Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive 2013 7

Excessive timeouts on large articles

I have experienced the Visual Editor always timing out whenever I tried to make even minor edits to some of the large, higher-traffic generating, most-watched articles such as Barack Obama, PlayStation 3 and World War II. Anybody else experiencing this issue, especially with pages with combined tons of content, templates, images and citations? If so, that is not very good... Zzyzx11 (talk) 20:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

This bug tracks similar. What is the text of the error message you're getting? PEarley (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The error message is: "Error saving data to server: timeout". This error message is generated by the Visual Editor itself, not the standard server-side MediaWiki error message mentioned in that bugzilla case. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Please, leave things the way they are

Not all change is for the betterment of Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia.

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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia almost since Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 [Edit source] 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.

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^talk 23:18, 1 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 T51925. 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 ([1]). 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)

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

• commons:Category:Square brackets
• commons:Category:MediaWiki brackets

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 Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia. 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 ^talk
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 [edit] 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 ^talk
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 [source edit] default for all existing users, and make the [visual edit] 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)

See also:

#Note the many unhappy people who do not see the HIDDEN "edit source" link --Timeshifter (talk) 20:28, 2 July 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)

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, Wikipedia: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)

Quirk editing Chad Griffin

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52474

References get misnumbered [2], 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^talk 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^talk 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^talk 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^talk 18:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

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^talk 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^talk 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^talk 04:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Audio size

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52448

Prince Marko: audio appears huge in edit mode. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 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^talk 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^talk 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)

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)

Addition of <u></u><u></u> and removal of categories.

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)

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

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 [square] 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:

1. For any article page on your watchlist, click the "hist" link to go to the Revision history page.
2. 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.
3. 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 "[edit]" 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 Wikipedia 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 ^[1]; 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 </ br> 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^{(talk to me • see my contributions)} 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^{(talk to me • see my contributions)} 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

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/w/index.php?title=Ingress_(game)&diff=prev&oldid=562432188

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

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)

Akon discography

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52532

Look at the results of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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)

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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia: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^talk 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. Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia.--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^talk 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 ^-talk- 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 ^-talk- 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^talk 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^talk 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia: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)

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 Wikipedia: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^Talk 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)

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 Wikipedia. Yes, it does look a lot fancier but Wikipedia 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 ^-talk- 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia, 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 Wikipedia, including banners for weeks and weeks, you could have missed it.

I do not suppress banners on Wikipedia, 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 Wikipedia, 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^Talk 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^(bainuu) 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^(bainuu) 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^(bainuu) 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)

[edit] button

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

The [edit] button should not shift to [ edit | edit source ] 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? [edit|source] should be the link all the time. Reywas92^Talk 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 [edit|edit source] button instead of [edit]. 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 Wikipedia 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^talk 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

[3] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 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 ^{talk to me} 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 Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia: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)

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 Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 [Is wiki-syntax really that hard to grasp? Really? (facepalm)] 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 Wikipedia. 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 [think, twain and statistics]. 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 Wikipedia 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^Talk 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^Talk 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^Talk 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) ^(talk): 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)

If default, make the new option appearance to the right

If default, can the 'programmers' make the new option _appearance_ to the right [with the new "default" option off to the side]?

Current implementation (poor)

[Edit Viz | Edit source)

Alternative implementation (better)

[Edit source | Edit Viz]

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 [notice the quotes] 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)

Wikipedia 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.

A mockup of a loaded template definition.

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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 [edit] 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) ^(talk): 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) ^(talk): 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) ^(talk): 09:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing got more complex

"ultimately, a lot of people leave because editing is just too complex" [4]. 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 Wikipedia 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^talk 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 Wikipedia: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 Jenova20 ^(email) 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 Jenova20 ^(email) 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 Jenova20 ^(email) 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 Wikipedia: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 [in the case of disputes or semi-protection, when anon editors might be told by other editors to go to the talk page] 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 ^{සාකච්ඡාව} _{(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 ^{සාකච්ඡාව} _{(Thambaru Wijesekara)} 06:18, 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 Wikipedia 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 ^(talk) 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 Wikipedia 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: [5]. 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)

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^talk 13:55, 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) 18:55, 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 [ edit | edit source ] 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 Wikipedia editors do occasionally make talk page edits (like I am right now), where the [edit] 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).

1. I opened Dunmallet to experiment with adding a reference.
2. Moved cursor to right place, clicked on the "Insert reference" icon
3. 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".
4. "Create new source" looks clickable... but just turns blue.
5. 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?
6. 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.
7. 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^talk 16:20, 2 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 Wikipedia 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 ^yack 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 Wikipedia 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 ^(talk) 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 [6]. 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)

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 (^talk/_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 (^talk/_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 ^Talk 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)

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... [other changes] 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 (^talk/_contribs) 18:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

See also Adobe Dreamweaver, which managed it for HTML c. 2000. --j⚛e decker^talk 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 [7]. 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. [8] 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)

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 (^talk/_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 (^talk/_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 (^talk/_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 [edit | edit source], and 'VisualEditor' (hereafter, VizWiz) is being forced upon everyone (not opt-in) ...

... any userscript to switch this position of [edit | edit source] to [edit source| edit]?

... 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) [ps. that doesn't bother me, I can read markup that way, but that is more overhead for many (and something the VizWiz is suppose to "help")]

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)

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: [9] 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)

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 ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 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 ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 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 ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 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)

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 Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia: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? πr² (t • c) 20:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This is caused by FoxLingo. πr² (t • c) 20:15, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

New Editing Format

I hate this -- put it back!! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 20:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:VisualEditor/FAQ - "How do I disable VisualEditor?". More info in Wikipedia_talk:VisualEditor#FAQ:_But_What_If_I_Hate_Visual_Editors.3F. πr² (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: [10]. 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)

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 πr² (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?" πr² (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 Wikipedia 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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/w/index.php?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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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: [11] PEarley (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Bug #50602

(Text auto-submitted in preparation of bug video [12])
[This Leave dialogue is] 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)

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)

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 [edit] and [edit | edit source]

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 [edit]

to

Section Heading [edit | edit source]

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 ^t/_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 Wikipedia talk:Citing sources in re VE

See Wikipedia 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 ^work 01:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

*headdesk* --j⚛e decker^talk 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)

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 ([13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]), 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... Greengreengreenred 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. [20],[21],[22]. 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)

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)

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)

Opting out

Hi, How do you opt out from this Visual Editor? I like the current editing system a lot. --BoguSlav 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)

Correcting typos

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52745

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.  —SMALLJIM  10:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Special characters

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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 [[something]] 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[41], will VE escape the [ and ]? 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)

Invisicomments in VisualEditor

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Has it yet been discussed that when using VisualEditor, it doesn't seem that invisible comments <!--like this--> 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:

colo<!-- UK spelling for a UK-based article -->ur

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. <!-- I know this isn't quite right - I'll deal with it in my next edit -->).

Even some sort of placeholder: colo[^]ur, with a popup on hover would help. Even if one has to go to the source editor to change it.  —SMALLJIM  11:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

No "edit source" for section 0

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When I hover over a section header link, it changes to "[ edit | edit source ]", except for the [edit] 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)

Citations (more)

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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 Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia 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)

Monthly number of edits will continue its downward slide since 2007

Timeline of anonymous edits on English Wikipedia.

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 Wikipedia.png - more charts are needed.
• commons:Category:Stats for anonymous edits on English Wikipedia

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 Wikipedia, 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 Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia. See column for English Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia 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.

Anonymous, registered, and bot edits. English Wikipedia timeline.

Timeline of the number of active editors on English Wikipedia over time. Article edits only.

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

Received error though edit was saved

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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)

Support for Internet Explorer

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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)

Thanks guillom for the link to the IE master bug. While not the words I would have used, user 71.246.147.58 makes a valid point, which appears to have been lost on user David Gerard. In my simple view of the world we should aim to attract and retain some of the vast majority who use only IE for home computing. The first real hurdle faced by many of those who persevere with the current edit window is References, and I believe that, if this can be made easy in IE, we will see a substantial improvement in recruitment and retention from this demographic. Downsize43 (talk) 02:45, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Map display problem in Safari on iPad

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

'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)

Raised as bug 50714, with attached screenshots. Downsize43 (talk) 02:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit buttons

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I really hate the [edit | edit source] 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 Wikipedia [edit] 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 Wikipedia.

Can we PLEASE change this? It's annoying as crap to have to work with it like this. LazyBastardGuy 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. LazyBastardGuy 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 [special word]" 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, Wikipedia was doing just fine with the way it was labeled before. Maybe a better idea would be [edit | edit visual] 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. LazyBastardGuy 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. LazyBastardGuy 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^Talk 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 [caveats/further description]", which sounds like the one you should pick? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

New editing format sucks

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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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia? --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 Wikipedia, 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 "Wikipedia 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)

Attempting to add a reference

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Trying adding a reference now. Confusion in the interface:

1. I click "Insert reference". I don't understand what the "What do you want to reference?" box is for.
2. I click "Create new source", am surprised nothing happens. I look for a moment and click "Insert reference".
3. 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.

4. 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".
5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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!
8. 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.
9. 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^talk 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^talk 20:56, 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

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

Please make the [edit|edit source] 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 [edit][edit source] 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)

How do I turn this junk off???

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I've been editing Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia experience. --j⚛e decker^talk 18:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Preferences > Gadgets > Editing > "Remove VisualEditor from the interface". Join the club ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 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

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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

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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 Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide and the Wikipedia: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

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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):

1. 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.
2. 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.)
3. 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.
4. 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

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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 Wikipedia 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)

Hybrid Mode

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51820

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51686

I completely understand the logic for why typing [[Foobar]] generates [[Foobar]] 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 [[Foobar]] 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 Wikipedia: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!

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I have edited standalone wikis via VE for three years now, and I'm glad to see that Wikipedia 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

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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?

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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) [from #A few question of the poor VizWiz ...]

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 Wikipedia 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)

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. --PresN 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)

I have no idea what you're referring to, but I like LDR because it means that when I'm editing the text of something, I didn't have a massive citation plonked in the center of it making it difficult to read, and because I don't have to remember whether the text of the citation is where I used it in section a or section b- it's always in the references section, just like it looks like in the article view. With VE, where I never see the actual wikitext of the reference, it might not be such an issue. --PresN 02:50, 4 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia. --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 Wikipedia, 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)

Problems with/suggestions for the new editor

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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 Wikipedia: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)

Girona7, very helpful. The suggestion that the page title alter to "Editing:Foo" like the source editor does is a potential improvement. I'm thinking the broken chain link might also be confusing - the editor wants to remove the link, not break it. Also, just noticed we now have the user guide linked from the "Beta" icon, I'm not sure that's the best way to do it. Good to hear some experiences with the U.I. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 04:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox bug

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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)

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

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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)

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 Wikipedia 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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)

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 07:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Drag and Drop changes cannot be saved.

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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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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

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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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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^{(talk|contribs)} 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)

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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

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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 [V•T•E] 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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 09:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeugh! Adding to bugzilla. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion: Option for saving the source while editing?

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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

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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. Thatotherperson^talkcontribs 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?

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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

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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 Wikipedia 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

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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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 11:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Gah; thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Wrong syntax for title in bold ?

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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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 12:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree, hence my note there. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 12:49, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Section deleted but empty title kept

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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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52659

This edit doesn't look good. There should be no <nowiki /> between the internal link and the s. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 [edit][edit with ve] and [unsubscribe from ve]. 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 [edit][edit source] 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)

Messed up template

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52724

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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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.) [23] Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:18, 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 Wikipedia 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)

Editnotice ?

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51552

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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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)

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 [24] 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 T52675. 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)

Don't Default to This

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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 πr² (t • c) 16:04, 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

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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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 18:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Undoing a resize works incorrectly.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52682

screenshot of the issue

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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

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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 ...

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52688

Can we get a preference to switch the [edit | edit source] ... 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 [edit

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

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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)

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

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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)

Correction: Almost all editors are not using VE. I just looked at 500 articlespace edits (via recent changes); there were 13 edits (2.6%) that were tagged as being done by the visual editor. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 05:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Hyperlink popup glitch.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52693

Hide me search box, someone is after me!

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 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)

Bugs in References Workflow

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52769

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.

1. 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.
2. Adding a new reference doesn't update the references list in the editor, even though it does update the article when you save changes.
3. 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.

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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. πr² (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

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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.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52721

Giant white image of doom

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I can replicate this (also with Firefox 22). Looie496 (talk) 02:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Chrome 28.0.1500.63 (Official Build 208724), Vector, can't replicate - can't even drag the section. That's weird, because I could yesterday. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 04:01, 4 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)

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)

  None of those are the really serious bugs though, such as the one that makes it impossible to edit the same section twice. Eric Corbett 00:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

  In general though, the more serious bugs are also the more difficult and time-consuming to fix. — This, that and the other (talk) 02:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

  But the more important to fix, rather than the window dressing. Eric Corbett 02:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Category with period in the name cannot be added

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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)

URGENT: visual editor re-enabled itself and is now impossible to disable

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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)

Transclusion window

The transclusion window has several issues.

1. It should be named "template". Only insiders know what "transclusion" means.
2. It's huuuuge. Don't get me wrong, I like the size. But it's completely different from the page itself. Myself, I keep Wikipedia zoomed in because the text is so small, so the transclusion window is gigantic — it took up my entire screen, and I actually thought that I was on a whole new page. It would be better if the window were like the site.
3. Template arguments need better names. Right now, the first argument is called "1", which is completely opaque. For a moment I thought that clicking on the template had wiped out the arguments that had been there before. How about giving the arguments names like "First parameter", "Second parameter", etc?

Ozob (talk) 01:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Rubbish

I can't make heads or tails of what is what in the new editor. Very poor. Maybe it will entice new editors who are confused by URL, <REF> etc. but the option to work in Wikitext is better. To be honest, if Wikimedia want more editors, then the condescending behaviour on here towards new editors is of greater concern which turns new editors away. Stevo1000 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:42, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Take the powersaw from the baby, or at least don't pay him to play with it

Windows 8. The New World Trade Center. New Coke.

Not improving what doesn't need fixing is the true genius and the true virtue.

If you give someone the power to improve things you can be sure he will eventually get around to doing something. And if you pay him, and give him a mandate, there's no chance of stopping him.

Not improving what doesn't need fixing is the true genius and the true virtue.

We've got a committee whose mandate it is to do something! So of course they have done something! rather than reach the scary conclusion their doing anything was not necessary. (How many bureaucracies vote themselves out of existence?) And that something they've done is to put power tools into the hands of infants, so that unexperienced hands won't find it so difficult to draw a blade across the grain.

Not improving what doesn't need fixing is the true genius and the true virtue.

Learning curves are good things. It's why newborns don't come with hanging teats or hairy testicles.

μηδείς (talk) 01:58, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Fixing Something That Is Not Broken

What is the point of fixing something that doesn't need fixing? If it isn't broken, why are you fixing it? Was the purpose of creating this new tool simply to occupy bored minds? It adds nothing other than the design of the same (albeit limited) set of tools using a newer technology format. 1) There should be an Opt-Out 2) Why was this even proposed, let alone rolled out? ... Stevenmitchell (talk) 02:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

There is an opt out, and it's now explained on the info page how: Preferences > Gadgets > under Editing, check/tick "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface". Hope that helps. Yngvadottir (talk) 03:58, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Request to add link in Preferences

On Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, it may be helpful to change "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" to "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" to provide one more way for people to find out more about the VisualEditor. GoingBatty (talk) 02:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

a sad thought

I wonder what the correlation is between (person finds using wiki markup language to be an obstacle) and (person uses Internet Explorer) is? It could very well be that this whole thing is being implemented for a class of user that will never be able to take advantage of it.—Kww(talk) 02:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

IE support is coming.--Eloquence* 05:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Nice

I love it. Always liked visual editors and editing. Kuzey457 (talk) 05:50, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Problems with the Add parameter dialog

The Add parameter has several usability problems.

First and foremost, the parameter description doesn't fit the given space - it overflows to the right, with no scroll bar available to read the whole text.

Second, either clicking or double-click on the chosen parameter does nothing. Clicking on the "Add parameter" link at the top does nothing. Is it broken? Wait - there is an "Add parameter" button hidden after a looong list of dozens of parameters??? (see Cite web template for example). How is one supposed to know the button is there? Certainly not from the user guide, which helpfully all it says is "You can add parameters or edit those already listed", but not how.

The "Add parameter" button should be "above the fold", besides (or instead of) the "Add parameter" title. It doesn't make sense to have it at the bottom - this is not a form that must be completed, it's a list of items where only one is selected - the natural flow doesn't call for scrolling to the bottom of it. You should hire a competent UI designer and make user tests (I'm pretty sure this part of the interface hasn't been tested at all). Posting the interface to the wild and waiting for feedback doesn't count as a test. Diego (talk) 06:29, 4 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:

1. 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.
2. 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[1] ) );
		}
	});
	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.

