include things like what fields are included in what order, labels/descriptions for each field, data types of fields, an "advanced" section that is hidden by default containing additional fields, possibly Javascript gadgets like looking up book info by ISBN or a map for finding longitude/latitude, and so on. I realise this is pretty complex but I think it would make templates much more usable than having to refer to their documentation page to find the exact field names to fill in. Dcoetzee 06:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Newline removal impossible

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52641

I tried to remove the whitespace (actually newlines) between references 7, 8 and 9 of this revision of KHD Humboldt Wedag (the ones after "Klöckner Humboldt Deutz AG." at the end of the "History" section's second paragraph). I can remove the "↵" symbols, but when I try to review my changes I get an error message: "Could not start the review because your revision matches the latest version of this page." When I tried to remove them along with some other changes, the other changes were saved correctly, but the newlines persist: Huon (talk) 06:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Reported as Bugzilla bug 50641. Huon (talk) 06:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Visualeditor: Moving sections causes editor glitches.

Tested on Firefox 22. It seems that moving sections around causes the editor to glitch out on any further editing of the same section.

Steps to reproduce:

Open Mariposa botnet in the Visual Editor.
Select the entire "Operations and impact", and drag and drop realocate it so that it end up being the first section in the "History" section. (Just drop it before the O in "Origins and initial spread")
Click somewhere in the section you just reallocated. The result is really wonky
- If you press Space everything will work as intended - a space is added in the reallocated section.
- If you press backspace it will remove a character from both the currect, and the NEXT section(?).
- If you press Enter it will add the enter in the next section.

Note that the above examples don't always occur. After playinf around a bit i could still type textual character, yet the enter, space and delete keys failed to produce any result. Excirial 06:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That's very strange - I can't actually drag and drop at all (also FF2). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It does take some precision aiming. Trying to drop it an inch to far to the left or right will cause it to do nothing (The text entry pipe | must be visible where you wish to drop it. If it is, it should work.

Excirial 07:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Drag and Drop changes cannot be saved.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52643

Somewhat related to the issue I reported above. (Firefox 22, as always)

Steps to reproduce:

Open Mariposa botnet in the Visual Editor.
Select the entire "Operations and impact", and drag and drop reallocate it so that it end up being the first section in the "History" section. (Just drop it before the O in "Origins and initial spread")
Try to save the page / preview your changes. The editor will tell you that the preview cannot be shown since there have been no changes. If you add a random word somewhere as well the preview will show the added word, not the reallocated section.

I'm wondering though, is Drag and Drop for sections really intended to be used, or is Firefox simply allowing me to move things around which shouldn't be moved? Also note that drag and dropping doesn't seem to be registered as a change as far as the undo / forward buttons are concerned. Excirial 06:49, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The registering as a change is a big problem :(. Drag and drop should be possible: I'm going to report this now. Thanks for bringing it up! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:29, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Bug unfixed: editing DEFAULTSORT

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52002

Yesterday I congratulated the team on fixing a bug: today it's unfixed. Editing Norman Maclean (biologist) I couldn't edit the DEFAULTSORT but had to retype it. One small backward step! PamD 07:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear :/. Any chance you remember the original bug? I'm having a devil of a time finding it in bugzilla (they always rename "defaultsort doesn't work" to things in visualeditor-ese, like "template inspector not triggering on slugs, producing incorrect DOM on render"). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that would be bug 50002 - (Old archived Section) Excirial 07:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Excirial :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It turns out that the bug hadn't been fixed: the DEFAULTSORT I was successfully editing was one which had been added manually, and was therefore editable. It's when VE has given its own suggestion for the DEFAULTSORT that it's impossible to edit it. So the bug remains unfixed. PamD 21:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

This feedback page appears in the vertical middle of the pag

This feedback page appears in the vertical middle of the page, which is confusing because I pressed the "Leave feedback" button at the top, and on long pages, I'm not going to see this Feedback window. Dandv 07:15, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean; can you provide a screenshot? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Missing functionality

I was unable to find out how to use key templates such as e.g. cite Chire (talk) 08:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean? Were you trying to edit an existing cite template, or add a new one, or...? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Use a template. It was automatically wrapped in nowiki tags (and thus inserted as plain text: {{{cite doi | ...}}}), and I could not find how to prevent this from happening. But this is an essential functionality for me, using templates! --Chire (talk) 10:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It may well be that the functionality exists somewhere, but it was far from intuitive to find. Essentially, I just wanted the old editor back, and fixed it then with a second edit using the classic editor. --Chire (talk) 11:01, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Resizing an image is not seen as a change / Resizing causes images to disappear.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52651
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52645

Two for the price of one!

Steps to Reproduce

Open the Microsoft Article in the visual editor.
Resize the first image (The one in the "1972–83: Founding and company beginnings" section). Make it somewhat larger.
Now resize it another time. Larger or smaller doesn't matter. Instead of resizing the image it seems to disappear entirely (Or implode, since the resize control still seems to be there in a 1 pixel size)

Also, if you press "Review Your Changes" the page will report that there is no change to review (Resizing once or twice doesn't matter - a resize doesn't seem to be triggering a page change). Excirial 08:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Mine saves, and then doesn't appear in the article history. Gah! Good catch - throwing in bugzilla now. I can't see the implosion thing; screenshot? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Here you go (Added as a thumbnail). Perhaps implosion isn't the right description though - mainly referring to the fact that the image seems to disappear while leaving the resize dots around (Screenshot shows a resize attempt on the dot it left behind) Excirial 08:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Weird. Firefox 22...? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:01, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That's the one. I'll see if i can reproduce it on another system sometime this evening. If i can, i'll see if i can upload a recording of it. Excirial 10:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't search on hidden text - eg link targets

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52646

When cleaning up incoming links to a page I sometimes find that the pagename isn't visible in the linking page, it's a piped link: I can only find it (either by eye or by ctrl-F) once I've opened the file in the old edit mode.

So, if I look at User:PamD/sandbox for VE and want to find the link to Dunmallet: how do I do so, short of hovering over every link to check it?

And, as an aside, is there a sandbox where we can test VE, and which VE will recognise as article space? I suspect that my personal playground won't reflect everything, as it's in userspace. PamD 08:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Mouseover gets it, but you're right - it doesn't display the linking mechanism. I'll add it in :). I can't think of a sandbox, I'm afraid - I've been using my userspace, but mostly to replicate reports by others. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

No, that bug report doesn't fit the bill: I don't want to have to check every link in a long article to find the one (or more) which is going to the dab page I'm checking. I want to be able to search the page for the name of the article being linked to - possibly more than once - as a piped link. At present I use "Find". If I don't find it immediately, I open the Edit Source editor and find it in the displayed wikicode. In VE there is no such equivalent as far as I can see. PamD 09:01, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Stuff shows on top of boxes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52652

Namely, the logo, search box, "edit this page" link, and stuff in top bar (notifications, etc) shows on top of boxes such as "image", "reference", etc in Monobook, Firefox 21, Windows 7:Jay8g 17:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Jay8g: Oh dear :/. Can you put a screenshot somewhere? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:08, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Seems we ran into the same issue, so i figure i can just as well add a screenshot. This is what happens if you use the visual editor in 1024*768 resolution, mono skin. Higher resolutions don't overlap by default, "Edit this page" excluded (That one always overlaps) Excirial 09:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeugh! Adding to bugzilla. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

How often and when are code updates happening?

I assume there are developers looking at the bug reports and working on this stuff. How quick is the deploy cycle (for large or small releases) for this period? i.e., how quickly should we expect things to get better? - David Gerard (talk) 10:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

An excellent question, and one I'll ask now. Prior to the big deploy we were releasing practically daily; I'm not sure what the plan is now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, "now" was 14 hours ago ... so, how often is the code updated? What's the schedule? - David Gerard (talk) 23:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion: Option for saving the source while editing?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52424

I've come across a minor bug which happens just after you save, clicking edit again results in the notification that the page is out of date and needs to refreshed plus this "invalid token" bug.

Suggestion: I found it hard to copy and save what I've written while editing since everything is already formatted, leaving it open for long resulted in the invalid token bug. Would an option for saving the text source from it which can be copied to any text editor be useful mainly during editing?(which we can do in edit source) -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 10:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
That can be done in source editing? I guess contents can be copy-pasted. I think we need to ideally look at increasing the time-out limit, as in bugzilla:50424. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:42, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Deployment for all namespaces

When is VisualEditor going to be activated for all namespaces? You guys trust VE enough to make it the default editor for everyone, but you don't you trust it to edit this page? We've got new users being faced with different editors for articles and talk pages, including their own user talk pages where they'll be trying to find help with the editing interface. Thatotherpersoncontribs 10:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with trusting it, it's to do with duplication of effort. At the moment we're also working on Flow, a way of structuring discussion pages that will, I'm pleased to say, hopefully look nothing like LiquidThreads. This will include the VisualEditor, in a stripped-down form. Since we're going to have to adapt the VisualEditor to flow, it doesn't make sense to put work into deploying it on (for example) talkpages now - first because the actual outcome will be the same, with a lot more effort put it, and secondly because having to deal with all the use cases in the help, wikipedia, talk, etc namespaces is going to bloat our bug- and task-list. I'd rather get the VE ticking over nicely in mainspace and then integrate it with Flow than have it slow and somewhat buggy everywhere. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Bug?

I use IE, so VE isn't currently available to me anyway, but I thought I'd check the "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" box so that I wouldn't be surprised at some future date when IE might be supported. Unfortunately, when I do so, the edit tab at the top of articles disappears. There are still section edit links, but there's no way to edit a lead. Deor (talk) 11:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That's probably because you're not receiving the VE, which means the renaming/changes to edit tabs that come with the VE (and that the gadget to remove the VE triggers off) aren't happening. If it doesn't work when IE gets the VE and you try again, it's a bug - until then, not really, although it is a wee bit substandard. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

A little slow, and a little bit too shy

I've tried it once or twice, and have noticed that it's much slower than the normal editing option ever was. A different problem is that it makes it very hard to see that you have switched it on by accident, and you can't simply press the "back" button and go back to the page. You have to remember there's a bar at the top of your Misplaced Pages browser window and switch it off, after making sure you haven't made any accidental edits. Maybe creating it as a separate editing window like some of the dedicated Wikis have done might be the answer. --ProtoDrake (talk) 11:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks ProtoDrake :). These are both known knowns - we're working on making it more obvious that it's an interface for editing (see bugzilla:50456) and making it faster (bugzilla:49685). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Repeated internal links with empty text

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51682

I saw this kind of edits several times, where a correct internal link is changed into 2 internal links to the same page, one of them with only whitespace characters. --NicoV 11:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Gah; thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Wrong syntax for title in bold ?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51820

I wonder if this syntax is really correct ? The title is in the form '''==References==''' (note the ' around the title). --NicoV 11:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not, but that's (afaik) a user error rather than a software error. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, but there are currently a lot of user errors with VE where people try the classic syntax (internal links, titles, ...). VE should at least warn users about this to prevent this frequency of mistakes. --NicoV 11:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

See bugzilla:49820 and bugzilla:49686. Thryduulf (talk) 12:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Those two bugzilla reports are classified as Low enhancement, but they seem to be the main source of article corruption with VE (I spent 30mn checking recent VE edits, hence the 6 reports I have just made, and this kind of problem appeared at least in 6 articles). Their importance should really be upped ! --NicoV 12:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree, hence my note there. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. --NicoV 12:49, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Section deleted but empty title kept

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52313

Strange result where instead of being completely removed, just an empty title remains. I think VE shouldn't allow users to create headings with no title text at all (nor contents). --NicoV 11:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracking as bugzilla:50313. Thanks for the report :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

nowiki inserted between internal link and text

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52659

This edit doesn't look good. There should be no <nowiki /> between the internal link and the s. --NicoV 12:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear; thanks! Throwing in bugzilla now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Tabs should be "Edit visual" and "Edit source"

By habit I keep hitting "Edit" when what I actually want is "Edit source"; therefore, please make "Edit" into "Edit visual" so that the old tab hasn't morphed into something else that one is accustomed to using to mean what it always had. Vincent J. Lipsio (talk) 12:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I have another suggestion- three buttons and . I still have ve enabled so I can watch and participate in this thread, and on a little bit of editing I was doing last night I was switching from mainspace to talk to commons. It is ludicrous that one word mean different things on different pages. When I get spam on my email I just look for the unsubscribe button on the page, it is not reasonable to expect a new user to grub around in preferences. The other point with is that when switching pages, I am not actually looking at the screen- it is finger memory- the eyes are looking at a piece of paper, a printed source. The wretched button just moves according whether the space has been enabled or not.