Surely TemplateData itself is a more elegant solution? I appreciate it's not available everywhere (although people are doing a lot of work on high-priority templates) but ultimately with most templates automatically generated data is going to be highly confusing. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Error message: 'Error: Invalid token'

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52687

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. Thatotherperson^talkcontribs 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)

@Ugog Nizdast:, I'll add something about this at T52687 - they seem like related function to me. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 14:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Images

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52766

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 Wikipedia: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)

As noted, forced image sizing is discouraged unless really necessary (for large maps and similar special cases). The Visual Editor should try to simulate the article's image display in read mode. After all that's the whole point of a Visual Editor as WYSIWYG tool. Assuming VE has all necessary parameters like user preferences and global settings, it shouldn't be that much of a problem to fix this. GermanJoe (talk) 09:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Fair point, both :). Adding into bugzilla now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

edit one section only

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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)

Hopefully they will - but there's more talk at #Section editing will never be implemented. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 4 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, [... some defined list of transclusions ...] 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)

I'm not sure what to ask for there. :/ I wouldn't want to ask for whitespace after every template. Any ideas? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Anchor templates - Not shown, but still easily messed up or deleted by accident

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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. [25])- 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)

Indeed. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 23:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Newline removal impossible

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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: [26] Huon (talk) 06:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Reported as Bugzilla bug 50641. Huon (talk) 06:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Appearance

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52456

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)

Thanks, BalthCat :). We're working on making the editing experience more distinct - see bugzilla:50456. I agree that the icon bar has room for more icons, but we've got more icons to add - things like math editing, special characters and table formatting, for example, are still to come. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

</br> tags displayed as text in VE

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51289

Whenever I hit the edit button for Kamar Siah, several </br> tags appear as text in the table at the bottom of the article (Selseleh County), instead of being used as line breaks. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

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 </br> tags (even if their syntax is broken, because they are not valid HTML, they should be <br> or <br />). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Correct be if I'm wrong, but I thought the correct code was <br />? 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 </br> 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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)

Yes, it's ok now. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 18:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Those should really be <br/>. We'll probably add support for broken </br> 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)

Wrong target link

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52764

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: [27]. 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)

Virtual 8086 mode

Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 05:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Reported. Thanks, Lisa! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Change of case in link cannot be saved

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52765

I tried to lowercase the link [[Architect]] 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 ^yack 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 ^yack 17:15, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Try changing "Marvel Comics" to "marvel Comics", not "Marvel comics". Chris the speller ^yack 17:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The trouble occurs when trying to flip the case on the first letter of any link; the only way to flip it with VE is to delink, change the case, and then relink. Chris the speller ^yack 18:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to work either to lower case or upper case. Thanks. I'll report. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Reopening save page dialog after closing it breaks backspace / delete.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52722

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting it. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:43, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Table formatting instructions displayed as text

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52772

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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 19:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

No reaction ? The bug is still there on Brendan Schaub, on the second table in "Mixed martial arts record". VE displays table formatting instructions as text instead of applying it to the table cells : texts like <code>style="background:#bfd; color:black; vertical-align:middle; text-align:center; " class="table-yes2"|</code> are visible in edit mode. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 16:23, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm hoping somebody a little more techie than I am will read this, because I have no clue what's going on there. :/ Best I could do is post it as a bug using exactly your words, and I'm happy to do that on your behalf, if you'd like. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure, you can create the bug report. I'm not sure my words are correct (English not being my mother tongue), but you can see what's happening simply by editing Brendan Schaub and looking at the second table in "Mixed martial arts record" : instead of cells with a short text over a colored background, the wikitext that should create the colored background is displayed as text. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 20:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. :) I can see it - I actually saw it the first time I read this - but I am possibly the least techie of the people liaising at this page, so I was kind of hoping somebody would come by who could say, "This is the kind of problem we are having here" and file it accordingly. :D Now that I know that nobody has answered (the green text makes it much easier to find - and I thank you for helping out with that!), I have given it my best shot. I hope the developers can figure it out and fix it! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome, I also find the green text very helpful --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 20:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference tooltip feature request

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52768

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)

I've submitted the request. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Article scrolls up when entering edit summary

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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)

@BigJolly9: Which browser (and version of it) do you use ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:44, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I tried this again a few minutes ago, and everything works fine for me on both FF22 and Chrome27. I dont know if something's been changed, but I had this issue for the past two-three days, but not prior that to that. Thanks for the quick response BigJolly9 (talk) 17:01, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

They unrolled some changes today- perhaps they fixed the issue. :) If it happens again, please let us know! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: Template glitches after editor reload.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52723

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 ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Excirial. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 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. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foxtrot620 (talk • contribs) 22:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

"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)

Well, at least you are direct this time. I am sooo hurt. /snark off. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:56, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm always direct, that's why I'm so unpopular in this best of all possible worlds. Eric Corbett 02:01, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Foxtrot620, I'm sorry for the confusion here. It isn't necessarily an easy transition for people who are familiar with the old setup. I hope it will get easier as bugs are cleaned and feature requests implemented. The user guide might be helpful to you if you decide to give it a go again. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 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)

Hi. :) I tried out an ambox, and it seemed to work all right for me. When you say it stopped working, can you tell me what happened? What happens if you try again? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

First of all, the word "transclusion" is confusing. It is compsci jargon, and not even used correctly. The VE is a step forward because it makes editing accessible to people who aren't geeks, so the use of such a geeky word (not in my Random House Unabridged, not even in Wikipedia's spell dictionary) can only confuse.

The puzzle piece icon seems to serve only slightly related purposes depending on where you encounter it: 1) it allows you to import templates, and 2) it allows you to edit data contained in a template. It's not clear to this user how to use a template once I've added it. So, yes I've added a cite web template, closed the box and now I have an empty reference. When/where do I put in the data? This should be obvious, but it isn't. Intuitively obvious human interface, when we get it, is a triumph. We're definitely not in the triumph stage yet in the use of templates. Camdenmaine (talk) 01:40, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Monobook visual issues

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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)

Thanks for your diligent reporting. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

"Edit - Edit source" links appearing despite Preferences setting

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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)

This problem is gone for me now, four hours later. Who knows? Jonesey95 (talk) 03:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It was a bug introduced by some updates. It's fixed now. :) Sorry about that! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit source tooltip

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52725

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. [alt-shift-h] for history, [alt-shift-m] for move, but the "edit source" tab tooltip says "[<accesskey-ca-editsource>]". 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. πr² (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: [28]. 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)

Yes, I have the same issues with shortcuts as you. I didn't think to test them earlier as I don't normally use them. Thryduulf (talk) 00:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Reported —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:27, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Alt text

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T40129

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)

Evidently, the answer is "not yet." It's in the works, according to the bug I've added here. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

If I can comment, this is one of those things that I feel should be fairly high priority, as alt text is a basic step in providing accessibility for people with vision impairments. While I understand that the primary aim at the moment is to make the visual editor function, one of my hopes for it was that it would also encourage people to edit in the best way possible. If we could encourage people to add alt text and captions as part of the process of adding images (as opposed to the current VE approach, where adding a caption is a distinct and separate optional step), or even encourage people to add and correctly format references, then we'd go a long way towards providing something that would work to improve the project. - Bilby (talk) 05:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Red links

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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)

The opt-out gadget should right now be fixed! Credit to User:Jamesofur. The engineers made some changes today that brought initial load from 110KiB-ish to 4KiB, and one side-effect is that it seems to have ganked the gadget. Now fixed :). The Pertinent bug for the linking problem is 37901, which is being worked on too.

Thanks. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Refs and templates

Inserting references is completely unintuitive - none of the icons really make any sense. Also, why is a template represented by a jigsaw piece? That doesn't make any sense... I'd suggest a cog or something, but I guess that's too close to the normal "Settings" indicator. Something to indicate that it's basically a 'function'.

Another issue with the new ref-insertion interface is that I can envision it resulting in a lot of bare urls. This is A Bad Thing. — foxj 00:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VE is aimed towards new editors, and getting new editors to provide ANY reference, including a bare URL, is better than no source at all, IMHO. If we can get the new editors to stick around, they'll learn how to add fully formed references later. Plus, I'm more likely to add a citation template to a bare URL than I am to find a source for an unsourced sentence. GoingBatty (talk) 03:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

That sort of misses the point of this complaint, doesn't it? Editors had no trouble adding bare URLs before. The existing reference feature in VE is deeply confusing to new users in comparison with, say, refToolbar, which is far from great itself, but, to my mind, should be considered the bar for Visual Editor to beat. There's a long way to go, I'm afraid. It is a darned shame that references (with a good understanding of how they are actually used in practice) do not seem to have been made a highest priority in Visual Editor. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Math tags

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52776

Hovering over a displayed math formula in <math> tags is supposed to get a tooltip that explains that the formula can't be edited in the VisualEditor. It sort of works; but it has trouble with tall formulas. The tooltip doesn't show up unless the cursor is moved to the middle of the formula. For some formulas this is OK, as users can be reasonably expected to put their cursor in the middle. For other formulas it's not. Here's the opening of Companion matrix, which has both a formula that works and one that doesn't:

In linear algebra, the Frobenius companion matrix of the monic polynomial

$p(t)=c_{0}+c_{1}t+\cdots +c_{n-1}t^{n-1}+t^{n}~,$

is the square matrix defined as

$C(p)={\begin{bmatrix}0&0&\dots &0&-c_{0}\\1&0&\dots &0&-c_{1}\\0&1&\dots &0&-c_{2}\\\vdots &\vdots &\ddots &\vdots &\vdots \\0&0&\dots &1&-c_{n-1}\end{bmatrix}}.$

It would be more helpful if the tooltip appeared whenever the cursor was over any pixel of the formula, not just a middle pixel. Ozob (talk) 01:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. :) I've passed that along. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Not Rubbish

I'm a relative novice at Wikipedia editing. The visual editor came along just as I was learning markup and struggling with it. I think the VE, though still not nearly done is a huge step in the right direction. Its purpose is to make editing accessible to subject matter experts who would be put off by markup. This is such an admirable (and necessary) goal that I think it's essential to carry on. If there is something to complain about, it's that this has been released in beta way too early. Keep up the good work. Camdenmaine (talk) 01:46, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Blocked sites

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52727

Some sites are blocked from WikiPedia and editors can't add links as a reference. It's sure that editors don't know which these sites are. In the old version, when a link from those sites was added on the article, there was a warning saying about the blocked site when you were clicking on "save page". So, you were just removing it and clicked "save page" again.
I was trying to add references in one article with VE, I tried then to save the page and I got the notice: "Invalid code error" or something like that. I thought it was just a clinch. I cancelled and did the edits again and tried to save. Same message again. I then realized that it was probably a site that was blocked that was causing the problem so I started deleting one-one the refs to see which one was responsible. Took me some time to figure out what was going on and then find the "problematic" link but I found it.
Can we please get a notice of why there is error and we can't save the page? In this case the blocked site? Thanks TeamGale (talk) 02:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@TeamGale: It sounds like you're talking about the spam blacklist. Graham87 02:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much the same thing happens with an edit filter violation. "Error: The notification you tried to make was aborted by an extension hook" means nothing. The filter itself displays a message that makes it clear to the editor that he shouldn't be including charly1300.com as a source.—Kww(talk) 02:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks @Graham87: Yes, it seems like the blacklist. But it's impossible for an editor to know which sites are in the blacklist :( It happened to me in the past with the old version but I knew immediately why I couldn't save my edits. Now I had no idea why I was getting the error message. If it had not happen to me in the past, I would never think of it. It would be good to get a "why".

Yes @Kww:...seems like the same happens with the filter violation. A message explaining these situations would be really nice. I was trying to save my edits for 40min while trying to figure out what was happening, when it took me only 3min to add them. TeamGale (talk) 03:23, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

That's pretty annoying, reported —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, TheDJ. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for Editnotice

I see that many comments on this feedback page have been asked and answered before, but with a page this long, it's hard to determine if your question has been asked already. Maybe adding an Editnotice would help, directing people to WP:VE/FAQ and/or including some of the FAQs in the Editnotice. GoingBatty (talk) 02:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

That seems like a brilliant idea to me. +1 :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Request to add Amazon Silk browser to blacklist

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52777

When I try to use VisualEditor on my Kindle Fire, the article goes into edit mode, but clicking in the article doesn't bring up the keyboard like it does on an iPad. I'm presuming that aading support for the Kindle Fire's Amazon Silk browser isn't on your to do list now. Could you please add this browser to the blacklist? I would like to keep VE on in my preferences so it works when I'm on my PC but not have VE get in the way while on the Kindle. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Passed along. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Save edit fails

Not only is the legal information too small to read at the save button - but I tried to add an edit summary. But nothing appeared. The edit saved. I later found the text - on another (non-Wikipedia) browser window. Rmhermen (talk) 03:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, @Rmhermen:. Can you tell me what browser & operating system you are using? Or let me know if it's still happening? It's working okay for me, and since I can't replicate it it will help with reporting to know more. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Support for LaTeX

Will visual editor support LaTeX? Dashed (talk) 06:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Eventually. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I hope LaTeX support will go to the front of the queue for new features to implement. Now that VisualEditor has brought a little sanity to citing references, by far the biggest PITA in editing articles is working with math. If it were less onerous to do the LaTeX, I'd be making a lot of edits in math articles, completely reworking some of them. The editors who have the knowledge and motivation to do the LaTeX often are also the sort that write jargon-encrusted "English" incomprehensible to nearly all readers, making many math articles worse than useless. Making it easier for more people to edit LaTeX could lead to real improvements in some of the most fundamental articles in Wikipedia.Enon (talk) 17:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I was wrong about VisualEditor adding some sanity to citing references. It's so recursively broken that I can't figure out what they even thought they meant to do. The only thing that actually works pretty much as expected is basic text editing, bold, italic, Wiki-links. In some ways it has less functionality than MacWrite v.1.0 (1984), certainly it has less capability than it needs for the purpose it was intended or even to be released at all for any purpose. This is not beta quality. It's not alpha quality. It's barely even demo quality. Core functionality is missing or terribly broken. How on earth could you release such a thing without even bothering to define common citation templates' data structures? If you tell me that anyone who knew the first thing about interface design had anything to to do with the "transclusion" box, I'll laugh in your face. It's simply incompetent, and anyone who thought this was ready for release has to be presumed incompetent.

I have read the so-called design documents and related info such as testing, poked around the API, and the more I do the more "WTF!" I feel. They never actually specified in more than the vaguest possible way what this software was supposed to do from the point of view of specific utility to the user - certainly didn't get to the level of interface and expected behavior. They just started building it, in a way that was more complex than needed for most cases, too abstract to be easily applicable but still inflexible enough to cause important things to be virtually impossible. (If you have some radical, brilliant idea for how to make the underpinnings of a graphical text editor- or the overpinnings, for that matter - you're almost certainly doing it wrong. That particular wheel has been reimplemented thousands of times over the last 40 years. Just adapt something that already works and don't try to show how pointlessly clever you can be.)

Insightful and experienced commentary on the design was brushed off with the usual superficially polite but unhelpful, clueless arrogance so typical of wikicrats (and many others encountered on talk pages - jerks are the reason editorship is declining). It's all low-level code implementation stuff with no effective thought for human interface design. They did a little user testing, basically with the obvious goal of justifying themselves, rather than finding problems - very much a shallow push-poll. They didn't even wait to get the test data back before releasing the software.

The first and most fundamental requirement in trying to create something to use in place of wikicode is that the replacement must be able to do substantially everything wikicode can do. This can most easily be achieved by allowing the underlying wikicode to be edited from VisualEditor when the user feels it's needed, such as equations, references, pictures, media, etc. (many options for the latter three cannot be set with VisualEditor).

The second fundamental requirement is that all the most common things should be easier to to in the replacement than in wikicode. The beta release needs to be suspended until the second requirement can be demonstrated by well-constructed tests to be met for ~98% of the general edits and a similar proportion of template-using, citation and reference-adding edits currently being made. Otherwise it just isn't ready.Enon (talk) 21:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding multiple templates is messy

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52744

When I've added one template using the transclusion icon, please offer me a button which says "Add another template", rather than insisting I click on various totally non-intuitive bits of the window to achieve this! I've just managed to add two separate stub templates, but it was still an uphill struggle. PamD 07:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Enhancement request added. Thanks, Pam. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

HTML5 WYSIWYG editor

Hello,

Why not using a HTML5 WYSIWYG editro like Raptor or Mercury? https://www.raptor-editor.com/demo http://jejacks0n.github.io/mercury/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.11.115.148 (talk) 07:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Because we don't have HTML5, we have wikicode. It has some intricacies. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:01, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor deactivated, no possibility to edit....

....I do not know if this is due to the VisualEditor, but yesterday I deactivated it in my preferences, and this morning, although all my admin-buttons were available, the possibility to edit in mainspace was gone. When I changed my preferences again to allow VisualEditor, I could edit again..Thanks for your consideration. Lectonar (talk) 08:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

You must be using a browser which is blacklisted by the VisualEditor like IE or Opera, per this technical village pump thread. Graham87 09:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This should be fixed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:45, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually I use Firefox...but still: it is fixed {smiley}}. Thx. Lectonar (talk) 10:01, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Mystery meat navigation

Would it kill you 8-P to put labels on the frikkin' buttons (Edit link, edit template...), at least in the pop-ups if not in the main toolbar?

There's this article about mystery meat navigation and it says it's a bad thing. You're forcing users to go though an intermediate step to edit a link or reference, you could as well inform the user of what that step means with something more than a cryptic icon. Cheers! Diego (talk) 08:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

+1. Is there a bug for this yet? - David Gerard (talk) 08:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Diego Moya: I am getting mouse-over labels. What browser/OS/skin are you using? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:58, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Mouse-over labels = fail. Please do read mystery meat navigation and the original reference for the explanation of why it sucks (for a summary, this is how your users feel the first time they open the new interface). This is not a technical problem, it's one of interface design. Labels should be always available, not shown on mouse-over. Diego (talk) 12:31, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is kind of funny that content such as "The typical form of MMN is represented by menus composed of unrevealing icons that are replaced with explicative text only when the mouse cursor hovers over them" is followed by a number in brackets that reveals explicative text when the mouse cursor hovers over it? :)

This kind of navigation is not new to VE, Diego Moya - it's already in the toolbar in use in standard editing. If you're asking for a feature change for legibility, are you asking for it for the existing system as well? I'm happy to convey your request, but want to be sure I'm clear. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I've always been irked by the lack of labels in the old source editor, but that tool was not intended for absolute beginners as the VE does so I didn't feel the need to push for its change. There are places where it's needed the most and places where it's not vital - Wikipedia references are not primary elements and they look and work as hyperlinks, and MS Word for example can live with large sets of button toolbars, as the smaller footprint of unlabeled buttons makes for a higher density of commands, and Word is known to require a learning period anyway.

In a low-density, aimed-for-beginners, use-as-you-go interface with lots of extra space, there's no excuse to provide an unlabeled button. Yes, I'm asking for a feature change for legibility, and it should be done at least in the VE edit pop-ups where it can be added without any drawback. Diego (talk) 21:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

And for the static toolbar, the best course of action is to label each section. A label for each button would make it too large, but grouping the buttons under sections "word style", "paragraph style" and "insert elements" would be a great improvement. Diego (talk) 05:34, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Pressing backspace moves paragraph into image caption

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52286

When editing inflammation, when I put the cursor just before the first word ("|Inflammation") and press backspace, the whole first paragraph is moved into the lead image caption.