If I were teaching a group of newbies at a public library session- some on IE and some on early Firefox- there would be no consistency on what each member of the group saw on their screens- and what was on my slides. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 14:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

True, but how is that relevant to my suggestion? Vincent J. Lipsio (talk) 22:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Extra space added in bold text

An extra space has been added in the bold text. Wouldn't it be better if bold and italic markings were sticking to the text they are applied to (excluding surrounding whitespace characters) ? --NicoV 12:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Possibly; does it cause any actual problem? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

First, the space is doubled. It's not visible in the article, but it's visible if you go in VE (the display is different). Second, for me, this doesn't look natural, it's a strange way of putting bold/italic in my human perspective. Is it major ? Clearly not, just a small, minor enhancement. --NicoV 12:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Messed up template

Too many things are wrong: empty parameters added (1, 2, 3), some parameters grouped on the same line, <nowiki>...</nowiki> added in an external link, ... --NicoV 12:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The grouping is a known; the nowiki makes absolutely no sense. Can you let me know if you see the empty params? I haven't been able to replicate them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I just tried removing the empty params (1, 2 and 3). The infobox displayed in preview after that in VE is messed up : some internal links are displayed as wikitext (]) instead of links. And <nowiki>...</nowiki> is again added intertwined with the previously added one when I save the page. --NicoV 12:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear :/. Okay, reporting. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Each time you start editing the infobox (even without changing anything, just applying a null change) both problems appear : the look of the infobox is a mess (some internal links are displayed in wikitext) and if you save you get an extra pair of nowiki tags. --NicoV 14:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I had to revert an edit yesterday that added pointless nowiki tags added by the VE, when someone added a reference (it was also an overlink violation, but that's irrelevant.) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Updated watchlist status not preserved during editing

When you add a page to or remove it from your watchlist and start editing it directly after, the updated status is not preserved in the save changes dialog. --WS (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

John McCabe

Moved to Talk:John McCabe (writer)

Appearance

The edit bar follows you as you scroll; good. But the line between the body and the edit bar needs to be slightly more bold than "practically white". (This pale, spaced out look the entire web seems to be striving for makes quick navigation and focus difficult.) The edit bar is not a part of the body, the line should be as dark as the one separating it from the navbar. Back to the whole pernicious spaced out bit, the enormous space between icons in similar functional groups is disruptive for me. If some disability/accessibility issue requires this, there should be an option to compact the layout. At first, I didn't even realize like functions were grouped because the chasm between individual functions makes the spacing between groups less obvious in proportion. The icon bar has room for ten more icons, at least. - BalthCat (talk) 14:01, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

User experience

Hi. I'm very excited to see the visual editor coming along - we desperately need this, and it is making great progress. However, I tried to run through some basic steps as if I was a new user, and I hit a lot of problems, many of which have probably been highlighted before. Nevertheless, as feedback:

Adding text, bold, italics, headings and wikilinks is great. It does a wonderful job of basic formatting.
Adding media is less ideal. You can add images well enough, but the two-step process to add captions doesn't seem great. Captions should be an option when you first add an image. Similarly, I can't see where I can add alt text, which worries me a lot. Is it possible to add alt text? How do you manage left alignment?
If you backspace text next to an image, it suddenly moves in as a caption, rather than deleting the image or moving to before the image. This was counter-intuitive and confusing.
Adding references is too complex. For a new user, it is a 5 step process. Click on "Insert reference" (which is a bit of a mystery meat icon), click on "create new source", click on "insert reference", create and format the reference yourself (no help provided for reference formatting), click on "Apply changes". This isn't intuitive, and adding references needs to be quick, easy and intuitive for new users. For a new page, they aren't prompted to add a reference list except by the red warning method after the page is save, and that gives a message that doesn't make sense for the VE.
Editing an existing template, such as an infobox, is ok for the ones I tried. Adding a new template is extremely confusing.
The "You are editing an old version of this page" warning is a big problem. For a new user it looks like their edit wasn't saved, or that they are doing something else wrong.
As mentioned by others, at times the close button for windows disappeared under the main editing panel, so I couldn't close without making a change.

Some of these, such as the problems adding a reference, seemingly missing alt tags, and the "old version" bug, are pretty serious and should have been picked up before the rollout. Is it possible for this to be pulled while major bug fixes are handled, rather than running with the current version and releasing fixes on the fly? - Bilby (talk) 14:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree strongly regarding adding references and adding new templates. You basically need to have the template docs open to add a template - I've done it but it's very awkward, which is why I suggested template forms above. Reference templates aren't just a matter of pretty formatting - in my experience with newbie editors in the Misplaced Pages Education Program, the forms on the ref toolbar were critical in ensuring that we get complete information about references (in particular, the use of bare URLs for web refs are a plague). That said, I support continuing the beta and rolling out better ref support when available. Dcoetzee 14:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I guess my concern is what possible negative effects there are of having a buggy and incomplete product in release on a production server. If the answer is none, because the bugs won't have a major impact, then that's fine. But I don't think that is the case. There are over 1000 bugs now listed in Bugzilla, some of which are major. Fixing bugs, especially in a production environment, creates an ongoing risk of more bugs being created, occasionally more serious than the one being fixed. With a long list of missing features and bug fixes, it seems from a development standpoint a good idea to pull the release, implement the fixes and core features, test in a controlled environment, and then re-release. - Bilby (talk) 15:02, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

`` tags displayed as text in VE_tags_displayed_as_text_in_VE-2013-07-03T15:11:00.000Z">

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51289

Whenever I hit the edit button for Kamar Siah, several  tags appear as text in the table at the bottom of the article (Selseleh County), instead of being used as line breaks. --NicoV 15:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)_tags_displayed_as_text_in_VE"> _tags_displayed_as_text_in_VE">

This might be related to bugzilla:49820? Thryduulf (talk) 15:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Why ? I don't see any relation to bug 49820 which is about "Warn users that wikicode doesn't work and they shouldn't insert it when it looks like they're doing so".

I haven't added them myself not even done any modification in the article. They are already present in the table which is created by a template, they are true  tags (even if their syntax is broken, because they are not valid HTML, they should be   or  ). --NicoV 15:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Correct be if I'm wrong, but I thought the correct code was  ? Perhaps something isn't cleaning up the code as it should. Try it the other way. Ignatzmice•talk 15:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the syntax is incorrect, but they are not even in the article, they are part of the template. VE should handle them as MW, not differently, even if the syntax is incorrect. --NicoV 15:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the navbox template. Does the article behave properly now? --Redrose64 (talk) 16:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Even with the template fixed, the problem is still the same on Kamar Siah, still  tags appearing. A cache problem ? (not due to my computer because I reported the problem on an other computer than the one I just used to test). --NicoV 19:02, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, it looked OK to me. Nevertheless, I've done a WP:NULLEDIT on Kamar Siah which should fix for all users. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Those should really be  . We'll probably add support for broken  though, and collect information about the pages they are in so that they can be fixed. --Gabriel Wicke (talk) 18:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Editnotice ?

Is there any plan to manage Editnotice when editing pages in VE ? For some pages, they are really useful to guide editors on what can be done in the page. For example, for disambiguation pages (example: BBHS), the edit notice explains the differences between a disambiguation page and a regular article. --NicoV 15:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Page notices are currently supported; edit-notices would seem to fall under this bug :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Hidden categories

Is there any plan to manage hidden categories in VE ? I couldn't find a way to view them or edit them with VE. --NicoV 15:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Are there hidden categories that are actually embedded in articles as opposed to in templates? I'm not that familiar with hidden categories, but the ones I know would have to be changed at the template itself. Hope you can offer some guidance on that, @NicoV:. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe a mistake on my part for the "edit them" part, but how to "view them" while editing ? With the plain text editor, you can unfold a list of hidden categories at the bottom of the page, you get all hidden categories even the ones that are coming from a template. I didn't see anything like that in VE. How can we see the list of hidden categories when editing a page in VE ?

Corrupting article format

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52675

It would be nice to be able to disable VisualEditor for specific articles. Two edits to List of Sam & Cat episodes corrupted the article format. here and here where I did NOT add the category before the table start. Geraldo Perez (talk) 15:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I have...no idea what to make of that. :/ Off to browse the bug list to see if it's reported. Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't find anything exactly like that - just to clarify, @Geraldo Perez:, am I correct in assuming that you didn't intend to add the category at all? Did it show up out of nowhere or just position itself differently than you intended? It'll help me figure out how to report this. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The category is a hidden category normally defined in Template:Episode list and should not ever be directly visible in the article source. See for where defined. Geraldo Perez (talk) 16:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! That's helpful. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I've tracked the category issue at Template:Bugzilla. Please feel free to add a note if I've mistaken anything or to let me know. Now to look at the other edit. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Maggie, if I am not mistaken, the other edit has to do with an older bug I reported few days ago. I think you were the one who tested it, I don't remember for sure. I am talking about the one that editing anything in a table who is in that form, the notice that there is not "reflist" appears and when you save it it messes up the whole table. Seeing other people reporting, I think that this bug is connected to the one that doesn't recognize the refs that are included in a template as part of the whole article. TeamGale (talk) 17:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thank you, TeamGale. :) I don't remember, either. It's been a crazy week. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That's the only sure! Just wanted to let you know so you can find the bug easier and see if it's really the same one. It's not fixed yet. I know that you all working on the bugs and I can cope with the known ones and use "edit source" till they are fixed. The "bad" thing is that the feedback has become so long that is not easy for the "new" people who are coming here to see what bugs had already reported :/ TeamGale (talk) 17:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Wrong target link

Ctrl+Click on a link in Edit mode took me to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/Virtual_8086_mode, which is a wrong target. Codename Lisa (talk) 15:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Weird; where were you to click on it? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:08, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Here: . Initiated a section link edit because I wanted it to be a manual partial revert. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 00:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Which link did you click on, I mean? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't Default to This

I almost always edit as source, and suddenly it's forcing me into this crap, I don't even quickly see a way out of it. Default to offering it, instead of making us hunt down a way to opt out. Kaz (talk) 15:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Opt-out = Special:Preferences > Gadgets > Editing πr (t • c) 16:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Section editing will never be implemented

The "edit" links on sections are purely decorative and will never be otherwise. Official word:

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48429

Imagine a world in which everyone can share in the sum of all human knowledge, if they live in San Francisco - David Gerard (talk) 16:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not extremely techy (or really even remotely) but I do not see where that bug says that, David. Can you clarify? :) (Mind you - I'll be disappointed if that turned out to be the case, since I think it's a pretty important feature myself, even if of necessity low priority at this point.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment #35 - David Gerard (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The one that starts:

Enhancement" means "the software doesn't do this, and isn't as-written meant to do this"; it's not a judgement on whether it should. "Lowest priority" means "the core developers of this are not intending to work on this issue any time soon"; bugs are always open to other developers coming and working on them, which frequently happens.

I don't see how that leads to a conclusion that these links are purely decorative and will never be otherwise. :/ I wish it did conclude differently than "Solving what you're actually asking for (a form of VisualEditor/Parsoid that loaded and edited only one section at a time) would be a mammoth piece of work, albeit with some usefuless as you describe" and "I cannot justify spending donor funds to that extent when there are more pressing demands on the resources of the VisualEditor team" (I would be much happier if it concluded with "This is an easy fix, and it'll be done by the time I hit save"), but I'd like to be hopeful that if it isn't picked up by other developers, it'll be attended after the more pressing demands are met. (Of course, if people think this is more pressing, making a case for that is a good idea! I'm sure it's not always easy to prioritize fixes.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

At present, the links do not in fact edit the section - they load the whole hundreds of kilobytes of page. The interface lies to people.

"I cannot justify spending donor funds", when talking about this feature, looks pretty conclusively like "no" to me.

(I don't think "maybe some outside volunteer developer will implement it at some unspecified point in the future" counts as "it will happen" - what's the ratio of outside volunteer VE developers to WMF VE developers been so far?)

- David Gerard (talk) 16:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, we got the opt out gadget from a volunteer developer. But, mind you, my technological abilities are slightly to the left of "none", so I have no idea how possible it is. You and I are reading that differently, perhaps because I'm focusing on the word "when" in the rest of that sentence: "I cannot justify spending donor funds to that extent when there are more pressing demands on the resources of the VisualEditor team." It might be worth asking for clarification there, though, and I'd be happy to if you don't want to. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I think the complaint is overly pessimistic. Section editing is quite challenging to implement because the appearance of a section can depend in crucial ways on material that lies outside that section. Given that the developers are in fire-fighting mode right now, it makes sense for them to defer that problem until more basic problems have been resolved. It is, however, a very important problem in the long run. Currently it is very unpleasant to use the Visual Editor on an article such as Parkinson's disease, because it takes so long to load even on a fast computer. My plan for the present is to use the Visual Editor for short articles, but to stick with the old functionality for long and complex articles. Looie496 (talk) 16:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
- Parkinson's disease takes 5 seconds for me, that's not too bad. I'm not sure if fast computer helps or not. I tried List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters (288 K!), and it did not work at all - always hits a timeout after 60 seconds. GregorB (talk) 19:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
  - That D&D list is amazing. Timed out after 90 seconds here - perhaps the limit's been raised - David Gerard (talk) 19:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll predict that this is going to end up with portions of articles getting terminated. Had to deal with that before in long articles in a full wikitext source edit. VizWiz not being able to section edit will end up with more articles getting a bad/partial save ... --J. D. Redding 18:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm going to agree with David Gerard and the filer of the bugzilla that this is actually quite a serious problem, and one that should have big red flags next to it. This will have major effects on the ability of editors in non-Western regions with slower computers and little or no high speed internet to participate. Risker (talk) 23:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