Found in bugzilla. --WS (talk) 08:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51645

Furthermore, when I put the cursor on the first, seemingly empty line, and press delete, the image unexpectedly disappears and the caption is converted to text. --WS (talk) 08:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Just found in bugzilla that apparently this is 'expected' behavior, except for leaving the caption text behind. --WS (talk) 08:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

In the same article, when I put the cursor just below the "Leukocyte extravasation" header, again on a seemingly empty line, pressing backspace unexpectedly does nothing, while delete deletes the template below instead of removing the empty line. --WS (talk) 08:44, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Delete issue is probably the same as above, couldn't find any reference to not be able to use backspace. --WS (talk) 08:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor - Cite template layout not displayed correctly. (TemplateData)

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52728

Tested on Firefox 22, Mono skin:

Steps to reproduce

• Open any random page in the visual editor.
• Add a new template - use Cite Web for this.

The output will be akin to the screenshot added. Some the template parameters end up next to eachother, and are thus offscreen. Even if that is not the case the description will often be to long to be displayed. Would be nice if those ended up on a new line if that occurred. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 09:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hoo boy. Thanks for finding this! Reported already, I see (having submitted a bug, and then having closed it as duplicate. Oops ;p). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

adding categories

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52737

When adding categories via page settings the cat does not show after pressing save edits - you have to click on article to see the new version. Cheers Berek Berek (talk) 09:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Berek: great catch :). Now thrown in bugzilla - thanks for finding it! Let me know if you find any other issues. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

mouse pointer doesn't change when ctrl+clicking a link while editing

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52741

When editing a page visually you can ctrl+click a link to follow it (I just guessed you could do this, as it doesn't appear in the documentation I've seen), but the mouse pointed does not change from the editing I-beam to the link hand when doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 10:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Good point! I'll throw it in bugzilla. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Incresaed risk of Vandalism

Vandalism is bound to increase as the users will be able to edit any article or topic within seconds. Also, the whole essence of learning Wikipedia markups will diminish. I am strongly against this! Please cancel this new idea!! By User:Utkarshsingh.1992

@Utkarshsingh.1992:: actually, the A/B test results (which I'm writing up now) shows no statistically significant change in the quality of VisualEditor-related edits, nor their likelihood to be reverted. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Speaking only from the unrepresentative sample of what I've seen on my watchlist, far more visual edits need follow-up work to fix errors than markup edits,, but this is due to bugs and missing features in the visual editor rather than vandalism. Thryduulf (talk) 11:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

space beginning line within paragraph. Get me out of this!

Somehow I was put into visual editor this morning. I really do not like it at all, and am cutting short editing this article (which really needs it) because of the bugs. Not only do I have to cut and paste to retain links, a space keeps reappeaaring at the beginning of a line in the middle of a paragraph, right after a citation which I also had to cut and paste to keep. I really resent having been dumped into this system. Jweaver28 (talk) 11:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, @Jweaver28:. I'm sorry that your first experience was frustrating. It doesn't seem you saved your edit, so I can't really figure out if you encountered bugs or if - as I certainly have done- you ran into problems that result from being experienced with the old Wikitext and trying to use it in the new system.

Either way, it is entirely up to you whether you use the new system or not. 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.)

I hope you'll decide to give it another go and will find it more useful. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. The space at the beginning of the line after footnote 1 of the 1383-1385 Crisis page seems to be gone at last too.Jweaver28 (talk) 13:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor - Required template fields aren't required (TemplateData)

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52747

Not sure if this is a bug or an enhancement request but either way: It seems that fields marked as "Required" in the template data are not enforced as "Have to fill those in" in the template editor.

Steps to Reproduce

• Open a random page in the visual editor
• Add the "Cite Web" template to any page.
• Add a few random fields and fill these in (Don't add Title or URL), and press "Apply Changes"

The template data marks "Title" and "URL" as required which is correct - without these the template will display an error and refuse to work. I would have assumed that required would mean "You have to fill these in before you can accept the template".

Besides this a suggestion for the template editor: Adding fields is somewhat painful for long lists. First you have to find the field, click it, scroll down to "add parameter". Since it will jump to the parameter tab adding 10 fields requires jumping around 10 times. It would be easier if you could add all fields in one go, sans scrolling down for each field. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 12:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

A bit of praise

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For doing cosmetic fixes and copy edits to small articles VE is really nice to use. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:23, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad it's proving useful for you. :) I hope it will serve you more as it grows more and more robust. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Image sizing

The default image sizing is still wrong (Chrome on XP and Windows 7). I mention this as it's listed in the Fixes any time soon? section above as something that has been fixed. Edgepedia (talk) 12:39, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

"Edit source" links not appearing in sections

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52731

When I hover over the "edit" links in certain articles' sections with my cursor, the "[Edit|Edit source]" links do not appear; instead, clicking the "Edit" link results in the source being edited. Additionally, the "Edit" and "Edit source" links are present at the beginning of the article. (In essence, if one were to use VE on the article, they would have to edit the entire article.) Epicgenius^{(talk to me • see my contributions)} 12:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

If you are referring to an edit link for the lead of an article, that happens because those links are placed there by a special gadget, which apparently has not been updated. If that's happening elsewhere, could you clarify? Looie496 (talk) 13:17, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Known issue —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Problem with references in explanatory footnotes

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52749

A similar bug was reported as #T51536, but closed as fixed a while ago. Article Otto I has a reference ("ref") to "Thompson" (numbered #11 in old edit mode) inside an explanatory footnote "efn". The notes are generated below the article using "notelist". Ref 11 Thompson is not included in the reflist of VE, but shown in regular read mode. Just compare the reference lists in read and in VE edit mode to see the difference. GermanJoe (talk) 13:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, GermanJoe . :) Tracked. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Template editing interface

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52354

When editing a template, it would be great to see all the parameter values on one page, instead of having to click on the lateral tabs again and again.

I think it would allow faster, less tedious editing, and it would suit both beginners and more advanced contributors. Od1n (talk) 13:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; I'm not sure how that'd work in practise, but it's bugzilla'd :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Transclusion Table

There seems no way to edit the contents, or get to the original source, of a transclution table. I was trying to edit the Notes in the article on Paul Morphy. Shabd sound (talk) 13:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

What's a transclusion table, sorry? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I think the complaint is that it is impossible to directly edit the Notes section of the article (the contents are a single "reflist" template). The way to do it is to click on the text link to the note in question (i.e., the "[1]" for note 1), and then click the template-edit tab that pops up. Looie496 (talk) 13:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Alas Hotcat

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T45335

We seem to have lost the plus and minus options of Hotcat that were one of the closest to WYSIWYG features of this site. Please can they be incorporated into visual editor. ϢereSpielChequers 13:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, WSC. I've added it to the older HotCat report. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 14:07, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with VE. HotCat was disabled as a default by the community, so anyone who wants it needs to manually enable it again. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, for pete's sake, why. It's a useful tool. Anyways, we have had a few reports of HotCat (when enabled) flashing in and out between edits. WSC, do you have it enabled? PEarley (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I have been a Hotcat user for years, I have thousands, perhaps over ten thousand hotcat edits on Wikipedia. But what seems to have happened is that not only has it been switched off as default, even those of us who've used it for years have now been opted out of it. Not a VE problem, just a sad coincidence. I was able to opt myself back into Hotcat, but there are people I've trained and talked through setting hotcat in their preferences over the years who may not realise that all they have to do is change a user preference, and some who may not be able to do that. ϢereSpielChequers 14:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I loved Hotcat on as default. I strongly suspect that the "big problem" was way overblown by conservatives.TCO (talk) 17:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Templates and parameters

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52354

Many of the templates I add most often either have no parameters (eg stub templates), or take "date" as a parameter (maintenance templates like {{unref}}), or take one or more positional parameters (eg {{in title}} or {{about}} or {{coord}}).

The handling of templates seems to assume that each template has one or more named parameters.

Inputting a 3-parameter template like {{about|this|that|the other}} is very tedious, even after you've discovered how to do it (very non-intuitive). You can't see the content of previous parameters as you go along, so have to remember where you've got to. Messy and stressful and takes a whole lot of clicking.

It's probably too late to suggest this, but imagine the following scenario:

1. I click on the jigsaw icon
2. A box appears where I input the name of the template and click "Add template"
3. The next box includes a prominent "See template documentation" button which links to the appropriate documentation, perhaps popping it up in another window or tab.
4. This box is divided into two columns and a note says "use either the left-hand or right-hand column to add any parameters to this template". One col has named parameters, the other has a set of boxes labelled "1st parameter", "2nd parameter", etc. Along with buttons for "Next template" and "Apply changes".

A further refinement would be for VE to be aware of (a) templates which take no parameters (eg stub templates), and (b) templates which only take the date (many maintenance templates), and in these two cases not to prompt for parameters (but to quietly add the date for (b), saving this having to be done by a passing bot later).

A yet further refinement would be for VE to recognise stub templates (they all end in "-stub", apart from {{stub}} itself, so it shouldn't be hard), offer them as a separate drop-down menu (much easier when stub-sorting), and put them in the "right" (per WP:MOS) place at the end of the article.

Probably too much to hope for: but going back to the basics, please work out a way for parameters to be input without all the clicks involved in making "names" like "1", "2", etc. I haven't yet tried to add a coords parameter - something on the lines of {{coord|54|36|51|N|2|49|34|W|display=title}}. That's going to be really tedious.

... Getting a bit stream-of-consciousness here: can't we just have two columns of boxes: "parameter name if any" and "parameter contents" - perhaps 10 rows and a "More parameters" button. Then to input that coord template I'd just leave the first column blank and put the values I've got, in order, and hit "Apply changes". Simple, allows you to see previous params as you go to keep track of where you've got to, etc. Ah well, perhaps it's all in hand. Good luck. PamD 14:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

There's a bug for that! I'll add your comments to it. If you have a bugzilla account, Pam, you might want to add it to your watch. I think you are rapidly developing as an expert in this. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

That was quick: I added this, looked at the few latest items above it, found the similar item, looked at the linked bug... and found my words there! Thanks. Let's hope it's useful.

@Mdennis (WMF): I'm about to take a bit of a wikibreak - have spent too much time on VE lately (it's become quite fascinating, probing little bits to see what happens and thinking of useful comments to make), but must get on with some Real Life stuff in next few days so my stream of comments may be about to dry up. Good luck: there's good stuff in there but a whole lot that hasn't yet been made to work in ways which suit real live editors. Problem being that we editors vary so wildly in both (a) what we do on Wikipedia and (b) our background, experience, skills and expectations of the software. You've got a real challenge on your collective hands. Or "our"? Not sure! (And now I really must go and hang up the washing, sort out papers for tonight's WI meeting, pack for long day-trip to family funeral, etc ...) PamD 14:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I hope the meatspace time is enjoyable (other than the funeral of course - my condolences). Some day, when the VE is functional, I hope to occasionally see sunlight ;). Thank you for all the work you've done thus far - I know that both Maggie and I have found your advice, bug reports and continued patience incredibly helpful. Best of luck! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Score: GNU Lilypond

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It wouldn't edit GNU Lilypond code generated with the score expression.

It apparently doesn't edit LaTeX code or mathematics.

The Visual Editor is dead to me. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:31, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Kiefer. As the User guide notes, those things are in the works, but they just aren't here yet. :/ --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Visual Editor

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Great improvement Domiter (talk) 14:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Domiter: thanks! Let us know if you see any bugs, or anything that could be improved :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:49, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor: The default value defined in the TemplateData is ignored.

It seems that the default value defined in the templatedata (currently) isn't used while adding a template to a page.

Steps to reproduce

• Open a random page using the visual Editor.
• Add the template "Cite web"
• Add the "Display authors" parameter.

The textbox doesn't contain a default value and accepting it without change doesn't enter it in either. Not adding the parameter altogether also doesn't create a parameter containing the value Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 14:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Comma adding "nowiki" to text

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52758

I recently added a comma to an article in the edit before this one, and I was reverted for adding "nowiki" tags all over the place. I tried to repeat adding the comma, thinking I messed up the edit, and this happened. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 14:58, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I can't replicate that - I removed a space and a comma from that section and it seems okay ([29]). What browser and operating system are you using, Kevin? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm flinging it in bugzilla just to raise the eyes on replicating it, if nothing else :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

(I also tried adding a comma, and it went okay. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 4 July 2013 (UTC))

I had a look, and can't replicate it either. Is there a reason why Kevin Rutherford appears as User:Ktr101 in the Northrop Loom: Revision history page and on my watchlist and Maggie Dennis (WMF) as User:Mdennis (WMF) or is it something I haven't noticed before?-- Clem Rutter (talk) 17:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I replicated the problem [30], using Chrome on Windows 7. Edgepedia (talk) 18:14, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox on Windows 7. Clem, you're seeing our usernames, not our signatures, so that's what might be confusing to you right now. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 18:27, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. :) Browser & OS information for both added to the bug. And, yes, Clem, it's similar to your signature appearing as Clem Rutter when your account is User:ClemRutter. :) I find Mdennis (WMF) a little impersonal, myself, so I edited my signature to include my first name. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I just cleaned up a pair of VE edits ([31] [32]) that added odd <nowiki>...</nowiki> or <nowiki />. The user concerned made a fair go of sorting the mess, but didn't finish the job. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Tutorials

I know the visual editor is in its Beta edition, however I am going to be using Wikipedia as a teaching tools in one of my classes this fall and also will be doing a faculty workshop in using Wikipedia in the classroom. Probably it is too soon to incorporate the VE in the various tutorials, but any idea of the timeline for updating the tutorials? Domiter (talk) 15:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Domiter:, hi. :) The various tutorials are managed by community members, who will undoubtedly begin to incorporate VE as time goes along. In the meantime, we have a user guide that is evolving along with functionality. We're trying to keep that updated, but welcome help from everyone, especially as rollouts change things. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't switch between GUI and source editor

In its current state there are many operations that can only be applied in the source editor.

If you switch from the GUI editor to the source version, make an edit, and then switch back, the edit is lost.

This is bad. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep; this is something we're probably going to work on as a long-term project, but it's technically complex. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:49, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't remove a space at Michael Lowry (actor)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52756

I'm restoring this from archives. No bug has been filed, and the problem is easily reproducible. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Attempting to remove the space that is erroneously between the period and the following ref at the end of the penultimate sentence of the second paragraph at Michael Lowry (actor) fails--the editor visually appears to allow the change, but when the change is saved, no error is produced, nor is any change left in the article history. Reproduced in Chrome and Safari. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:19, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Confirmed in Win7/FF21.0. There are actually two spaces in there; at first I thought the problem was maybe that you were only removing one and VE didn't consider that a change, but removing both still produces "No changes. Could not start the review because your revision matches the latest version of this page" when you do "Review your changes". JohnCD (talk) 17:54, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I moved the reference to inside the period and it saved just fine. Thoughts? Keegan (WMF) (talk) 08:29, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

This is very odd. In this version that you saved, there are still spaces left of the reference, which I don't suppose you intended - in fact, looking at it in edit-source mode, there are three. I moved the reference back (because they are supposed to be outside the punctuation). What I did, in VE, is:

• put the cursor to right of the full-stop
• backspace to remove it
• left-arrow to put the cursor "on" the ref
• left-arrow again to put cursor just left of the ref
• backspace three times removing spaces
• backspace once more removing the "n" at the end of "Epsilon" (to be sure there are no spaces left)
• replace n
• add full-stop.

Now (still in the editor) it looks just fine. Save it - and the two spaces between the full-stop and the ref are back! It looks as though VE is adding spaces to the left when it saves a reference. I will try to devise a simple test case to demonstrate this. JohnCD (talk) 09:07, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

There is a simple test case, folks. Open that article, attempt to remove the space before reference 3 using the Visual Editor only. It simply doesn't work. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

See, I'm getting a totally different problem; removing spaces doesn't constitute a change. I'm going to bugzilla that, then look at reproducing this.

Now replicated; both filed :). John, Joe, thanks for reporting this bug and keeping us on our toes - sorry I didn't handle it the first time around. Things have been rather overwhelming. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

No worries! it's a busy time, and a little chaos is par. Have a great day!  :) --j⚛e decker^talk 17:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Issue with table that has invalid markup

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52754

After saving a minor edit at Long Island, I noticed that the VisualEditor added over 2kB of additional content. Cause was a table in the Sports section, which misses </tr> closing tags. Presumably due to this invalid markup, an incomplete "<tr" tag was added in front of the table, and half the table was copied to the end of the article in a malformed shape. The diff can be found here.