What bothers me the most about this issue is that it doesn't seem that the development team was given the mandate to match existing functionality.—Kww(talk) 23:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Change of case in link cannot be saved

I tried to lowercase the link ] on the Vogrie House page, but then VE would not let me save it, saying that no change was made. I had to use the old, non-buggy, intuitive, straightforward, dependable, efficient, tried-and-true "edit source" editor—you know, the one that was hijacked and replaced by VE—to accomplish the job; where's the fun in using that old editor? Chris the speller 16:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Intuition after having used it for a matter of years is kinda contradictory. I just tested here and it saved fine; what browser/OS are you using? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Firefox 19.0.2/Windows Vista. My first attempt at lowercasing it caused the "a" to appear outside the double square brackets, so I started over and inserted "a" after the "A" (like "Aarchitect") and then removed the "A". Chris the speller 17:15, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Try changing "Marvel Comics" to "marvel Comics", not "Marvel comics". Chris the speller 17:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Note on usage

Out of curiosity, I looked at the most recent 5000 edits in article space excluding anons and bots. Of these, 530 were tagged as using VisualEditor. So, among people who can use it (presently only registered users), the adoption rate so far appears to be around 11%. Dragons flight (talk) 17:28, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. :) It would be fascinating to know how many of those are experienced versus new editors. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Of the last 500 edits tagged as using VisualEditor, 289 (58%) came from users that have yet to create a user page. That usually indicates that the user account is very new (though it is not absolute). That suggests that a majority of the VE uses at present are coming from new accounts. Dragons flight (talk) 17:45, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Given that users with user pages are responsible for four times as many article edits as users without user pages, one can extrapolate that experienced users (estimated as editors with user pages) are choosing to use VE for about 5.6% of their article space edits, while newer users (estimated as editors without user pages) are choosing to use VE about 30% of the time that they edit articles. Of course, not having a user page does not strictly establish whether an account is new or not. It would be more interesting to directly identify accounts with very few total edits, but that would take more effort to analyze. Dragons flight (talk) 18:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The flip side of this coin, of course, is how many of those 30% of new/ish editors are using VE because it's easier for them, or because they don't know of the alternative ("edit source? what's that, HTML?")? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Re-loading bug

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52441

Visual editor, after I've made an edit, brings up an error message telling me that I'm editing an old version of the page, which requires a re-load. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

This new setup may be a good idea in theory, but it doesn't seem to work well in practice. How in the world are we supposed to add things like writers and track times to the track listing, if we were so inclined? Maggie The Doggie (talk) 17:53, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That is a known one - bug 50441 to be precise. It is a high priority one so i assume that this will be an issue that will be fixes sooner rather than later. As for the current editing issues, the Visual Editor is still pretty much a beta. Apparently the plan is to add support for more templates and objects as time progresses. Excirial 18:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Undoing a resize works incorrectly.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52682

Well, it seems that finding unreported issues is becoming progressively more challenging. Either way, i think this one hasn't been reported yet:

Steps to reproduce:

Edit the Vogrie House article in the visual editor.
Resize the image. Larger or smaller doesn't matter.
Press either CTRL + Z, or undo the edit using the undo button.

Instead of undoing the edit, it suddenly enlarges the image object. The image is placed in the center of the screen, and the object itself even overlaps the main navigation in the Mono interface. Of course as always: Firefox 22 used to test this. Excirial 18:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yay! To the former. Not the latter, of course. :) I'll check and pop it in if needed - tracking to follow. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Replicated (more or less) on Chrome and reported. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52687

Okay, this one is probably quite tricky: When editing the source code, if an edit conflict arises, you can simply hit the back button, copy the code, and paste it into the updated version. However, with the Visual Editor, this is no longer possible. The content goes away, so you have to re-add it all, which is a huge pain if it involves references and other templates.--¿3family6 _contribs 18:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any current tickets about this in bugzilla. Adding. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a failure. Fall back and rethink this

Please. Telling the awful truth (talk) 18:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Can we get a preference to switch ...

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52688

Can we get a preference to switch the ... after doing some editing with VizWiz option present, cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have to navigate to the source edit option (especially when doing some power editing). It really sucks. Must have hit the edit selection a few dozen time, when I wanted edit source.

For logged in user, can there be a formatting preference to display as ? --J. D. Redding 18:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll be happy to add a feature request, if there's not one already. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Who thought this was a good idea? How do I disable this?

Shot me now and open the gates to the tide of crud and confusion. Craig Pemberton (talk) 18:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

To continue to edit the wikitext directly, simply click the "Edit source" button instead of "Edit". On section edit links, you can open the classic wikitext editor for that section by clicking "edit source" instead of the regular "edit" link. If you would like to remove VisualEditor from the user interface, then you can go to the Gadgets tab of your Preferences page, check the option "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" in the "Editing" section, and click the Save button near the bottom of the page. (Note that gadgets are community-developed and not supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Not so bad

I've been trying it out for some light copyediting and it seems to work pretty well for that purpose, at least. It's nice for when you just have to move a few commas around and don't want everything to be obscured by messes of reference code. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Mark. :) I'm so glad to hear that it worked well for you. Please do let us know if you encounter issues! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Reopening save page dialog after closing it breaks backspace / delete.

An oddball one, took me a while to figure out what on earth caused this. Tested in Firefox 22 + Monobook skin.

Steps to reproduce

Navigate to Mariposa botnet and edit the page in the visual editor.
Make any textual change - just add "Test" somewhere for example.
click "Save Page"
Adding a reason doesn't matter. Just click to close the save page popup.
Immediately open it again (Don't click anywhere else)
Try to add a text as the reason, then press backspace or delete what you just added.

For some reason delete and backspace won't work anymore. Another fun fact in Monobook: It will block any input on the screen. For example, the search box will refuse to accept a backspace or delete while the save page screen is opened a second time. And even MORE fun: Do the above trick again, but after the last step add the following steps:

Steps to reproduce (for even more fun)

(Do all the steps from the first section)
Press "Review Your changes".
Wait for the review to load, then press "Return To Save", and close the resulting form.
Now click the search block (In mono) and enter a random search criteria.
Once entered, try to remove it again.

What happens for me: Entering data in the search box works fine, but pressing backspace somehow causes text to be removed from the article, instead of the search box i was just typing in. Excirial 19:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Table formatting instructions displayed as text

When I edit fr:Brendan Schaub in VE, the first column of the table displays the formatting instructions as text instead of applying them : I see text like style="background: #...." and if I click on it, VE thinks it's a template to be edited. --NicoV 19:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

And same problem with the English version Brendan Schaub in the same table (for the display of formatting instructions as text). --NicoV 19:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Error: Invalid error code

OpenOffice took 13 sec just now to open in VE; I entered one space, hit save and then review, and review timed out after 100 sec; hitting "save" on that timed out after 100 sec with "Error: Invalid error code" - David Gerard (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Tag: visual editor

Just wondering why my edits are still being tagged this way in edit summaries, now that VE is "live". Taroaldo ✉ 19:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Mostly as a bug-tracking mechanism :). Some editors are not using the VE; when we patrol recentchanges looking for glitches, this cuts down on the number of edits we have to look at. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Hyperlink popup glitch.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52693

Time for another "Why did you even try this"? kind of bug. (Tested on Firefox 22, Mono)

Steps to Reproduct

Edit the bugonia article using the visual editor.
Click the "Aristeas and bugonia. Virgil's Georgics. Lyon. 1517" image, which is about halfway down the article.
There is an uneditable section a bit higher. It starts with the text "If any further evidence is necessary". Click that one.
Now click the hyperlink button. A slight white block will appear on the image.
Select any other word in the image and click the hyperlink button.

For some reason the hyperlink dialog box will now show up on the image, no matter what word you select. After trying a few times it seems to tire of that and starts jumping over the screen at random when a word is selected. The added screenshot is an example of this - it tried to hide behind the search box. Excirial 19:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I love your bug reports. They are so precise. :) This one is interesting - I can't make the word hop around in Chrome on my Mac, but ut goes with you right up to that point. How odd. I'll pop this in Bugzilla. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I have a hard time reproducing the "Hopping about" part as well now - perhaps that was simply a Heisenbug that decided to pop up. Excirial 21:41, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Beta editor

I don't like this. What was the problem with the old editor? How can I leave a reason for this edit????? I don't see any place to do so. Please don't force us to use this. Pattonre (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

@Pattonre:, thanks for sharing your thoughts. You are not forced to use it; anyone is welcome to choose "edit source" and continue to use the old interface. For more information on the VE, including its purpose, see WP:VE/FAQ. If there are specific concerns about it, we would welcome your sharing those to help improve the product - if we discover a bug or come up with a new feature request, we are happy to help you process those! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:53, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, if you would like to remove VisualEditor from the user interface you can go to the Gadgets tab of your Preferences page, check the option "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" in the "Editing" section, and click the Save button near the bottom of the page.--Rockfang (talk) 20:42, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, you should see an edit summary box in the upper right of your screen just before the final save. You can enter the reason there. Taroaldo ✉ 23:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

tried to add a picture. Very confusing, didn't work

It would be better if it put you back into the normal editor when you tried to do something it can't yet support like adding pictures. I was able to fix things by changing my preferences to opt out of the visual editor, but a newbie would just be stuck and bitten. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello, WereSpielChequers. It's supposed to be able to add pictures. :/ Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/User guide talks about how. If you encountered specific difficulties, sharing those could be helpful, in case there's anything we can do to help developers improve the experience...or in case you found a bug. Thanks. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

OK tried again, this time reading and rereading the instructions. It was rather slow, it didn't go where I tried to put it and and I didn't spot where I had the opportunity to put in captions, so I've gone back the previous system as it takes much less time to edit that way. Ϣere SpielChequers 20:39, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It is a little difficult getting used to. :) I appreciate your trying and am glad that even if it was not as efficient for you it basically worked! I'd hate to find out image additions were broken. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

So you think "so confusing that the editor gave up" fits your definition of "basically worked"? No wonder there is so much antipathy here to WMF. Please include this in your reports of design failures. You do have such reports, right? Not just reports of not behaving as designed? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

If you're feeling antipathy to me, I'm really sorry. It wasn't my intention to anger you. My initial thought here was that image additions were no longer working, which would mean something new had broken. I'm relieved that this is not the case. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference tooltip feature request

I was wondering if it would be possible to have the references show up in a tooltip when you hover over the link in edit mode, just as it does in view mode. This way it will be easier to tell at a glance what is what when you're editing, instead of having to go into the reference edit box itself, which then blocks the screen etc. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Bugs in References Workflow

I'm thrilled that the VisualEditor is finally in fully beta, and for the most part it's a satisfying experience (I particularly like the ability to get a perfectly wikilink just by hitting CMD-K, typing the start of an article name, and hitting enter).

But I do want to throw in a few bugs and suggestions regarding the references workflow (I'm using Firefox 22). I can provide screenshots if it would be helpful.

Template:Cite web and Template:Cite journal don't show up with any pre-filled parameters even though the Template Data has supposedly been added.
Adding a new reference doesn't update the references list in the editor, even though it does update the article when you save changes.
Even when template parameters do show up in the visual editor, it seem like (I haven't found a sizeable template with Template Data added to test this on), they will be very difficult to fill in because you have to individually click each parameter in the side bar before filling it in. It would be far more useful if all the text boxes were in the same pane so that you could tab between them.

—N at Appcelerator (my conflict of interest) 20:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

So, in order; (1) templatedata for newly-added templates that'll auto-populate them is coming today, actually :). 2 is a good point; I'll throw that in bugzilla. (3) is correct: I think we're looking at how we handle referencing generally, and I imagine it would be nice to have something more compressed for that, but we'll see what happens. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Heavy cpu.

I love the editor however it seams to take all cpu power on some articles. 2011 Egyptian Revolution— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gbgsimulationjon (talk • contribs) 20:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The Universal Language Selector might have something to do with the slow load times too. πr (t • c) 21:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's causing some problems :/. To be honest, though, the VE is responsible for some slowness. We're working on it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It's highly unfortunate that both were deployed on the same day. Killiondude (talk) 22:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Still can't see the article while trying to add categories

One of my first comments] on VE led to Bug 49969 of 21 June, and a link there shows virtually the same complaint in Bug 49549 of 13 June, but nothing's been done.

If I'm adding a category, I want to be able to see the article. It might be that I'm adding birth and death dates, or a geog category based on places with unfamiliar spellings, or I just want to read the article again and see the various attributes of the topic which need a category. I don't expect to have to memorise every aspect of the article which will generate a category before I hit "Page settings". But in VE I cannot see the article because the Page Settings dialog box (mostly blank space) fills the screen and can't be shrunk or dragged to get it out of the way. It's been labelled "normal enhancement" (49549) and "low enhancement" (49969) - the latter with depressing comments which seem to suggest that wanting to read the article and categorise it at the same time is unreasonable/undesirable "multitasking" which VE is not going to support. All very depressing: can this problem please be given some attention? PamD 20:52, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

What James is trying to say is that the solution is simply making it possible to move the categories interface about. That way we can shift it out of the way when we want to check article text. I of all people know that Londoner double-talk can be very confusing :P. It's low-priority not because it's unimportant, but because prioritisation is cardinal rather than ordinal; high-priority things at the moment are (for example) detecting wikimarkup and fixing a bug that causes the VE to crash if you wait too long after opening it before saving. I have faith that this will get fixed - if only because I'm James's only supply of tea, and I want the feature ;p. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Oliver. I think it was Trevor's comment, rather than James's, which alarmed me. James seemed to be "on my side". I agree it's not of stratospheric importance - I can always close down the edit and do it in Edit Source instead! PamD 22:02, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Slower than wikicode but odd for new users

Being familiar with Wikicode, I personally find functions such as adding links quicker with the old editing method. However, I can see this being beneficial to new users and should help build our editor base. Oddbodz (talk) 21:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Oddbodz :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Moving a section that has an image in it blanks the entire edit screen.