During the conversion from Wiki markup to HTML the </tr> tags are added, but apparently the VisualEditor doesn't handle the source in the same way.  thayts t  16:14, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Forgot to note: I'm using Firefox 22.0 on Ubuntu.  thayts t  16:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Yeah, mutated table syntax is a problem for the VE, but this is...certainly a new strain of that problem. I'll report it :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

My feedback on VisualEditor

I absolutely hate it. Wren Valmont (talk) 16:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Wren Valmont: could you point to specific problems with the software? It's hard for us to improve it if we don't know the specific problems it's having. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it's clear that there are so many problems reported that it's time to retire this version of the code, fix it, and bring it back when it's ready. You've received numerous detailed bug reports and numerous reports at this level of specificity. I certainly hope that the plan to inflict this code on all anonymous users has been scuttled until the already reported problems have been fixed. After all, a big part of the reason to have a beta is to determine whether a product is ready for general release, and I think it's fairly clear that this piece of software is not.—Kww(talk) 17:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the release shouldn't be extended to anonymous users until the most serious bugs have been fixed. But you should realize that there is no possible way of releasing such a major change to a broad community with getting a flood of bug reports. Beta testing can't prevent it, because beta testers are a limited group of sophisticated users. Once something goes to a broad community, you always get lots of people trying to use it in ways that never previously occurred to anybody, or in situations that none of the beta testers can duplicate. It's just unavoidable, and if the functionality is deemed essential, the only solution is to slog one's way through it. I'm not sure that the beta testing was as thorough as it ought to have been here, but even if it was, the flood of bug reports would still come. Looie496 (talk) 18:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

There was already a lot of bugs discovered, and suggestions made during the beta testing (opt-in phase) but they haven't been fixed before doing the roll out to registered users. Moreover, the VE version rolled out was a new version containing major features (templates editing, references editing, ...) that were never tested during the opt-in phase. We were several people saying that the roll out to new users and then to all registered users was premature. But the VE team seems to take no account of users advices for the schedule of the release (they don't even answer to this kind of posts)... The WP:VE page still states that VE will be rolled out to anonymous users in 4 days, and I fear that it's still the plan :-( --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 18:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I've managed far larger projects than this editor, Looie496. I'm not a big fan of the "turn it on for everybody" technique for betas, but it could be reasonably argued that there was a good case for it here. Still, even when one resorts to that kind of testing, one needs to monitor the results and determine that it's time to stop the test. We are there: time to stop the test, regroup, deal with the things that the developers didn't think of and the things they didn't get right, and then turn it on again once they are repaired. There's no benefit in trying to support a half-working variation of the product while fixing the bugs. It distracts your developers from what they are doing, encourages short-sightedness in fixes because every fix has to work with everybody else's code right now, and generally results in a lower quality result. They've actually gotten closer to a working product than I would have thought possible, but it's time to recognise that they are six months to a year away from production quality.—Kww(talk) 18:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Amen, Kww. TAt the very least this needs to see several months more work from the interface-design stage on throughout the project. New people are needed on this project, people who know interface design, software testing and verification, and good software engineering / project management practice as opposed to just computer science theory. Frankly, I'm not sure there's anything worth saving in it, from my brief review it looks like it's rotten from the foundations. If I were involved with this project, I'd try not to admit it. Enon (talk) 22:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not yet sure whether the visual editor is fixable or doomed. But going live on schedule with a software release despite there being multiple unresolved bugs is a very bad sign on any software development - it usually means that the schedule is being given priority over quality. ϢereSpielChequers 22:39, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm nowhere near that negative. I don't think we are dealing with people that are purely theoreticians. There's some design choices that I certainly wouldn't have made regarding what level of parsing to do before template expansion vs. after, but nothing that seems unrecoverable or "rotten from the foundations". I think this was a good strong effort, and can become a worthwhile editor. It's just not a worthwhile editor at this moment in time. It needs to get the outstanding bug list dealt with first. Pushing forward with bugs frequently causes more problems than taking a break and fixing them before proceeding, and that's what I see happening here.—Kww(talk) 22:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Difficult to use

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This may be easier to use for newer editors, but for those already familiar with editing Wikimedia text, it's not very easy to use and would be very cumbersome. I wouldn't use this and hope the direct source editing option continues to be available. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Different strokes for different folks. There are no plans to turn off source editing, unless they're super sekrit. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 23:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Empty list item deletion challenge

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52779

The revision of an article here has an interesting thing, a completely empty bulleted list item, which does not normally display when the article is read. It is just below the reflist, you can both confirm this in the old-style editor, and see it visually in VisualEditor. However, I have found myself unable to delete that from within Visual Editor without also deleting the preceding reference list, which is a little wacky from a UI point of view. E.g., I attempt to backspace over the bullet and I lose a reference list. Reproduced on Chrome and Safari. --j⚛e decker^talk 18:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I had the same result. Definitely undesirable. Now to translate into developerese for a bug report ... PEarley (WMF) (talk) 23:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

May be related to Bug 50213, but I filed a new one to get it back on radar. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Formulas not editable This applies even to the most simple formulas like $2+2=4$.

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When I try to edit a formula with VE, I just get a popup with: "Sorry, this element can only be edited in source mode for now." This applies even to the most simple formulas like $2+2=4$. I mean, really? Science articles may be only a fraction of the wikipedia articles. But they are an essential ingrediant for any universal encyclopedia. The inability to deal with formulas makes the VE hardly usable for these core articles.

Suggestion: If the VE cannot deal with an element, it should automatically divert to the source editor for this item. See how LyX deals with this kind of situation. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to gracefully edit the source while in VE.-----<)kmk(>--- (talk) 19:49, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and frankly graceful source editing is probably more difficult than mathjax support. I know we're working on support for mathematical formulae, and it's a high-priority item - we're also discussing being able to tab between source and visual editing, although that will come later. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Nested templates

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52182

Templates inside other templates (e.g., flags inside an infobox) still require the use of the double curly braces syntax. I'm guessing it may be feasible and desirable to have recursive template structure editing. EJM86 (talk) 21:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The nested templates issue is tracked, thanks for the report. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 23:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Cancel

Clicking on "Cancel" brings up a confirmation dialog which asks, "Are you sure you want to go back into view mode without saving first?" with two button options: "OK" and "Cancel". That's not as unambiguous as you probably want. Those two buttons should be labeled "Yes, don't save" and "No, continue editing". EJM86 (talk) 21:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

See also the last point of #First impression. I have a feeling that it has been bugzilled already but it isn't noted in that thread and I'm apparently useless at working out which terms to search on over there! Thryduulf (talk) 23:45, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Page being edited needs to look more distinctive - how about a coloured line down left of page?

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52456

I think various editors have said this before, but I'm feeling tired right now and have found it more of a problem than usually: a page open in VE needs to look much more distinctive. Otherwise it would be too easy to forget to Save Page and then absentmindedly close the tab on a page of edits. (Especially when juggling several tabs because checking different pages - even more so because Navigation Popups don't work in VE!). Even the header bar is almost monochrome. Could we have something like a red line all the way down the left-hand margin? Perhaps it would need to be an option, as some people would hate it. But I'd certainly find it helpful and I know I'm not alone. PamD 22:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably my last ticket of the day. :) I think I am almost past functioning, but this caught my eye, and I said, "Hey! I know that ticket!" :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Why does this even use the nowiki tags?

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What is the point of putting <nowiki>...</nowiki> in every edit made with the new editor even when there is wiki formatting between the tags that was inserted with the very software that stopped the formatting from being rendered on the edited page once saved! PantherLeapord (talk) 23:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• See bugzilla:49820, bugzilla:49686, bugzilla:50527, #Julius H. Kroehl article, #Wrong syntax for title in bold ? and several other sections that I can't immediately remember the titles of. Thryduulf (talk) 23:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Cannot see or edit images which have been deleted

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52788

I was editing this revision of Chubby bunny to try to remove a thumbnail of a deleted image, the following wikitext:

[[Image:Sara_Jay_Chubby_Bunny_Challenge.png|thumbnail|Sara Jay playing Chubby Bunny]]

The red image link and/or its caption shown in the normal article view do not appear in the Visual Editor view and as far as I tell removing it in that view is impossible. Dcoetzee 04:09, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

"Page notice" box gets in the way

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52799

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^talk 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^talk 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)

I don't think you and I are talking about the same thing. I find it extremely unlikely that the inclusion of a click-through popup in VisualEditor was required by a discussion five years ago. Since there was no VE five years ago. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

When Okeyes says "Some volunteers here on enwiki decided to have it always pop up", he means five years ago enwiki added a little red "page notice" link for admins to nearly all edit pages. Visual editor was designed to treat all page notices as popups, and couldn't distinguish between a real page notice and the red link we added ages ago. So he was blaming enwiki for having a long established configuration that VE wasn't designed to understand. Incidentally, this should have been fixed now. You aren't seeing the "page notice" link anymore, are you? Dragons flight (talk) 17:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Ahhh. Thank you. Yeah. I'd like it gone, or at least not to have to spend a step to get it out of the way of what I'm trying to accomplish, but at least I understand where it comes from now.  :) --j⚛e decker^talk 19:47, 4 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)

Good suggestion :). I've added it into bugzilla. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 5 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^(talk) 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^(talk) 15:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone you're interacting with here suggested that gender and the pleasantry of our editing interface were linked. The distinctiveness (or rather, lack of distinctiveness) with the VE compared to read mode is a known, and is being worked on; could you expand on troubles saving? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

You know about the gadget that disables the Visual Editor entirely right? I tend to agree that this solves very little. Most people who have the slightest interest in editing Wikipedia as a hobby already recognize the need for clean, predictable markup languages. The mere fact that VE didn't work in all browsers right away should tell you that it's too much goddamn Javascript. Connor Behan (talk) 20:12, 5 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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)

Well, given that they apparently didn't evaluate the results of their A/B test before turning this on, it doesn't seem like they are managing this roll-out according to any methodology I've ever encountered. You are absolutely correct that in any project methodology I have ever encountered this would be the point in time where the product was pulled from release to be rereleased when the problems discovered in this trial were dealt with. Certainly this wouldn't be the point where I was continuing with a plan to unleash it on all anonymous editors in five days.—Kww(talk) 01:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

No, it seems like they are in complete denial about state of this software. It's madness. They released, nay imposed - on one of the most important production systems in the world, used every day by millions of people - this bug-ridden, untested, incomplete software that does far, far less than what it is supposed to be replacing, corrupts data, has some of the most defective user interfaces it has ever been my misfortune to see, is far more difficult to use in many common cases, and not only that, they did it right before a major holiday and went home. And they apparently think they should go ahead with their deranged plans as if everything is fine, and they aren't responsible for a major disaster that could easily and justly wreck their careers. The cluelessness, incompetence and arrogance are simply breathtaking.Enon (talk) 23:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Who said we think we should go forward? Let me be clear; we're taking these bugs very seriously, and have a meeting today to discuss a go/no go on Monday's deployment. If you have issues you consider critical that you want to surface, surface them. I'm not sure where the cluelessness, incompetence and arrogance in that statement is (or when I've ever said "yes, we are definitely going ahead with the deployment on Monday and nothing you can say can change that!" or words to that effect). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:46, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Releasing at all it in the state it is was not the thing to do. The A/B test results weren't even back, references effectively don't work at all. I read the design documents etc., and it seems to me while you solved lots of general cases for abstract things, you never solved or even specified actual specific cases for nearly everything that a user would want to do with the software. Anyway, the comment to which you responded was a late one - see my other comments on this page for details of what I think about this.Enon (talk) 16:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

My impression is that the A/B testing is about how IPs and other newbies might respond to VisualEditor. For example, if VisualEditor resulted in more spam from new accounts, then expanding it to all of the IPs might stress the anti-spam work. (On the other hand, you've made less than 30 edits this year, so perhaps you might qualify as a less experienced editor for these purposes.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorting categories

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52809

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)

For me, the part of the sentence Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first means that editors should decide the order of categories, and certainly not VE by itself. If an editor should decide the order of categories, he should be able to sort them (and not by deleting and recreating them). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 20:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Added as an enhancement request. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:39, 5 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)

I'm asking :). Bear in mind that "14 hours ago" equals "less than one workday, PDT". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

No reply yet; light jab in the ribs sent via email. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:48, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

It sounds to me like they're trying not to update anything on Fridays or over the weekend, so Monday might be the next one (assuming no emergencies require sooner action). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 5 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 12:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Has the problem been reproduced by anyone else? I ask on the possibility that the editor introduced it himself. :) Looking at his other edits in that article, he seems perhaps a bit unfamiliar with conventions such as spacing. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the user probably added the extra space himself. But, I really think VE should try to help making clean wikitext, rather than letting the user do whatever he wants (some modifications are not really visible in VE, whereas they are clearly visible when editing wikitext). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 08:32, 5 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)

@Wouterstomp: that's very strange :/. To be fair, the same is true in the source editor (just tested it). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see it happening with the source editor here, only with the visual editor. --WS (talk) 18:58, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm now not seeing it in either location. How odd! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Hidden categories

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52763

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 ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 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)

@Mdennis (WMF): 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 ("View hidden categories on this 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 ? --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 16:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This seems like the sort of thing that should be stored in "page settings"; I'll file a bug for it now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

A late answer to the question of whether there are hidden categories that are actually embedded in articles: YES. For instance Category:Year of birth missing (living people) is directly embedded into some tens of thousands of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:15, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

{{efn}} template mis-handling

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52383

It seems rather odd to display notes implemented using the {{efn}} template as "[lower-alpha 1]</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)

Any news on when the functionality to display and edit footnotes (with references) is going to be added? Edgepedia (talk) 12:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Edgepedia: is it not present currently? How are you trying to do it? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

In User:Edgepedia/VE/Met I used {{#tag:ref|group="note"}} and opening the visual editor on this shows the footnotes in the form ["note" 1] — as opposed to read mode rendering this as ^{[note 1]}. Scroll down, and a limited view (2 lines) of the notes is shown, and open one of the transclusions and you are presented with the raw wiki markup.

Open User:Edgepedia/VE/LU, where I used {{efn}} in table in the lines section, and you get </ref> shown after the footnotes, the footnote text after the first reference is shown on the Circle line row. Edgepedia (talk) 15:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

beta editing

dont like it Ngs61 (talk) 15:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Ngs61: can you elucidate? What do you think we need to improve on/make work better? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It is simply slow, sluggish, counter constructive and will kill the motivation to edit pages. You should give the people a change to at least temporarily disable it by a single click. Qtguy00 (talk) 11:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

amazing!

I'm a medical student who has been using wikipedia for years. I have no time to learn how to edit, and since medical school started (I'm a 4th year now), I have read hundreds and hundreds of articles that I wish I could have edited but didn't because I either didn't know how to, or I didn't know how to include references. Also, the community here doesn't exactly consist of nice people. Not that I'm here to make friends - but I'm not going to spend my time fixing something, only to have it reversed by some 10 year old who has no clue what he or she is talking about, yet exudes so much confidence because they've been editing articles for so long and they are "part of the community". I wouldn't even bother replying because I have no time (even if I did, I probably still wouldn't bother honestly).

I would just fix spelling mistakes every once in a while. I can't tell you how many medical articles on wikipedia are written by idiots. The medical profession hasn't been touching them because of the complexity involved when it comes to editing them. I know this for a fact because I have many many many classmates (and professors!) who have said the same thing. With this new visual editor thing, I edited my first article today! And by editing the article I don't mean I fixed the spelling mistakes. Thanks for finally realizing that quantity is very different from quality. There are people other than your heavy editors and your "community" that can contribute, and some actually know what they are talking about. Just because someone knows how to edit does not mean they have something meaningful to write. Thanks again! Boonshofter 23:25, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Be still my beating heart.

Actually, your edits today don't seem fundamentally different from your edits last year. What did this make easier for you?—Kww(talk) 23:43, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably the difference is he enjoyed it more and might bother more. He has had a low pattern of editing in the past.TCO (talk) 01:09, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

KWW, what made it easier was that for the first time ever, I actually added a reference to an article. TCO, you are absolutely right. Boonshofter 02:37, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that also for the first time, I added words that you could click on (i.e. to see that word's wikipedia page). Also, I had no clue how to add references at the very bottom of the article, and put a number at the end of a sentence that you could click on that would take you to that reference at the bottom of the article. Notice how in my edit today I added some examples of medications. You can click on each of them and it will take you to each medication's respective page. You can also click on the number 3, and it will take you to the reference I added. I would spend hours trying to do that, and I could never make it work. I realize that to you guys this seems pretty ridiculous, especially since I've been using wikipedia for so long - you'd think I would get it by now. But I really don't have the time to learn how to, and even when I did have some time, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Thanks again!Boonshofter 02:48, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

ADDITIONAL COMMENT TO ABOVE: I just do simple housekeeping edits so far but now I plan to take the time to learn the new visual editor. I think it will be very good for novice members as long as it doesn't lead to every man & his dog making changes they really should not.Princebuster5 (talk) 04:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• Dear Boonshofter and PrinceBuster, it isn't that the community doesn't want a visual editor, or that we don't want every man, and for that matter woman making improvements to the pedia. It's just that we want a visual editor that works properly and enables editors using it to deliver work of the same quality as other editors. If you look at the bug reports on this page there are lots of things that need fixing before the visual editor will be fit for purpose. Nobody here is arguing that we don't want a visual editor, people are just annoyed that we are implementing buggy software on our largest wiki without properly testing it and trialling it first on one of our smaller wikis. ϢereSpielChequers 07:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I completely understand. The thing though is that princebuster and I are both very inexperienced editors (at least I definitely am), so the functions that are troubling you and other users are so out of our league that we don't even know they exist. For example, I skimmed through this page reading complaints, and I couldn't understand a single thing. I feel that most users here on wikipedia are either computer programmers or have computer skills that are extremely advanced. I kid you not - 99% of the info on this page is way above my head. I'm a pretty smart guy, so you can imagine my frustration. Therefore, don't expect my sympathy - not because I don't want to give it, but because I simply can't, since I have no clue what you guys are going through. I trust your community's judgment, i.e. if you guys feel that this visual editor needs to be eliminated, then it needs to be eliminated. People like me will get over it, and we will still be here once the fixed version of it is reinstated. I didn't mean to offend with my comments above - I just got a little excited because it felt like I finally knew what I was doing after being on here for so long. All the best. Boonshofter (talk) 08:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

We don't want the visual editor eliminated - indeed most of us want a visual editor, we just don't think it is ready yet. It works fine for doing simple things, but it sometimes causes problems while doing so and there are more complicated things that it simply can't do yet.
As an analogy, think of it as a car. Traditionally, Wikipedia has required you to tell the car exactly what you want it to do and how to get to your destination in order to drive it while the visual editor (VE) allows you to simply get in and tell it where you want to go without needing to know how it works. Currently the VE works, but only if you want to go in a straight line. It can turn left or right, and it appears to the passenger that it works fine, but actually the road needs repainting after each turn you make. Most of the issues on this page are because the drivers who know how to make their cars work want to do things like reverse, turn the windscreen wipers on and carry luggage with them while travelling, but the VE either can't do that yet at all or breaks itself or the road while trying. Many are also frustrated because they like telling the car which route to take and don't like that the VE now decides that for them and breaks if they try to override it.
The reports on this page are confusing to you because they are asking about details you don't know about (and in future shouldn't need to know about) and are written so that the cause of the problems can be understood so they can be fixed. To continue the car analogy, to the driver a problem report of "it makes a loud noise when I accelerate" is fine, but the mechanic needs to know whether the problem is with the engine or the exhaust before they can fix it. Does that help explain things or just make you more confused? Thryduulf (talk) 11:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

This is freaking hilarious. You all are hassling a newbie who likes the new interface. And you want it turned off even though, you still have manual editing on another tab. There's a huge disconnect here of people thinking in terms of what THEY like to use (or what self-selected current editors do) versus potential users do. This place is way, way, way overbalanced to IT types. You need more artists, writers, and business people. There are a lot of them out there in the "real world".

Plus turning it on and just trying to make it work is a great way to just move a project forward. This thing has dawdled YEARS past when WMF started talking about it. And then some of the "ZOMFG change" whiners...sheesh. Like crying about the damned edit button sliding to the left. Or the orange bar complaints. Just step back and think about how silly that looks with some distance from Wiki Pculture.  ;-)

TCO (talk) 17:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

P.s. Erik: keep it on. Always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.  ;-)

Moving the project forward should not be the primary concern. Producing an encyclopedia should. Bringing a newbie into a watchmaker's shop and handing him a hammer and saying to have fun is a good way to get a newbie to have fun, but it won't produce fine timepieces. I have found two absolute clangers in VE in two days, and I use VE very little. This behemoth should not be the default choice for editing until it is much more likely to help than to hurt Wikipedia. Chris the speller ^yack 17:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

@TCO: I'm trying not to hassle anyone. I don't want it turned off because I want to keep editing the wikitext (as you say I can do that anyway), I want it turned off because it breaks things. The test should be suspended at least until it stops breaking things and preferably not until it can handle (without breaking itself or the wiki) the full range of features that an intelligent but not-technically-proficient user is likely to want to be able to do - references, templates, tables, galleries, redirects, alt-text for images, etc. Turning it on and trying to make it work would be fine if it didn't break things that other people have to fix. Thryduulf (talk) 23:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Has everyone switched this off?

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Looking through the recent changes I was surprised at how few edits are now taged with visual editor. Looking at those tagged VisualEditor [33] we seem to be getting one or two edits per minute out of a total of about 30 changes per min at the moment. Restricting recent changes to articles[34] I'm typically seeing two or three edits in the last 50. Either way its looking like a smaller than 10% uptake. Also IP edits are not getting tagged VE, I though it was on for all IPs.--Salix (talk): 06:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• It is currently only enabled for logged-in users, so IPs cannot use it yet. As section edits are not supported yet it seems that the section edit links to the visual editor have been turned off for now (at least I guess that's the reason), so the only way to access VE is to use the edit button at the top of the page. It wouldn't surprise me if this is a cause of fewer edits using the VE - it certainly is with my editing. Thryduulf (talk) 09:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

  I suspect so; that bug, we need to fix fast. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit section links gone AWOL

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52731

All the edit section links are now pointing to the wikitext editor. The flyover [edit | edit source] has vanished. Anyone know why? — This, that and the other (talk) 07:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Known issue —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:41, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Possible solution for all your technical ills

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Perhaps you guys should hire an East End thug to come round and "have a quiet word". Works a charm! -- Hillbillyholiday ^talk 09:14, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, if only! :P. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:35, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

How to use a template on a page in Visual Editor

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I can't figure out how to use a template on the page. If I type {{template-name}}, a <nowiki> tag is automatically added. — Preceding comment added by Sky Lined (talk • contribs) ; original signature removed while fixing wiki markup errors NtheP (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

To add a template you click on the transclusion icon (puzzle piece) and then type the name of the template you want to use on the box. Add template and then start adding the parameters. To add a new parameter each time you click on the name of the template that is at the top on your left. TeamGale (talk) 11:01, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

No way to edit templates in Visual Editor

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52797

Check out this version of a page that I saw a little while back. Open in another tab, please. Do you see that line of white space at the top? I don't believe it's possible to remove it using Visual Editor. (See this diff using VE--can you do better than I did?) — Preceding comment added by Red Slash (talk • contribs) ; original signature removed while fixing wiki markup errors NtheP (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Yup; only way I can do it is to remove the infobox :/. Reporting. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:18, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Rubbish. Doesn't even load.

If you can't get it to load on normal browsers (Firefox), then it shouldn't be made the default at all. I've disabled it, just like every other 'visual editor' I've come across. Buggy, refuses to load. No thanks. The disable option needs to be taken out of the "Gadget" section where it is stacked with dozens of other things along with a "YOU USE THESE AT YOUR OWN RISK" warning implying this isn't the right way to use wikipedia, and be moved onto the "Editing" tab in preferences. Macktheknifeau (talk) 11:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The worst thing is that everyone is forced to use this sluggish visual editor. We simply don't want it! Let's give editors a chance disable it with just 1 click. --Qtguy00 (talk) 11:40, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

@Macktheknifeau: what version of Firefox? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

12. IMO the last version of Firefox before they started to wreck everything by updating every three days, destroying my add-ons. Macktheknifeau (talk) 18:10, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikilink being repeatedly altered without being edited

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52720

First of all thanks to all the staff and volunteers who have put effort into this crucially important project. I'm surprised and impressed at how it's not just a visual editor but a WYSIWYG editor.

My minor problem is that I'm editing a userspace draft which has links to [[Avon (county)|Avon]]. Each time I edit, those links get rewritten as [[../Avon_(county)|Avon]] which breaks the link, even though I haven't edited that bit of the page. Didn't see this on a quick scan of the feedback page. Apologies if this is a bug reported a hundred times already. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:44, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

tracked —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

How can I edit code?

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I just wanted to change the alignment of a table (centered to the page to aligned to the left vertical). And I'm looking at a whole bunch of nothing. It's weird. I don't like it. It seems to be the big kids-bouncy-castle version of Wikipedia, where you can't hurt anything but at the same time, you're extremely limited. If only, if only, at the very least there is an option, a toggle, a quick button to easily get to code if I need to. Sometimes its just easier that way. [edited to add: I figured out how to edit code, but I had to exit the thingy, then go back in to edit source. You can't go straight from one to the other.] -Gohst (talk) 12:11, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

We're working on table editing (and also working, although that's more of a long-term project, I suspect) a way to tab between the two. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

What happens in 3 days ?

In Wikipedia:VisualEditor, it says that in the week of 8 July, there is the "Launch to all logged-in and anonymous users as the default editor" on enwiki. And that one week later, the same "on other first-stage projects" ("TBD – definitely dewiki, frwiki, itwiki. Probably also arwiki, nlwiki, hewiki, hiwiki, jawiki, kowiki, ruwiki, plwiki, eswiki and svwiki").

All members of the VE team seem to simply ignore all the posts where users ask to make a break for fixing bugs, rethinking some of the graphical interfaces so they can be really used for editing WP (templates, references, images, conflicts, section editing, ...), including a few suggestions to have a really useful editor.

So, I'm asking. What's the plan ? Is it still the schedule displayed in Wikipedia:VisualEditor ? --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 12:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The members of the VE team who are engaging here do not have the authority to impose changes to the schedule, NicoV. As far as I know, that schedule is still the same; if and when we discover otherwise, you will discover otherwise, too. :) (That said, I don't want to sound like I'm intending to discourage the conversation - they are definitely being read, and I'm sure they're being considered.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I would note that I believe there's a meeting happening on this today; if anyone has bugs they consider really critical, let us know about them and we'll do our best to surface them to the developers quickly. Presumably one way or the other we'll have an update this afternoon :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Maggie, I understand that you or Okeyes don't have the authority to change the schedule, it's ok. It seems that there are more than 400 reports currently still open in bugzilla for VE itself (I haven't checked Parsoid). When several people made some suggestions on the bugzilla or on wikitech-l for the A/B tests before rolling it out (like a clear indication of what was going on and how to opt-out, or fixing the bugs that are making dirty diffs), those suggestions were simply ignored, and the schedule seems to go undisturbed by all the bug reports (after the A/B test, the VE proceeded to the roll out to all registered users). I fear that we are in the same situation because I don't see any indication (except your answer about a meeting today) that the VE team is taking into account the huge amount of bug reports, suggestions, ... to work on a more reasonable planning.

As for the bugs that I consider critical, you're missing my point : in my opinion, there are too many open bugs, too many major features that are not mature or simply missing, ... to go on like that.

I'm all in favor for going back to the opt-in mechanism so that people know what they are doing when using VE. I hope that with the previous rollout you will have enough editors willing to keep using VE so that you will still get enough feedback. Speaking for me, I'm ok to keep testing VE once it has been stabilized. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 13:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

We're very grateful for that :). What features do you see as missing? Off the top of my head I can only think of table editing and mathematical formulae. We're taking into account the bugs - not the number itself, however. We could have only 5 bugs and deploy, and then find they were all crucial ("the visualeditor pastes an infinite loop of sentence fragments, chess pieces and bicycles), or have 500 trivial fixes or tracking bugs. It's probably more useful for us to surface those that are really big deals. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I see at least the following important missing features in addition to the ones you referred to: managing edit conflicts, being able to edit contents in extension tags (source, score, ...) even if only as text, section editing (VE team said no for the moment, but that's the best way to avoid edit conflicts, save bandwidth, ...), more namespaces (so that new users don't have to learn both ways of editing), ... but more importantly I think existing major features are far from being fully functional : templates editing is poor and complex, images editing is poor, references editing is poor (not tested by myself, just reading other opinions), ... and bugs that are making dirty diffs should be fixed, because if they often don't make major changes, it requires more human work to check modifications made by VE.

Regarding the number of bugs, I do agree that probably a lot of them are really minor, but in my experience, when you have that number of open bugs, fixing them will result in major regressions at some point, especially with major features still not really up to the expectations. That's why I think it would be best to go back to opt-in so that the VE team can more time to think on the plan, to test releases before they are going live, to have less frequent releases but with better quality. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 14:22, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To be fair I share the same concern Toshio NicoV voiced. The visual editor is a great initiative but right now it still has some rather rough edges. Editors who have been around a while will know what the editor should do, and will know where to raise the issue if they run into a problem. New editors on the other hand don't know what the editor should do, and are less likely to report issues while being more likely to run into those (Ask yourself: If your a new customer ordering something on a webshop and notice a broken layout, do you report it or will you just skip over to the next one).

Of course some issues should be taken into perspective though. Lack of Mathjax support is unfortunate, but i don't think most new editor will start working on full fledged formulas. On the other hand there are other features that i would expect a newbie to use in a visual editor. For example, if i wanted to move a section in an article i would try to copy and paste it. However, copy and paste discards all formatting, images, reference tags and so on. The alternative, click and drag is quite buggy as well. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 14:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Toshio only asked the question below . I do agree, that Mathjax is not that important, especially if all tags that VE don't understand yet can be edited as wikitext (click on a math formula to open a simple text box with the content between the <math>...</math>, same for other extension tags...). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 14:28, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Great thoughts, the both of you :). I'll factor them in. Fwiw I totally agree on template editing - there are a lot of issues around it that have implications for things like referencing, too. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:29, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

What does this "Launch to all logged-in users as the default editor" mean exactly? -- Toshio Yamaguchi 12:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

That's the current situation: all logged-in users have VE active. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 12:55, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Logged in users can currently choose between "Edit" and "Edit source", with the "Edit" tab being to the left and only "edit" appearing on section headings until hovering over it. Is this what is meant by VE being "the default editor"? Or does it only refer to the VE option being enabled by default without changing preferences? Will something change for logged in users next week compared to now, or is the only change that anonymous users get the same option logged in users already have? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely nothing will change; exactly, anons will get "edit" and "edit source". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that's good to hear. Thanks for the clarification. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 14:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

This editor is clearly not ready for use, now. Having said that, I think the beta is really promising. A good start.--Wickey-nl (talk) 14:31, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Okeyes: How can you be following this page and say "Off the top of my head I can only think of table editing and mathematical formulae." How about?

1. Being able to indicate to a user whose edit has been blocked by the spam blacklist why his edit has been blocked. (critical for novice editors)
2. Being able to indicate to a user whose edit has been blocked by an edit filter why his edit has been blocked. (critical for novice editors)
3. Being able to display inline comments that guide novice editors about what kind of editing is acceptable. (critical for novice editors: they don't need to write them, but they need to read them)
4. Being able to deal with templates that generate table markup correctly
5. Timing out on large files
6. Presenting and editing references in a manner that editors can deal with
7. Recursive templates (don't think that's a small issue. A lot of templates are designed for use in larger templates. Good programming structure and all that)

This editor shows promise, but it isn't ready for use at this time. It needs to be pulled back, fixed, and redeployed after it is fixed. The development team certainly can stay busy for several months correcting the known bugs, and they don't need to be dealing with a live deployment while they do.—Kww(talk) 15:14, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I was unaware of the spam blacklist/edit filter bugs; have those been tested/found/reported? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:18, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

50727, 50472, picture at File:Filterviolation.PNG. On the list, but not going to be done for a while.—Kww(talk) 15:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

See #Blocked sites above. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:44, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I take it that we're already rolling out to some new editors: Special:Contributions/Portal707 --j⚛e decker^talk 15:40, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Those that make accounts, yes.—Kww(talk) 15:42, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:49, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Ctrl+click doesn't open a new tab

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51993

Hi,

I don't know if it's due to VE, but since it's something that might, I'm reporting it. On enwiki, Ctrl+click on Edit in this discussion (at the top of the page, or near each section) doesn't open the edit in a new tab, but in the same tab. This is usually useful to check things outside the section while answering in it. On frwiki, it's working. I'm using Chrome Version 27.0.1453.110 m (currently updating to next version). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 13:39, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I have the same problem in Firefox 22.0 but only in namespaces where VE is not enabled, for example this page. bugzilla:49993 says it's fixed. Has the supposed fix been deployed? PrimeHunter (talk) 14:04, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Confirmed as not working here but working on fr using both Firefox 22 and Konqueror 4.8.5 (which is apparently blacklisted from VE). Thryduulf (talk) 14:08, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Given the timestamp on that gerrit patch I'm going to assume we've got a regression :(. Terribly sorry about this. I've reopened the bug. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:10, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

On further experimentation, I find that the middle button does work in all namespaces in Firefox but only in VE enabled namespaces in Konqueror. Thryduulf (talk) 14:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

This is not a beta, its a prototype

With all the problems with VE Its really starting to get annoying all the talk about it being a "beta". This is not a beta. Its barely better than an alpha test. Major bugs, limited functionality, hundreds of people disabling it, etc. A lot of people including me have been saying it in various ways but I am going to be extremely direct, blunt and probably a little rude because I want to be clear. Visual editor has a lot of promise but right now its garbage and basically unusable. It needs to be turned off until the bugs can be whittled down. No one expects a perfect product but this application isn't even close to ready. The WMF keeps saying they are serious about supporting this app and how they hired more people. No one cares. We want to be able to edit and to build the project and many of us would love a working Visual editor. But this application is an absolute mess and is only making things harder to edit, not easier. If you turn this on for all the IP's you are asking for widespread problems. I know that no one really cares but I am not going to be editing much for a while largely because of VE. We have told the WMF it has problems and they do not cre what we say. So I don't feel like I should have to clean up their mess when they can prevent it by putting off the release for a month. When the WMF takes this project seriously and stops treating it like a sewer to test broken applications I'll think about returning to regular editing. Kumioko (talk) 14:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can see nearly all of your article edits are gnomish stuff using AWB. Does the VE impact on that, or is your concern that editors will be creating lots of breakage that needs fixing? Looie496 (talk) 15:02, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Quoth the pertinent article "Software in the beta phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues and may still cause crashes or data loss. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing." We do care what you say, and we're factoring bugs in; I'm singularly unconvinced by arguments based on "this is making things harder to edit"; source editing is still available and will be indefinitely. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Making it the default editor when it is still this buggy is irresponsible. It has promise, and I think that it will be a better product than I ever expected, but it's not ready yet.—Kww(talk) 15:17, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Your right Looie I do a lot of Gnomish stuff but I also do a lot of other things as well and it does have an effect. Its mostly what you say that people are going to be breaking a lot of stuff. I also understand what you say Oliver and I would agree if it were one or 2 people. But almost everyone outside the WMF staff thinks this thing isn't ready, it needs more work and the WMF is being irrisponsible and inconsiderate by releasing it with this many problems. Kumioko (talk) 16:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I tested it a little bit. It's usable

I played with it on my user's page. All right. Weird but one can find ways. I don't think I'll have more time to play with it. I would not use even an excellent VE because I am so powerful with markup. When rolled out to my chapter I won't even see it, because my Firefox 3.5.6 is blacklisted. But the main thing is that I do not belong to the target category of users. Probably I'd use it for minor grammar corrections. Seems it is OK in that department. Angry comments here come from users who are as powerful with markup as I am. No VE can match that power. I'd recommend to suspend blocks with templates at the moment. Remember that the target category do not know, do not want to know and do not have to know what a template is. Those who want templates will learn markup. People who want find means. The same with math. I will always prefer LaTeX and that should be prepared in text editor and compiled. --Holigor (talk) 15:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Where I wish I *could* use the VE, but can't

Quite a bit of the random stylistic cleanup I do when working on drafts at WP:AFC would be easier if could apply the Visual Editor. Due to a quirk of history, however, those drafts are stored in the Wikipedia Talk namespace. I wish that didn't completely exclude the possibility of using the VE, but I can't say that this wish is anything like a priority, either. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

VE is currently also disabled in the Wikipedia namespace so it actually makes no difference that AfC drafts are placed in Wikipedia talk (this is because IP's can only create talk pages). A possible workaround: Move the draft to userspace, edit it there with VE, and move it back. You could also copy-paste the source instead of moving the page but then you get a lot of extra steps because there doesn't appear to be a way to copy wikisource into or out of VE. Or is there a way? PrimeHunter (talk) 16:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I can certainly move the thing back and forth. It's just a hassle, the AfCH scripts don't work in any other namespace. I really appreciate your reply, though, because I hadn't known why the drafts were in WT, and now I both see why that is, and why it's unlikely to change on this end. Which puts the ball a little more squarely back in VE's court--I doubt that denying new editors the ability to use VisualEditor when creating new articles is precisely what the WMF has in mind.  :) --j⚛e decker^talk 16:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Call for audit and rollback

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Moved to Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor § Call for audit and rollback

 – Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:54, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion in regard to _recent changes_

I think it would be useful to have a statistic available for the number of recent edits which have been done using Visual Editor vs. not on a daily basis. Further, it might be useful to query those people who are using Visual Editor specifically about their experiences ... I think that a lot of the feedback is biased by those people who are prone to feedback rather than representing the actual user base. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Right-clicking a misspelled word and selecting from the pop-up menu does not look like a change to VE

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52822

Using Firefox 19.0.2 on Windows Vista, editing Relativity Media. Find "subsidairies", right-click, select "subsidiaries". The word appears changed, but the "Save" button is not activated. Chris the speller ^yack 17:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Nice find, reported. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

JDF seems to be unable to reproduce this problem. I assume DJ was able to, though. I copied the unchanged page to my Sandbox4 subpage, and now I can't, either, whereas I could 10 out of 10 times before. Did any VE fixes go into production in the last few hours? Chris the speller ^yack 20:40, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Double click

For items that require a popup window (e.g. references, templates), it would be much more user friendly to allow one to open that popup window using a "double-click". Clicking on the item to reveal the puzzle piece (or other icon) and then having to move my cursor and click again on the icon is unnecessary effort. Dragons flight (talk) 19:58, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Markup in template parameters

Apparently VE allows one to type markup directly into transclusion parameters and it continues to treat it as markup. Personally, I kind of like this behavior, but I think it violates the paradigm that the developers were going for.