Another really fun one! (Firefox 22, Mono skin)

Steps to reproduce

Go to the The Damned Thing (short story) page and edit it with the visual editor.
Go to the "Gothic elements" selection, and select all the text from "Gothic elements" (Header) to "inadequate." (Last word of the section). This should also select the image.
Click and drag the entire section, and drop it of before the "Analysis" section (Just drop it right before the A in that word, make sure the text entry | is displayed.
The image itself will be gone. But for the fun part: Click anywhere on the editing canvas text.

Suddenly, your entire input screen will be white. What seems to happen is that the image is blanked (Replaced by a white square) and plastered full size all over the page. You can try to drag it away, but each time you try it will replace itself over the pages content. Excirial 22:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Bug report doesn't hit the spot

The bug report 50646 linked in #Can.27t_search_on_hidden_text_-_eg_link_targets above doesn't really address the problem: I want to be able to use "Find" or similar to find words/strings which are within the article's wikicode but not necessarily its displayed text. My particular example is when looking for the target of a link which might be piped (eg when chasing up incoming links to a dab page), but someone else might be looking for the point where a particular template is used, or something like that. The bug report suggests showing the destination of a link, but if looking for a piped link in a long article I really don't want to have to check every single link. In "Edit Source" I can use "Find" and know it'll find the word in the edit window if it didn't find it in the displayed text: I want a similar facility in VE, please. Obviously not a high-priority issue at this time, but I'd like to see it recorded as something which ought to be fixed eventually. PamD 22:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

First impression

Here's some things I noticed on my first try on using VE. I purposely didn't read the User Guide yet, to see how far I get just with intuition. I didn't have time to go through the existing feedback, so apologies for any redundancy.

I'm missing Show preview and even more Show changes (with a diff of the source code), especially while we're still in beta.
I'm missing a way to save unfinished edits locally, by copy & paste of some sort.
Why does the Tab key behave like Page down?
How can I change the indentation level of a paragraph that's not part of a list (add a colon in the source)?
I don't think Page Title should be offered as a paragraph style.
Editing links:
- Marking a whole link and typing new text unexpectedly leaves only the first letter linked.
- A single linked character can't be expanded to a longer linked text (or only by typing the new text un-linked and then defining a new link)
- Didn't test this, but just in case: disambiguation pages and redirects to them should only show up in the list of suggested link targets if they include (disambiguation).
- The 'close' button in the linking dialog looks like a back/cancel button (actually it doesn't look like a button at all).
When marking a block of text, empty lines are not shown as marked.
Category sortkeys:
- Why not make the box wide enough to fit at least the default sortkey?
- Why not make the default text editable, since the desired key is often close to the page name?
- I'm missing a Cancel button next to Apply changes, and I would expect that X acts as cancel.
Beta menu:
- It's not at all obvious that Leave and Feedback aren't two different entities.
- Why is the feedback link grayed out?
When clicking cancel, I get a question "Are you sure?" with possible answers Cancel and OK.
- These are not answers to the question (that would be Yes and No)
- It's not immediately obvious if Cancel is confirming or negating the original request, which was Cancel.

That's it for now, hope it helps. Have to leave now, but I'm happy to explain points I described all too short here if needed. — HHHIPPO 22:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Article scrolls up when entering edit summary

When I click "Save page" after making an edit, and then start typing the edit summary, the article scrolls upwards with every keystroke till it reaches the top of the page. This is a bit annoying because it would be better to have it stay still, so that I can see the edit I made, as I type in the summary. Especially useful when I've made several minor edits. On the whole, I like VE. I really hope you guys add a feature to pull the template parameters automatically. Right now, its a lot easier to copy paste them in the source. Also, I wanted to help out with the template data (especially certain infoboxes), but I'm not sure if it needs to be added in the template's main page or the doc page or both. BigJolly9 (talk) 22:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Template glitches after editor reload.

It seems that the visual editor can glitch a bit when it initially renders a template. Yet when the template is altered without changes this is corrected. (Firefox 22, Mono skin)

Steps to reproduce:

Navigate to this link (Historical revision of my sandbox)
Edit the page in the Visual Editor. You will immediately notice that the template isn't correctly displayed.
Enter the template setting screen and just select "Apply Settings".

Once that is done, the template is rendered correctly. Note that the same template was initially added trough the visual editor itself and displayed just fine. Only when you open an already saved page it seems to glitch a bit (Until the settings are applied without change - somehow that corrects it). The page reports no changes after applying, so it seems this is just a rendering issue. Excirial 22:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

{{efn}} template mis-handling

It seems rather odd to display notes implemented using the {{efn}} template as "</ref>", for instance, but more seriously there seems to be no way to close the edit box after clicking on that other than to apply changes. Eric Corbett 22:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Fixes any time soon?

When can we expect to see some fixes for this ever-growing list of bugs? Many of them, and in particular the erroneous "you are editing an old version of this page" message make the thing unusable in its current state for anything other than the simplest of edits. Eric Corbett 22:45, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The software of wikipedia is updated every week. VE is actually update a bit more often than that. A few updates were deployed seconds ago actually. The fixes are deployed almost as fast as they can be made and verified. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

And how fast is that, as the most basic of errors still don't seem to have been fixed? Eric Corbett 23:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Usually daily or triweekly, at the moment. Fixes deployed just now:
Templates, including newly added ones, now list their available parameters if TemplateData is available;

The load time for VE on all pages is now 4 KiB, down from 119KiB, which is a dramatic improvement, I think. There's still a flash, but it'll hopefully be fixed next week.

bugzilla:50538

bugzllla:50241

Problems with image sizing.

"Caption content" is now just "caption" in caption editing.

Tooltips make reference to "source mode".
Not a long list, but I think the load time thing soaked up a load of time (and will probably be worth it). I expect quantity over complexity, to some degree, next week. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Sourcing Difficult

I just learned how to add sources change fonts and change sizes and stuff and now I have switched to the old editing because I can't figure out how to add sources.