To replicate:

1. Open some page for editing.
2. Insert a transclusion for the "Cquote" template
3. Set parameter 1 to "Testing... [[foobar]] {{frac|1|2|3}}"
4. Hit Save.
5. Marvel at how the wikilink and subtemplate are rendered as true wikicode.

Dragons flight (talk) 20:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

See #Nested templates and bugzilla:50182. VE hasn't implemented handling of nested templates so it has to allow wikicode in template parameters. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:36, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Makes me tempted to build a template called "article" that takes the wikitext of an article as its sole parameter.—Kww(talk) 20:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Overly agressive use of nowiki

When one is typing in the visual editor, if you include text that would be wikimarkup, e.g. [[a]], then VE wraps the entire section in <nowiki> tags. Unfortunately "section" ends up translating as everything from the previous bit of markup (or newline) until the following bit of markup (or newline). Given the way text is written this can mean an entire paragraphs is nowiki-ed, rather than just the portion containing the offending text. To add to the problem, anything in nowiki tags is presently uneditable by VE, so one can write a long block in VE, save it, and then find you can't edit if via VE any more.

If nowiki tags are going to be used, they should be more narrowly targeted to the offending element rather than also wrapping large swaths of plain text on either side. For simple elements like []{}, I would suggest you might even do better to default to HTML entities rather than using nowiki. Dragons flight (talk) 20:42, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

See bugzilla:49820, bugzilla:49686, bugzilla:50527 and others, Thryduulf (talk) 21:51, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

None of those links appear to be addressing the point I'm actually making. When one types something that triggers nowiki tags, the nowiki tags are very aggressive. For example, entering:

I am the very model of a modern [[Major-General]], I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical

The result is:

<nowiki>I am the very model of a modern [[Major-General]], I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical</nowiki>

Where nowiki tags grab the entire sentence rather than just the offending element. This has the secondary side effect that the entire sentence can no longer be edited in VE, since it won't handle nowiki elements. If we are going to keep escaping wikitext (and I presume we are), then the escaping should be more focused on the offending elements rather grabbing large amounts of plain text as well. Dragons flight (talk) 22:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52841

According to Subbu, the current logic is designed to minimize the number of nowikis added (e.g. if there are multiple links), but it may be feasible to make the escaping a bit smarter especially when there's just one element that needs escaping.--Eloquence* 22:29, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

CTRL-K for adding a link

Using CTRL K is a big mistake when it comes to key bindings, when adding a link the editor will likely be using the mouse with one hand and the keyboard with the other and CTRL K is a bit of a stretch for many including myself, I suggest adding a link should be bond to something closer to the left CTRL button. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GamingWithStatoke (talk • contribs) 20:48, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Certain templates are totally invisible on VE, and editors should be able to detect them

Has there been any discussion of certain templates being totally invisible on VE when there are advantages in having editors be able to see them? Some templates, such as "Use British English" and "Use dmy dates", besides adding hidden categories, serve notice to editors that a specific style is appropriate for that page. This helps keep a professional look, and perhaps prevents some international incidents between editors on opposite sides of the pond. Chris the speller ^yack 21:18, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Parser functions

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52855

I don't see it noted anywhere in the archives, but VE does not handle parser functions correctly.

Parser function syntax is generally {{#function_name : expr1 | expr2 | expr3 | ... }}

Currently VE sees this as a template with name "#function_name : expr1" and arguments "1 = expr2", "2 = expr3", etc. This makes it impossible to edit expr1 in VE. Dragons flight (talk) 21:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Heh. I think parser functions could reasonably be termed out of scope for the VE ... but it should recognise it and balk - David Gerard (talk) 22:11, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, a solution that amounts to disabling visual editing of parser functions isn't optimal, but it is probably better than getting it wrong. Dragons flight (talk) 22:25, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, Magic Words

Essentially the same issue occurs with all the magic words. Not so important for things like {{PAGENAME}}, but the ones that take parameters like {{urlencode: XYZ & 123 }} and {{formatnum:987654321.654321}} won't be handled correctly. Dragons flight (talk) 22:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

link insertion does not work.

Attempts to edit/add a hyperlink (internal Wikipedia link) results in an undefined target resulting in a 404 error. See the related page, "...Wit (white) beer..." that should link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witbier#Witbier -- but there is no way to correct/specify the target URL, either as internal or external.

Webistrator (talk) 23:29, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I can't make sense of this. The way to add a hyperlink is to select a piece of text and then click on the "chain" icon at the top. Is that what you tried to do? If not, what did you do in hopes of creating a link? Looie496 (talk) 02:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Amended VisualEditor deployment schedule

For your information, we are amending the deployment schedule of the VisualEditor and pushing the rollout to IP editors by a week. This will give us more time to squash bugs especially in the areas of dirty diffs, as well as the notorious T52441.

Following the deployment to the English Wikipedia last Monday, many more users have taken the time to test VisualEditor and provide feedback. You and others have reported many bugs and issues previously unnoticed, and we're very grateful for our community to have provided so much detailed feedback. We also appreciate that the launch of this beta has been disruptive. Extensive testing notwithstanding, the process of cleanly generating wikitext from a rich-text interface is very complex and somewhat fragile, which is what causes VisualEditor to sometimes insert "dirty diffs". Caching and infrastructure issues can make issues arise in a production context that weren't previously seen. We're thankful for your patience, understanding and support.

We appreciate continued reports in Bugzilla as well as on this feedback page. As we work to squash bugs, we are prioritizing bugs that impact content and stability. We are also looking for ways to educate users that they're in the VisualEditor, and don't need to use wikitext - and in fact, will create problems if they do. (See T52601.)

We are planning to deploy the VisualEditor beta to anonymous users on English Wikipedia on 15 July. We will follow, with a multi-language test rollout to a selected language set on 22 July, with a target date for full deployment to all Wikipedias on 29 July. Of course, the farther we get down that schedule, the more likely it is that things may change, so it is possible that the full deployment will need to be pushed into August. Because of Wikimania and staff availability, that would mean we'd be looking at full deployment somewhere around 19 August.

We hope that you'll continue to test VisualEditor as we improve it, and provide us with more feedback. Our goal is for VisualEditor to not only become as bug-free as possible but to eventually become the best collaborative authoring tool on the planet. The only way we can get there is through continued iteration and continued feedback along the way.

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 00:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Dynamic section edit links - obstructive and irritating

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

When you go to hit a section edit link, it rolls out edit source to the right leaving edit (with VisualEditor) in the location you just clicked, thereby loading VisualEditor. This is irksome when what you want to do is edit the source in the way we've always done. Moreover it is visually distractive to have links rolling out as you move your mouse cursor around the page. Please change this to static links with edit and edit source fixed next to each other. Thank you.

More broadly, I think this VisualEditor should be an opt-in Gadget under Preferences, rather than replacing the default way of editing. There are browser functionality and performance issues with it as well. Irānshahr (talk) 00:27, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

You are far from alone in your feelings about the section edit links. It has been filed as bugzilla:50540 and I've got a feeling that there may be related ones as well. Thryduulf (talk) 01:32, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Graphs

I had trouble with the graphs in visual editor. FoUTASportscaster (talk) 00:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

new editor

This new editor is awful & unusable. Ultra slow(using java presumably?) Please at least allow people the option to choose the old editing method. Yaguchi (talk) 02:28, 6 July 2013 (UTC) Ah, I didn't notice the edit source link. Ok ignore my comment. Yaguchi (talk) 02:31, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Yaguchi,

sorry for the confusion about "Edit source". We're aiming to make this more obvious for first-time users in the next release.

Regarding performance, no, VisualEditor is not implemented in Java, but JavaScript. Performance can still be poor on very large or complex articles, but should be good to acceptable on short to medium length articles even with older computers. As an example, I just opened 10 random pages on a six-year-old PC (2Ghz) running Chrome/Ubuntu, and the typical time to initialize edit mode was between 2-4 seconds. In most cases it is actually a bit zippier than clicking "Edit source" since it doesn't have to load the whole page (the skin/navigation) again. Now, opening it on the long featured article Dodo on the same system is admittedly very slow (about 16 seconds to be ready to edit, and then not very responsive; about 8 seconds to be ready to edit once cached). Those are the types of performance issues we'll try to improve on -- but I think it's important to distinguish between different use cases (and recognize that there are some limitations to how far we can push performance on large pages -- but there should still be lots of room for optimization at this point).

It's also worth noting that Chrome's JavaScript engine still has a bit of an edge on Firefox, although that edge has been narrowing in recent releases.--Eloquence* 06:11, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

It does load the entire page source even if you are only editing one section. A better test might be a high latency/low bandwidth connection, that's where it's really going to suck compared to the old way. Gigs (talk) 06:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

So Far, So Good

I have really enjoyed this new editor so far. I like being able to make the changes in the article without having to scroll up and down to look at the original text while editing. I also like that it also works with my browser's spellcheck function that lets me know that I've at least spelled my words correctly. I used to be a heavier editor, and I will be able to at least do some grammatical editing when I see fit because the new VisualEditor makes editing seem like less of a chore than before. The only thing that will take some getting used to is that you do not state what changes you have made until after you hit "save", which can be a little unnerving if you aren't used to it. If there are any problems, I'll make it known. SailorAlphaCentauri (talk) 03:59, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing Glitches

I ran into an interesting problem when editing a page with the VisualEditor. I made a change that ended up creating a weird format to my edit (it put my edited text into a separate box that I did not design or place there), but when I went to edit it again, I was told that I was editing an old version of the page and that any changes made would erase the previous edits. The only workaround I could come up with was to refresh the page before editing again. It's also a little weird that when I click "edit" to work on a particular section, VisualEditor will allow me to edit the entire page. I'm not sure if I dislike this yet or not, but I was surprised to see that happen. Sometimes the end is only the beginning... (talk) 04:38, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Naming new references and using rp template

I just wrote a section of an article using VisualEditor, and I was troubled by the lack of the ability to assign a name to a reference (which is what I typically do) or to have interactive help when using the rp template. I found it much easier to use the old referencing dialogs (I believe I have ProveIt). RJaguar3 | u | t 05:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Interaction of VisualEditor and Pending Changes

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52852

I deliberately edited Roller coaster, an article under Pending Changes that had an unreviewed change, using my administrator account, using VisualEditor. When editing source, there would be an edit notice advising of the pending change, which is not present with VisualEditor. Nonetheless, edits by an administrator account are supposed to be automatically accepted. Instead, my edit was made subject to review. See screenshot. I'll do a bugzilla for this, and will note that Flagged Revisions also needs to be checked for this issue. Risker (talk) 06:16, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a good catch, and I'd say that's nearly a showstopper. Definitely one if it affects Flagged revs too. Gigs (talk) 06:18, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

John McCabe

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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Moved to Talk:John McCabe (writer) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcoetzee (talk • contribs) 14:41, 3 July 2013 )UTC)

References - first attempts - ouch

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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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.

1. Clicked on the icon for "Edit reference"
2. It seemed to offer me "Create new source" or "Use existing source" but neither link was responsive
3. Then there was a blank window asking what I wanted to cite - no clues about format
4. Eventually stuck the URL into it, as I didn't see what else it wanted. Superscript "1" appeared.
5. Clicked on the icon for "Reference list": nothing useful offered (can't remember exact detail)
6. Used the "Transclusions" icon to add "Reflist"
7. No visible response to that.
8. Repeated previous step
9. still no response.
10. Went to "Save page", looked at "See your changes", observed that Reflist was added twice.
11. 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:Wikipedia: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)

I'm glad to know this has been marked ANSWERED, otherwise I might have thought there were no answers in it. The entire subject of "transclusion," including its arcane name is illusive at best. When I needed to modify a reference it showed up blue and wouldn't let me select any part of it. So, good doobie that I am, I clicked on the puzzle piece icon (a good choice because its use is puzzling) which gave me the option of adding a parameter or removing the template. I chose to remove the template. To my surprise, this also removed the content, though of course I couldn't see that until I had saved the page. Camdenmaine (talk) 00:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I now see what I did wrong, that I should have selected one of the parts of the template on the left and then I would have been allowed to edit that. But I've left my comment as was because I'm guessing other people will stumble just as I did. The visual clues of the blue box are all wrong. You click on a part of it (of course you would, because it's what you want to change), it frustrates you by not responding. Similarly the visual clues of the template parts in the left hand column are also imperfect. What makes matters a bit worse is that people insert additional information in any one of the template parts (say a comment after publisher name), and whoever wants to edit that has to guess what slot the comment resides in. Finally, the dialog box gives me an option to edit the template, but I have no idea what this means. Am I editing it for everyone, or just my copy? I can imagine someone who wants to edit information contained in a template parameter deciding that he has to edit the template to get at it. I wish I had a constructive comment to offer, how to improve the VE in this respect, but I don't. (Human interface problems are really hard.) One thing I would do in an instant is get rid of the word transclusion (which doesn't even pass spellcheck). Camdenmaine (talk) 00:48, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Totally agreed, on that: I've actually already thrown it into bugzilla:50354. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Sadly, the use of templates is much more accessible in markup (edit source) than in the VE. I am finally baffled as to how I'm supposed to enter a citation in VE using a template. When I click on the references icon, it lets me enter a citation in unstructured text, but won't let me use any of the four essential templates that are accessible to me in markup. When I click on the puzzle icon (I refuse to use the stupid name that the creators have given it), I'm presented with a dialog box which is, to me at least, completely incomprehensible. This is not a minor flaw. The entire reason for the VE is to appeal to non-geek content experts, historians, philosophers, etc. If all they're entering is text, the VE is fine, but so is markup. Where editing gets dicey is in adding citations. This is hard in markup if you use the Wiki markup icons at the bottom of the edit box, less hard if you use the Templates dropdown in the toolbar, and impossible if you're using the VE. pagnol (talk) 13:21, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

You use both of the features together: Go to the references tool to create a new reference. Once in the space where you could add unstructured text, click the puzzle piece. It will ask you for the name of the template that you want to use, e.g., cite web. Then you can fill it out by adding the parameters one at a time (if TemplateData has been processed for the one you're using, then it will give you a list of all the options). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Which raises another issue. Not that the technology doesn't work, it does. But and this is probably more important, the way it's laid out and the instructions on how to use the functionality need improving (dramatically). NtheP (talk) 11:51, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Whataidoing, you recommend "You use both of the features together: Go to the references tool to create a new reference. Once in the space where you could add unstructured text, click the puzzle piece." but when I am in that space there is no puzzle piece to click. Is this a bug? Or am I doing something wrong? pagnol (talk) 12:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Unless someone knows a quicker method, the full process is:

1. Click on the "Insert reference" icon. A new window appears.
2. Select "Create new source"
3. Click the "Insert reference" button. This opens another new window.
4. Click on the puzzle icon in the new window. This opens a third new window.
5. In the text box, type "Cite", but don't press return
6. Select the citation template, ignoring anything with /doc on the end
7. Click "Add template"
8. Fill in the details.
   1. Select the desired parameter (or type some of it in, then select it)
   2. Click on "Add parameter"
   3. Enter the data
   4. Select the template again from the left side to add a second or further parameter and repeat until finished.
9. Select "Apply changes"

That's probably much more detail than you were after, but it seemed worth putting in the steps. - Bilby (talk) 14:30, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Just gave this a whirl with a real world example. Needs a couple more steps, even for a reasonably experienced editor.

1. After sub-step 1 of step 8, add the following: Scroll down to the hidden "Add parameter" button.

2. On the end of sub-step 4 of step 8, add the following: then select "Apply changes" on the Parameters form to return to the Template form.

Comment re the User Guide: The "Adding a new reference" section should include the Parameters form.

Comment re the Parameters form: The "Add parameter" button should be near the top of the form. Downsize43 (talk) 01:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Whew. Well, I hope this is apparent to everyone, not just me, but this whole process is so deeply anti-intuitive that it simply wrecks the expectation that a new user should have when working with a "Visual Editor." In particular:

• There is nothing visual here at all.
• That you have to Insert Reference before you've entered any reference to insert is a crazy surprise
• There is no visual feedback when you select any of the parameters
• The add parameter button is hidden, who would have guessed it was there?
• The names of the parameters (in Cite Book) are dumb: for Title you have to enter Work, while Source Title means something else entirely
• That you have to select the template again to enter a second parameter is silly; the obvious expectation in using a template is that there will be multiple parameters
• The list of parameters (again I've chosen Cite Book as my example) includes no fewer than 68, of which probably 60 are used by fewer than .001% of citations

What makes this all particularly sad is that in Edit Source mode you get a toolbar Templates rollbar that is truly visual, and that has none of the problems cited above.