"I just learned how to add sources ... I can't figure out how to add sources" is illogical captain. Eric Corbett 22:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I think he means he figured it out for the old source editor, but can't figure out how to add sources in the new visual editor. He left out in the new visual editor at the end of his sentence. Cut people some slack. We are trying to get more editors, and more editing, and not to drive them away with snark. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

You may be a mind reader, but I'm not. And keep your fucking "snark" to yourself asshole. Eric Corbett 00:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Transclusions are confusing

I tried putting in an ambox.

Step 1: Click transclusions button. Step 2: In "New template" textbox, add "ambox" and click "add template." Step 3: Put something (I have no idea what) into "add parameter" textbox and click button. Step 4: Put text in big box.

Once I get past Step 2, it stops working. ??? Step 4: Add stuff to bigger textbox XndrK (talk · contribs · count) 22:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Category with period in the name cannot be added

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52702

I could not add the category Category:Members of IFIP Working Group 2.1 to an article using the "page settings"; it was apparently changed automatically into Category:Members of IFIP Working Group 2 and after "Save page" there was no visible change to the article. Lambert Meertens (talk) 23:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Confirmed and reported —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:13, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Monobook visual issues

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T43726

Hi. When editing a template using VE in Monobook, there are several elements that overlap onto the VE component. I reopened a bug about this, neatly linked in the boxy thing on the right. Posting here for awareness (The more you know™). Killiondude (talk) 23:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

"Edit - Edit source" links appearing despite Preferences setting

Since trying VE a few days ago, I have had my Preferences -> Gadgets -> Remove Visual Editor setting selected so that the "Edit - Edit source" links would not appear. About six hours ago when I did some editing, everything was fine. I had only an Edit link, and it took me to the traditional editing screen. Now, at 23:30 UTC on July 3, the "Edit - Edit source" links are back. My preference is being ignored. I tried unchecking the preference, saving, checking the box, and saving again, to no avail. I looked in Bugzilla for a similar bug and did not find one. Jonesey95 (talk) 23:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

URGENT: visual editor re-enabled itself and is now impossible to disable

As the title says, I had it disabled in preferences, and it still checked as disabled there, but it just keeps popping up. Someone not using his real name (talk) 23:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

For me, too. It refuses to die. Pseudonymous Rex (talk) 00:04, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This is a known. So, basically we made some changes to reduce the slowness caused by the VE; instead of loading ~110kb, it now loads 4kb. A dramatic improvement, but one that came at the cost of dramatically altering how the VE functions, which has implications for MatMaRex's gadget. I understand he was aware of these changes coming, so hopefully he can fix them. In the meantime I'm in a conversation about the problem with the developers as we speak. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

(I would suggest that until this is fixed, people just click on edit source - I appreciate this is suboptimal, but it's the quickest way to solve for the problem at the moment :/). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I've fixed this, the gadget now works as it did originally (as far as I can tell, let me know if there are residual issues). It looks like the deploy (which fixed a bunch of bugs and made the initialization file much smaller) made it so that we needed to look for a different file. Jalexander--WMF 00:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit source tooltip

This is probably in the wrong place (but I haven't got time to hunt down the correct place), but the tooltip for the "edit source" tab doesn't seem to be working properly. The other tabs include a keyboard shortcut, e.g. for history, for move, but the "edit source" tab tooltip says "". Firefox 22.0, monobook skin, Xubuntu. Thryduulf (talk) 00:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Confirmed. But MediaWiki:Accesskey-ca-editsource exists. Not sure why this is happening. πr (t • c) 00:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I am also experiencing this issue, and it appears to be a regression; it was fine yesterday. I have a gadget turned on that shows hotkeys for each tab and I see this: . This is not just visual; the SHIFT+ALT+E hotkey for Edit Source is no longer working in mainspace on Chrome. It continues to work fine in other namespaces. Dcoetzee 00:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Alt text

Is it possible to add alt text to images using the VE? I can't see how that is done in VE, and I'm worried that it can't be, but it seems very possible that I'm missing something. - Bilby (talk) 00:17, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Red links

If you are editing a page that you did not start while using this editor, you couldn't know right away which ones have the red links because all links are in blue. Is there a easy way to turn off this visual editor. I turned it off in the Preferences>Gadgets>under Editing, but still, every time I try to edit, it brings me back to the VisualEditor. I am not so thrilled about this abrupt change. Thanks. Briarfallen (talk) 00:25, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Category:

VisualEditor

Revision as of 00:37, 4 July 2013

Notes

Please, leave things the way they are

VE for new editors

Opting out

Text appearing behind infobox / behaviour after editing

Table/Template

Correcting typos

Special characters

Edit and edit source links so confusing I had to disable Visual Editor in preferences

Error saving

Invisicomments in VisualEditor

Edit summaries

No "edit source" for section 0

Quirk editing Chad Griffin

Template parameters

Bug report. Unknown if new.

Audio size

Make editing view more distinctive from article

Citations (more)

References - first attempts - ouch

My Verdict

Poor response to problem of inability to see article while adding categories

Monthly number of edits will continue its downward slide since 2007

Addition of <u></u><u></u> and removal of categories.</u><u></u>_and_removal_of_categories.-2013-06-30T21:54:00.000Z">

Automatic fixes</u><u></u>_and_removal_of_categories.-2013-07-01T03:20:00.000Z">

Minor edit checkbox; exit-X

Still cannot view hidden comments

Slow minor copyedit on a big article

Incorrect warning

break minority input methods?

References within templates

tables - nowiki tag, spaces

Can't unwrap template within template

VE picking up old version of file? - 27 ghost references!

"Submit" button doesn't show up

Strange result with a </nowiki> tag inserted_tag_inserted-2013-07-01T21:18:00.000Z">

Received error though edit was saved

Akon discography

Loving it

Error message: 'Error: Invalid token'

Inline comments

Feedback and some nitpicks I have

Old Editing Interface

How to disable?

Opt out

Very slow and featureless

HTML comments

A/B test results

a moving bullet

visual editor

Linking

Referencing

What? No "Preview" button?

Support for Internet Explorer

VE incompatible with singlechart template

Citation templates

Map display problem in Safari on iPad

Not part of the previous item

Please get rid of this BETA editing tool

Slow, WSYWIG is more confusing

Unable to close input box

Opinion and issue

button

Issues

VisualEditor/Feedback

Simple edit, simple mess

Highly disruptive

Here is a list of problems I have encountered

Saving of the page

rail icon templates

Template with show/hide template opens to "show" position after saving

References

Edit buttons

Complaints

Not Default?

This is terrible

Text shifts up

New editing format sucks

If default, make the new option appearance to the right