This is not a documentation problem; the design concept for dealing with templates in the VE is just wrong. pagnol (talk) 13:22, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

+1 - I've asked before about the design documents and user testing, if any, and got no response. It seems there was no design and no user testing before this was put live - David Gerard (talk) 13:34, 8 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)

Firefox on XP. And will do shortly. Orderinchaos 15:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Orderinchaos: Thanks :). (What version of firefox?) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

23.0 beta. And will shortly (sorry, have been horrendously busy offline.) Orderinchaos 08:47, 6 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)
  • Hear hear. Please add your comment to bugzilla. I am having trouble convincing the devs that this means the importance!=lowest. (Even though I see that Joe Decker has upgraded it, I think it's important that the devs share our view of the importance). --99of9 (talk) 14:34, 5 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)

• • Please add your thoughts there. :) I can tell people that this is an important issue, but it really conveys best if people speak for themselves. Anyone with a Bugzilla account can register a comment on that thread. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:50, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• • • I have added my thought that this bug is of higher priority than previously believed by changing the priority. See WP:BRD --j⚛e decker^talk 15:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate it's a hard problem, but the problem is now that the interface lies. You're providing section links that the person project-managing the VE says will not be funded to work. - David Gerard (talk) 07:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see the "edit|edit source" links on sections have turned back into just "edit" links, which edit the wikitext. Thank you :-) You need to correct the text at the top of this page - David Gerard (talk) 11:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This is due to bugzilla:50731 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not a specialist, but I think the section should open in a separate frame on top of the article page (while maintaining the possibility to scroll through the whole article).--Wickey-nl (talk) 09:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• Just to let you all know; we're discussing this now, and hopefully will have something for people in a couple of days. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I just don't see me ever really using VE much unless section editing is implemented, contemplating the page-loading/time-lag for some of the huge articles I edit just boggles my little non-tech mind. Shearonink (talk) 13:09, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• Any update from the dev discussion? --99of9 (talk) 09:47, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

For those who want to comment in Bugzilla threads here is a help page: WP:Bugzilla. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I find the "edit source" buttons on sections are completely useless. Simply put, nothing happens when they are pressed. This isn't a problem on small articles, but on longer ones it is extremely annoying. If the devs don't consider that a "priority bug" to fix, I assume it's only because VisualEditor is so goddamn broken that they haven't got the time. – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 13:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Michaelmas1957:, if "edit source" button on sections is not working for you, I think that's a very different issue than being discussed here, which is about how "edit" changes the whole page instead of just the section. I've taken the article Impalement, which is one of the longest pages we seem to have, and tried "edit source" on it, and it's working well for me. What happens if you click "edit source"? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I must have misunderstood the discussion heading. When I click edit source, I either get a server error message, or the page just freezes up. Partly I imagine that's a hardware issue, but my computer never has any trouble with editing usually, and generally can display VisualEditor fine. I can deal with not being able to edit individual sections, but on large articles it is pretty inconvenient. – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 13:46, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I would imagine. :/ Can you tell me what operating system and browser you are using? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

tried to add a picture. Very confusing, didn't work

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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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. ϢereSpielChequers 19:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello, WereSpielChequers. It's supposed to be able to add pictures. :/ Wikipedia: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. ϢereSpielChequers 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)

@David. Software testing is not helped by an aggressive environment, there will be bugs, we need to try and explain them in ways that let the programmers find them. I pulled out of this before because my bug reports were being archived without any response - not even "another example of bug ****", if Maggie is actually looking into bugs then I might try this again. But if the opportunity to add a caption and even alt text was not obvious to me then it won't be to those who might not be looking for it. ϢereSpielChequers 13:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to hear that, WereSpielChequers. :/ The only two reports I find from you in archives (here, here) do seem to have received response, but if I've missed any that did not, I'll be happy to try to make sure they are properly tracked. Image functionality is being improved - there are a number of existing requests related to it, and I hope that it will better meet your expectations as those are implemented. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Maggie. The first of your links is a redlink. The second links to Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_05#Spellchecking where I did get an initial response, but the problem wasn't fixed and the final post in that thread is still from me. If you continue in that same archive you find one thread I raised where another editor linked it to another thread raising the same bug, which is fine obviously I wasn't the first to report that problem. But there are four others - it looks like I was the only person testing this on the morning of the 19th May. Now that was a Sunday so of course I wasn't expecting a staff response that day, but Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_05#Copying_a_barnstar and the subsequent threads just seem to have been ignored. It is just one of those things when you test something only to find that others have already spotted that bug. But less enthralling when when your bug reports get archived without comment. So that's why I stopped testing the visual editor, if it didn't work for really simple stuff like typo fixing then there didn't seem much point testing it for things like image adding let alone referencing. I have to admit I was rather surprised when it went live this week, the sooner it goes back into testing with people who've agreed to test it the better. ϢereSpielChequers 23:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about that - I dropped the W. It's fixed now. In terms of the ones from May, I am sorry you didn't get a response to those. It doesn't mean they weren't noted, though. As it says at the top of the page, "All comments are read, but personal replies are not guaranteed." Due to the activity here now, obviously, comments would not be read if we didn't have both volunteers and staff keeping an active eye on things. It's just too busy. :) But problems are not always going to be fixed as soon as you report them. Nor will solutions be proposed or explained here. Part of what we are doing here is annotating them for the developers, who then triage and assign them (which is a good thing, because I don't understand this stuff at all :)). But that doesn't mean your feedback doesn't matter -- even if you get no more than a bug number or a question clarifying your issue, your observations could still be relate to a crucially important issue. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Maggie, I've done enough testing to be OK with being told that something is a known bug, but in my experience of software testing it is best that once you've found a few bugs you tell the programmers and then wait for them to say they have a new version to test. But its difficult to motivate myself to test when my bug reports don't even get a cursory "nuther example of problem x", and there is a nagging feeling that I'm simply wasting my time if I test something without knowing the bugs that have already been found but not yet resolved. ϢereSpielChequers 20:06, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Hopefully the improved communication we're striving for now will assist with that. :) There's a list of existing bugs linked from the top of the page that might help if you want to see if something has already been found but not yet resolved. I say "might" because I can't always tell what those bugs mean, so I have filed a few redundant bugs myself. The developers have never yelled at me for it, though - they just mark them "redundant" and merge them. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:56, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Visual Editor not loading

Yesterday Visual Editor was working when I clicked on "Edit" next to a heading on my user page but now it doesn't load even though I didn't disable it when I go to edit my user page

If you're still having the issue, please let us know! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Some thoughts

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52354

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52731

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52913

Just wanted to give some thoughts after the last update:

• First, I am glad seeing that there is a list of the parameters now when I am trying to add a "cite web" reference. The thing is that the list, personally, confused me a little and I finally ended up just typing the parameteres I need the way I was always doing. I think it would be easier for the parameteres to already being added, at least the basic ones, to the template. For example, to the "cite web" template, the parameters that most people use (title, url, author, publisher and date). So, when the editor adds the "cite web" template, would only have to add the content of each parameter and not the parameters themselves. If the editor wants to add an extra parameter, they could choose it from the list and add it. I am sure that this is difficult to be done knowing that there are lots of templates to go through but maybe keep it as a thought if it can be done?
• Why the "edit/edit source" was removed from the section parts? I know the flashing was annoying for many people, but I was hoping that both would stay without the flashing. Now if I am at the end of an article and want to make an edit with VE, I have to scroll all the way up, click edit and then find where I was since the "edit" on the section takes me to the old way of editing. Not to mention that now "edit" on the section and "edit" at the top of the article mean a different thing. :(
• And a bug I found...when I add the reference/template, if I want to edit it again it's not easy to choose it since the "blue line" that has to be on the text appears completely elsewhere and I can't click it. I took a screenshot and I could send it if it helps. TeamGale (talk) 14:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. :) I think the edit/edit source issue is a bug: T52731. Looking at the other issues.... --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

First issue - added to T52354. Third issue, I'm sure it would. :) How do you feel about uploading it here? You would license it by using {{Wikipedia-screenshot}} and naming the page, if text shows. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers Maggie and for reporting the issues to bugzilla. I'll give it a try with the upload! :) Never done it before...another new experience! ;) I'll be back as soon as possible! TeamGale (talk) 18:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Mdennis (WMF): OK...I think I uploaded it here. Hope I used the right copyrights. Notice how when I put the mouse on the text of the reference/template, the blue line appears on the title "reference content". I can't click it so I can edit the template. TeamGale (talk) 18:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Good job with the upload. :) I changed the template - in the old way of doing things, you just have to use the curly brackets. I am really too tired to do anything sensible with it right now, but unless somebody else wants to file the bug, I'll work on it in the morning! Thanks for learning new tricks for us. :D You're so incredibly helpful. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Mdennis (WMF):Oh thanks! I just saw it and thank you so much for fixing the licence! I got the notice, tried to fix it but I didn't know exactly how! It's ok...the bug can wait till tomorrow, no problem for me. I survived with it today, I can survive with it few more days! ;) You all need some rest! Thanks for everything. TeamGale (talk) 00:08, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to know if the last bug with the misplaced edit on the references template was reported? I think it not but I might be wrong... TeamGale (talk) 00:37, 6 July 2013 (UTC) @Mdennis (WMF): I know you are not here these two days, just a reminder to look at the last bug when you get back :) TeamGale (talk) 09:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I forgot! Thank you, Gale, for so patiently bringing it back to my attention. :) I'll work on it now. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you so much Maggie Dennis (WMF). No worries, I know you have many things in your mind. And I have to say that I was editing just right now and the bug seems like it has already been resolved! :) TeamGale (talk) 01:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding reference error

I'm trying to add a reference to "Steve Smith (pool player)" and clean up the page. I am unable to add a citation. This instruction from the user guide does not work: "Then, click the "Insert reference" button to open the reference editor." The reference editor does not open up after inserting a reference. Vcczar (talk) 18:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey Vcczar. I'm a bit confused by your desciption, could you clarify? You mean the reference editor doesn't open for you at all, or after you've already inserted one? (btw, improvements are coming to the reference interface. rubs palms) PEarley (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

hi PEarley (WMF). Yes, reference editor is not opening up at all. I can add a reference number, but I cannot get the reference editor to open so that I can add a book to the references. Vcczar (talk) 16:49, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

@Vcczar:, if you're still having this problem, can you give more information about your browser and operating system? I hope it's resolved. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Optout-related feedback

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52540

• I recognise that these changes have come about because the dropoff in active editor numbers, together with feedback from their prospective replacements rightly has the WMF running scared. I do see the need for them.

  I was personally one of those who managed not to notice the impending change to the interface, so I'm apparently blind. I'm also exactly the kind of person who was going to be annoyed by it----I've been editing a while, I'm set in my ways, I'm accustomed to how things are, and I'm a Linux user. (Might as well have turned off the custom interface for Linux users by default. "I use Linux" means "I'm comfortable with scary text windows full of code", "I'm accustomed to all changes to my computer interface requiring my permission", "I'm obsessively focused on increasing speed through low consumption of system resources", and surprisingly often, "I have an enormous beard". The Visual Editor might as well have a routine that detected my operating system and waved a little white flag...)

  I think the main lesson for the WMF in this was making the "turn it off!" button too hard to find. The business of trying to decrease its prominence so more users would try the Visual Editor was poor form----it was an example of the Foundation trying to manage how I spend my volunteering time. That's not appropriate, you don't manage that. In future, I'll be the judge of how my volunteering time is spent. The next time you make a change of this kind, please put the opt-out button front and centre without any fuss or argument at all.—S Marshall T/C 18:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

  • I would have to agree, although my issue early on was that it was switched on without an option to switch it off. Obviously, this has been fixed, but I would love an option to make it so "Edit" leads to the old window, instead of the Visual Editor. I too am set in my ways, and I would prefer having the option to edit the old way immediately instead of waiting a second for the option to pop up. I know it's a tiny issue, but it would be a nice option to have. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Use the gadget. Connor Behan (talk) 20:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Kevin wrote: "I would prefer having the option to edit the old way immediately instead of waiting a second for the option to pop up." You are not alone. See bugzilla:50540: VisualEditor: Display both "edit" and "edit source" links for sections without hover. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:00, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Change font/color while editing

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52456

It would be very nice to show changed text in a different font and/or color (or bg color), while editing. It helps seeing what you are editing. --Wickey-nl (talk) 09:34, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, @Wickey-nl:. I've added your thoughts to a related request for a visual "tell" to let people know when they are editing. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Keyboard shortcut has vanished

I edit on a laptop and therefore use keyboard shortcuts whenever possible. The standard keyboard shortcut for Edit (alt-shift-E in Windoze) has stopped working and the tooltip offers "Edit the source code of this page [<accesskey-ca-editsource>]". A couple of questions and a couple of comments.

Q1) which particular key combination is <accesskey-ca-editsource>?

Q2) having used the gadget to get this extension off my screen, shouldn't everything have reverted to the previous "normal"?

C1) for those of us with smaller screens this extension takes up too much screen real-estate. The edit bar at the top needs to be much smaller (I'm using Monobook with maxium screen resolution and it's still huge).

C2) the standard keyboard short cuts for going back a page in the browser don't work (alt-←) and the logical alternative of using the escape key to cancel also doesn't work. — Preceding comment added by Beeswaxcandle (talk • contribs) ; original signature removed while fixing wiki markup errors NtheP (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Regarding <accesskey-ca-editsource> this is a known bug, see bugzilla:50725. I don't recall seeing the other issues mentioned previously so they might be new, but I'm not certain. Thryduulf (talk) 11:08, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Proly it's a cog. Good people decided they had a right to intercept keystrokes. --Holigor (talk) 12:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I have not the faintest idea of what "proly it's a cog" means. This is the English wikipedia. Please use English when responding. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:56, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

If you problem has not been solved yet you may try to disable Universal Language Selector. It is a cog icon in the left panel. --93.75.134.116 (talk) 12:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Confusing

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I prefer editing as much as possible by hand, not using pop-up windows. I couldn't do the necessary edits to an articles because I didn't understand how to do the most simplest of edits (using the previous system). Kaiser Torikka (talk) 12:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

@Kaiser Torikka: sorry to hear that :(. Is there anything specific you think we can improve? (You can still get to the old interface just by clicking "edit source", of course). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

You should definitely work on how to go about editing templates. I didn't make any sense of that part what so ever. Kaiser Torikka (talk) 19:32, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of requests for modifying template editing - you can review some of them in the reported bugs. I hope that as it is refined and improved, it will work better for people. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

For short templates, display the actual source when it is selected for editing

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If a person sees "23–30 metres (75–98 ft)" and needs to change '30' to '35', editing the "Convert" template shows parameters 1 through 4, and the user has to guess which one needs to be changed. If the template editor displayed "{{convert|23|-|30|m}}" at the top of the box, the user should be able to see at a glance what do. Same goes for "{{frac|6|1|2}}" if "6+1⁄2" needs to be changed to "6+1⁄4". Obviously, this would be undesirable for lengthy templates, like infoboxes. Chris the speller ^yack 15:55, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Surely TemplateData will solve the underlying problem here? It's going to take a bit of work to roll out, but it seems to be coming along nicely. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52915

No, Chris is absolutely right, we are needing a context specific editor. There are certain templates that need to be treated in a special way because they are so common. I have a little list

• convert
• frac

Those are simple- all we need is to display the parameters so they can be changed, when focus is lost they just display. For useability you could enter the the inline-template-editor by double clicking or ctrl-shift -click.

• fact
• cn

These two are more complex as editors are there to change the *cn to a reference- of which the *sfn template is ideal. So here on a double-click, you need to change a *cn to a *sfn and enter the inline-template-editor to add the fields which are Name|Year|pp=page-lastpage. For a sfn, on leaving, you need an alert that offers to take you to the reflist to confirm or edit if that reference is missing.

• sfn

Explained above.

• efn

Simplicity- there is only one parameter. Though an alert may be needed if the Notes {*{notelist|notes=}*} structure is not in place.

• reflist-

fiendishly complex from a programming pov but functionally simple- as the functionality we need is

• add a line in wiki code- I C&P common ones from a master list of commonly used texts in field that I keep in a subpage, or as a textfile on the desktop. An easy technique to teach when you are training at a museum or library as you can give your students the file on usbstick
• change some data- for instance an isbn number

this can be achieved in a popup wikicode editor- or even gedit, vi, geaney, wordpad as no parsing is required.

• infobox

it is totally essential to just be able to change the content of a field visually. It is desirable to add new fields but this is of lower priority nigh essential, and this wont be achieved until the issue of recursive templates is resolved. (That rates as essential on my list.)

I leave the list there for a Linus test, so if you could pass this on to your dev team and ask them to add these to the functional specification. Here is an example of a sample edit for them to try Swanley it keeps coming up on my watchlist:

• first three references contain raw urls- probably could do with a *cite template her- not mentioned above
• fix a *cn
• change item in infobox
• convert acres to hectares needed

All of that could be easily achievable.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 18:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52916

No, Convert is actually a good example of where TemplateData falls over and hits the ground. The meaning of the numbered parameters changes depending on how many of them there are and whether the entry is text or a number. For example, each of the following are valid:

• {{convert|3.21|kg|lb}}

3.21 kilograms (7.1 lb)

• {{convert|3.21|mi|3}}

3.21 miles (5.166 km)

• {{convert|60|to|170|kg|lb}}

60 to 170 kilograms (130 to 370 lb)

• {{convert|60|+/-|10|kg|lb}}

60 ± 10 kilograms (132 ± 22 lb)

• {{convert|6|ft|5|in|m}}

6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m)

In those examples, parameter 3 is variously 1) The output unit, 2) The number of significant figures, 3) The upper limit of a range, 4) The measurement uncertainty, 5) The number of inches in foot-inches measurement. Now write a TemplateData description for parameter 3 (or 2 or 4 or 5)? Convert is used on 500,000+ pages, so it is not like it can simply be redesigned at this point. That said, if someone can see the values of each parameter in the transclusion window then it would still be pretty easy to figure out which one they need to edit. I would suggest that the transclusion editor needs a way to preview the parameter contents (even if just a snippet) without having to click on each parameter. Dragons flight (talk) 17:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a pretty serious challenge to me. :/ These read different, so I've opened two separate bugs, both tracked. Please feel free to expand on them there, if you can provide clarification. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Template parameters in order of where they are placed in the template

Hi, it would be nice if template parameters weren't placed in alphabetical order, but instead in the order of where they are in the template. This makes it much easier to locate and edit them (especially when it comes to infoboxes, as I always expect the name parameter to be first). Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 15:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

This is particularly problematic for citation templates which use first= and last= for names. Alphabetical ordering will make the first and last name be quite separate making it hard for editors using the standard system to see the author names.--Salix (talk): 06:31, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added a note about this to T52435 --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Table editing

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Please add the ability to edit tables (add/remove rows/columns) to the Visual Editor. Thank you. Mattsephton (talk) 16:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

@Mattsephton:The WMF is working on the tables. I don't know though when this will be ready. TeamGale (talk) 09:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Ugh

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52720

I hate it. All the [[links]] are now static and given the "./". It's annoying and can ruin articles if not done right. Hitmonchan (talk) 00:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

This is a known and hopefully rare issue.--Salix (talk): 08:09, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

CSS styles for making things visible only during VE edit mode?

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Is there any VE specific CSS classes applied to the whole page that would allow editors to create elements that are visible during VE edit mode but not visible in the main read mode? This could serve a role similar to hidden comments and instructional templates (e.g. {{use British English}}) which are intended to be shown to editors but not readers. At present the VE edit mode, doesn't allow such elements to be visible. Dragons flight (talk) 00:44, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Not currently, but that wouldn't be too hard. But let's not jump to that solution too quickly. I think we should let things settle a bit before we start using methods like that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:30, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually .ve-ce-surface could probably be used for that purpose, if we wanted to. I put it in my personal CSS to tint the VE edit window slightly green. The other thing that I would personally like to style is VE's popup windows for transclusions, etc. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any naturally way to apply user styles to that because it loads through an iframe. Dragons flight (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Changing the semantics when using <sup> and ''

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52938

In this edit [35] VE has change ''F''^''i''0 (Fⁱ⁰) to ''Fⁱ''⁰ (Fⁱ⁰). While they render the same the semantics are different ''F'' indicates a variable so ''F''^''i''0 indicates a variable raised to the variable i0. In then second version we have a variable Fⁱ raised to the power zero, (mathematically this always evaluates to 1, see Exponentiation#Arbitrary integer exponents). Even without the 0 I would say ''F''^''i'' is more correct than ''Fⁱ''. Quite a number of similar subtle mathematical formatting changes are seen in the Tag:visualeditor-needcheck.--Salix (talk): 06:57, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The correct notation for the former meaning would be F^i₀, surely? And the correct semantics for the former notation is "F raised to the power i0" (i.e. 0). Regardless, I'd suggest that mathematical notation is beyond the scope of VisualEditor. It's hardly reasonable to expect it to implement recursive subscript/superscript like that. Hairy Dude (talk) 01:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There are actually quite a lot of edits where VE is messing with the mathematical formula [36], [37]. These are often side-effects when purpose of the edit is something completely different. I know there are long term plans to do a visual mathjax editor, but it is subtly messing with HTML format maths without being told to do it.--Salix (talk): 11:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

"show changes" button like with source editor

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Would be nice to have option to show changes (in the source) when submitting, as you can already do when editing source. Maybe not by default (as the whole point of the visual editor is to avoid exposing the source to the user) but for users who are very familiar with the wiki syntax but just want to make a quick edit with the VE, it would be nice. laug (talk) 07:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

It's already available but just not 100% intuitive: you have to click on Save page to get access to the Review your changes button, edit comment, ... --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 08:06, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Unusable interface in some sections

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52854

I found that I was unable to edit a 'See also' section in the article Dumpster diving that had the {{div col|3}} and {{div col end}} tags around it. I simply got a shaded blue area when clicking on it that couldn't be modified. My browser is Google Chrome 27.0.1453.110 and my operating system is Ubuntu 12.10. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EvilKeyboardCat (talk • contribs) 07:03, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

If you click a 'blue' section, there is a puzzle piece at the top right of it. This puzzle piece is a button that will open an editor for that section for you. You are not the first to have missed it, so I have opened up a report to ask to improve this element of the user interface. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:08, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

myEventWatcherDiv

I've seen a couple of edits where odd markup is inserted at top and bottom of page, [38] added <div id="myEventWatcherDiv" style="display:none;"></div> and [39] added <embed type="application/iodbc" width="0" height="0" />.--Salix (talk): 07:31, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The first one is due to a broken DivX web extension. The second one I suspect to be this extension. There is another pattern ( _clearly_component__css ) which is caused by Evernote Web Clipper. Little we can do about it, though if it gets too annoying we can install an abusefilter to explain to people that they have broken web extensions installed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:48, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Italics followed by apostrophe (becomes bold)

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51926

[40] beginning with Sebastián Covarrubias' Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española.

In Visual Editor the text turns bold after Covarrrubias' while in normal page view it doesn't. --Darklingou (talk) 09:52, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

@Darklingou: thanks for reporting this! It looks like another instance of bug 49926. Hopefully it will get fixed soon; it appears to have been assigned to a developer :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

what is wrong with the editing system?

can not add references Hans100 (talk) 09:58, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

@Hans100: can you give more details? Is reference-adding broken, or can you not find how to do it, or...? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

SLOW

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Just wanted to point out that it takes a really long time to load, to the point that, the last few times I tried it, I thought it wasn't working. I do wonder if it's because I opened the link in a new tab. — trlkly 10:04, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

What article were you trying to edit? Your contribs don't give any clue -- in the time since the VE was enabled, your only listed edits are to a template. Looie496 (talk) 14:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

@Trlkly: yeah; my apologies :/. It's something the developers are working hard at - recently they made some changes that pushed the amount of JS you have to load on each article from 119KiB to 4KiB. A pretty impressive change, and one that I hope will be replicated when it comes to editing as well as reading :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Impossible to edit my adoption page in VE

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It seems that I cannot edit my adoptee's adoption page. Maybe it is down to the fact that I have User:Jcc/Adoption/Nav over it? Anyways, I was expecting a lot more from VE than this. jcc (tea and biscuits) 10:09, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

That entire page is structured as a single huge table, because of the transclusion. Editing of tables is one of the things that are not supported yet -- you can change entries, but you can't change the structure of the table. Looie496 (talk) 15:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I see. Well, tables is quite important in Wikipedia, so my fingers (and legs, for that matter) are crossed that the devs will fix this. jcc (tea and biscuits) 16:50, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Toggle between VE and edit-source mode

Is the following possible?
Always start in edit-source mode, but make the code invisible by default (=WYSIWYG).
With, e.g. ALT+F10, show the code and vice versa.
So, one edit mode, but two screen-versions.--Wickey-nl (talk) 10:27, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

@Wickey-nl: that's on the developers' to-do list, at least as something to explore :). The analogy I would draw is with Wordpress, where you have one tab for rich-text editing and one tab for the markup. It's a very complex technical problem, though :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

One could also think of the good old WordPerfect, destroyed by Microsoft, which had a separate codes-frame at the bottom.--Wickey-nl (talk) 11:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

WordPerfect is not completely destroyed, although I do recall the slogan for early Windows developers: "The job ain't done till WordPerfect won't run." (Quoting a Microsoft employee who wishes to remain anonymous; and besides, I don't remember who it was.) I'm using version X5 (the sequence was 10, 11, 12, X3, X4, X5, X6, for triskaidekaphobes.)

Attempting to change a link results in unwanted and potentially misleading pipes

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52945

At Eltham Well Hall rail crash#See also I attempted to change the first link from Morpeth rail crash to Morpeth rail crashes (both redirects to Morpeth rail crashes). The VE did change the link but piped the original text - [[Morpeth rail crashes|Morpeth rail crash]] [41]

Further testing in my userspace shows that this happens regardless of the status of the link:[42]

1. [[Morpeth rail crash]] → [[Morpeth rail crashes|Morpeth rail crash]] - both redirects to the same article
2. [[Paddington rail crash]] → [[Ladbroke Grove rail crash|Paddington rail crash]] - bypass a redirect
3. [[Castle Hill Railway]] → [[Castle Hill Railway|Bridgnorth Cliff Railway]] - disambiguating a link (a very likely use case)
4. [[Great Western Railway]] → [[Great Western Railway|Midland railway]] - two separate articles.

Because piped links are not shown, the VE gives no impression of having done anything. Indeed after trying to change the first link twice I was expecting to come here with a report that the link wasn't changed. It wasn't until I looked at the source that I saw what happened. Thryduulf (talk) 10:34, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

My test suggests that this is what always happens when you change an existing link instead of removing the link and changing the text. (I changed one of those links to "Lady Gaga", and it still piped - did not save, for obvious reasons.) This makes sense to me, since it's not the text editor, but it will be less efficient. I wonder if this could be resolved by some kind of tick box to change the text displayed or something, @Thryduulf:? Do you think that would be an improvement? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:54, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

There are three things you could want to do:

1. change the link without changing the text (e.g. [[Mercury]] → [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]])
2. change the text without changing the link (e.g. [[Mercury (element)]] → [[Mercury (element)|Mercury]])
3. change both (e.g. [[Mercury]] → [[Freddie Mercury]])

At present it seems that the visual editor always assumes you want to do 1 and unless you delete the link completely there is no way of doing otherwise (although see below for how that can go wrong too), but for beginners I'd say that 3 should be the default. There needs to be some way to set the target of a link independently of what is displayed, and I'm not sure how best to do that but maybe an option on the link dialog called "display as" or something like that would be the way to go. Thryduulf (talk) 14:22, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much. :) I've added this to bugzilla. Please just drop a note below if I've mistaken something. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Let me sign!

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There really needs to be a way for me to able to sign with VisualEditor, as I always end up making two edits when VE adds nowikis around the tildes. -- ^(T) Numbermaniac _(C) 11:16, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

VE is only enabled in article and user space, so why would you want to sign any contributions in those two areas? NtheP (talk) 11:29, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

CVUA courses. -- ^(T) Numbermaniac _(C) 11:35, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Fairy snuff. 4 tildes is markup so not surprising it isn't accepted. Wonder if this is on the devs to-do list? NtheP (talk) 11:52, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hope it is. -- ^(T) Numbermaniac _(C) 11:58, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

From my understanding, you shouldn't expect this to happen any time soon. The support for "user" pages is intended to allow people to develop articles in their user space. There is no support for talk pages and won't be any time soon (see WP:FLOW). What you have set up is basically a group of talk pages that are not in a talk page domain (sort of like the Reference desks, Help desk, ANI, etc.). The developers would be going way far afield if they tried to support that. The solution is simply not to use the VE on those pages. Looie496 (talk) 14:52, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

User:Looie496 took the words right out of my mouth. Supporting discussion pages is something that will be built, but as part of Flow, rather than as part of the VisualEditor (although Flow will include a stripped-down VE). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Very slow speed of VE #1 issue

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The VE is still unusable for me due to a huge increase in load and save time. Please don't take the edit source option away while this issue continues. Lesion (talk) 13:29, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

There are no plans to take the source editor away, the two will run in parallel for the foreseeable future. NtheP (talk) 13:51, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Template Data

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I've added template data to Template:RCDB put nothing comes up when I try to add it to an article using VE. What did I do wrong?--Dom497 (talk) 13:37, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

It takes a while for new TemplateData to propagate into the system. Looie496 (talk) 14:40, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I have fixed it by doing a nulledit on the template itself. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:07, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Template edit causes piped links to display as code

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52909

When a template call has been edited, VE often displays some of the piped links as wiki code. For example, edit Luton, click the infobox and then the puzzle piece to edit the template. Make any parameter change or no change at all and click "Apply changes". A lot of the blue links in the infobox are now rendered as black pipe code, for example [[List of towns in the United Kingdom|Town]] instead of Town. Note: No nowikis have been added by VE here. This is about VE's own rendering and not code pollution with nowiki tags. On the plus side, this error means you can actually see where piped template links go. This normally appears impossible in VE. Other errors in VE's display after the template edit are a false Cite error about missing {{reflist}} (bugzilla:50423), and the coordinates displaying at the bottom of the page instead of the top. I think VE could really use the "Show preview" button of the source editor which actually displays the page as it will look when saved, including categories, clickable wikilinks in templates and captions, and other details missed in VE. It could also use the one-click "Show changes" with return to editing instead of the cumbersome and illogical three-click "Save page", "Review your changes", "^". If Review your changes also displayed the rendered page below (correctly as in the source editor) then it would be helpful. Ironically, VE often makes it harder than the source editor to find out what your edit will do. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I reported that bug with the transclusion editor for you. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Another try editing: Ouch

I've tried the editor again on List of Metal Gear characters, and it's awful at the moment. I try to edit, and the thing takes forever to load. Then it doesn't go to the section I want it to go to, then when I try to review the change I made, that takes forever. Then when I try to save the change, it takes forever to save. In fact, it took so long that I reverted to editing the source code. I agree with one of the other users who commented here now: it seems far more like an alpha than a beta. I know these issues are probably common, but I really needed to put my thoughts here. --ProtoDrake (talk) 14:00, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a very long article with lots of sections and 178 refs. I think we'll have to accept that the VE needs some optimization before it is effectively usable for articles of that size. It ought to be possible to solve the problem of section-edits going to the wrong place, though. Looie496 (talk) 14:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Preformatted section editing loses all blank lines

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52906

Using VE, editing a section delimited with <pre> </pre> markup will result in all blank lines in the section being unexpectedly removed. Bevo (talk) 15:24, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Here's a diff showing the issue. Looie496 (talk) 16:00, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Well spotted, I have reported the problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor

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This is amazing <3 Works so cleanly, looks incredible.

Glad to see my donation being put to good use!!

Cheers guys. Samcooke343 (talk) 16:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. :) I'm glad it's working for you; the developers are continuing to work on it to try to make it a good experience for everyone. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Speed, Edit Summary, and Limitations

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Speed: It is very slow to the point where I'm using it less.

Edit Summary: I wish this appeared at the same time as you edit (as in "Edit Source"). I can't remember everything I changed! I usually include the grammar rules.

Limitations: How does one edit links in Visual Edit? Can we? I think a much better visual format without Wiki markup would be what the Harry Potter Wikia (and maybe more, but that's the one I'm all over) does. It is seen more like an email where you can add links, change text formatting, and add references with the push of a button and filling out of a form without having to search through all the references and watch out for links with different names as sometimes occurs with Wikipedia source editing.

Thanks for trying something new, though, Wikipedia! It's exciting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JustAMuggle (talk • contribs) 17:32, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, @JustAMuggle:. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about it. :) Speed has been improving over the last few days, and I hope that it will continue to get faster. One can edit links - The user guide talks about how. Unfortunately, there do seem to be some limitations there at the moment - I've just added a note for developers to consider how to allow people to change the text that displays in addition to the target of the link without having to first remove the link altogether. I hope they can come up with something soon! Speaking just from my perspective as a volunteer editor, you don't have to mention everything you do in your edit summary. :) If you want to mention a couple of major things and say "general fixes" or something like that, that should usually be fine. I often use "tweak" or "CE" (for copy edit) in my own edit summaries. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

how do i turn it off

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i have like 10,000 edits, i think i can manage without this bloated slow awful thing Decora (talk) 17:33, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Copied from the FaQ at the top of this page: Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 18:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

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 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.)

where is the preview button?????????

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gde preview button??????????????? Decora (talk) 17:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello. You can see the preview button when you click on "save". A dialogue opens where you can also write your summary. TeamGale (talk) 18:04, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Highly edit pages

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I know there has been much discussion about the problem of edit conflicts but I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before (I thought I saw something but couldn't find it). The slow speed of the editor can make problems for even simple edits on highly edited pages which are already difficult enough at times. I believe there are plans for much more sophisticated edit conflict management including allowing some form of real time collaboration but just thought I'd mention it so the team get an idea of where things stand now. I also believe I did get some edit conflicts where the section had not been changed but I'm not sure of this as I wasn't aware it was a point of contention. I did encounter what appears to be a bug. Sometimes even though I just used the edit link on the page rather then specifically viewing an older revision, I ended up editing an older version (i.e. I was warning I'm editing an older version). I presume this warning was accurate although I never confirmed that I killed older edits, of course I probably would have been edit conflicted anyway. (I think I may have had this once or twice before with the source editor, over the years but if it still happens it's rare. I must have gotten this 6 times or so the other day when dealing with the Egyptian coup article.) One thing is this must be difficult to test in the real world, you need to wait for a major event to happen. So a better bet may be a sandbox with a bot editing every minute or so. Nil Einne (talk) 18:59, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Missed the bug since the description didn't mention edit conflicts and I must have forgotten to search for older but see it's already been filed [43] Nil Einne (talk) 19:37, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

And speak of the devil Asiana Airlines Flight 214. Nil Einne (talk) 20:03, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Nil Einne. That one is high priority, I think. I know that developers are aware of and focused on it. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Copy-pasting to another page still loses formatting

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This was reported last week here and tracked as Bugzilla:37860 which has been marked as "resolved - duplicate of Bugzilla:33105"; but 33105 has been reassigned to cover only copy/paste from external sources. Its comment 9 dated 29 June says "With this change: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/13423/ rich copying and pasting from other ve instances (same wiki, same browser) is supported." But it doesn't work - see this result of copy-pasting a formatted section from the beginning of User:JohnCD/VEtest. Maybe that change is still in the release pipeline; if not, can we reopen this? JohnCD (talk) 19:11, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I unduplicated it - David Gerard (talk) 20:29, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Mishandling of a redirect

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52898

Most of the time the VE link function seems to be aware of redirects, but I stumbled on the following example that it doesn't seem to understand:

[[Hands-on universe|Hands-On Universe]]

When edited with VE, if you open the link it complains that the page Hands-on universe doesn't exist even though it does (and has for many years). Maybe it is something to do with the fact that the link and display text differ only by casing? Not sure. Dragons flight (talk) 19:19, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

It's because it matches on the redirect Hands-On Universe which indeed is of a different casing and matches a case insensitive compare most likely. It seems that the first match is always the final match, and thus the editor assumes there is no match for Hands-on universe. Well spotted, I have filed a report. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:09, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't search on hidden text - eg link targets - not bug 50646

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I raised this on Weds 3rd, and it was marked as "tracked" by T52646, but that doesn't seem to hit the spot. I'll repeat my point here:

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?

If I'm looking at incoming links to an article, perhaps because the base name is about to become a dab page, I sometimes find that they're piped links, and not visible in the article text. With Edit Source, once I've opened the editor I know I can find a piped link using ctrl-F "Find". In VE there seems no equivalent. Look at my example above. The linked bug doesn't seem to address this issue: I don't want to have to hover over each link in turn to see its target URL, I want to be able to search a massive long article to find the one or more piped links I need to tweak. PamD 21:12, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Is bugzilla:49928 more like it? — This, that and the other (talk) 01:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, which has the same question but where the responses don't really seem to get the point as yet. I've added to the discussion there to clarify this requirement. PamD 09:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Allow for Switching Back and Forth At Will Between Visual and Source Without Losing Progress

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52698

One thing I don't particularly care for about the VisualEditor is that you either have to edit entirely visually or entirely in source. If you want to switch (say you started in Visual, but you want to switch to source to get something fancy working), you have to either discard your changes or save a partial edit in visual and create a second edit in source. What I want to see is a means of switching between the two at will within the same edit. Wordpress does something similar where you can type up a blog post to switch between visual rendering and HTML source using tabs surrounding the edit window. You can switch between visual and HTML at will and each will be updated. I want to see the same thing with the Wikipedia VisualEditor. -Thunderforge (talk) 21:32, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, one of the early prototypes had Source and Visual visible side-by-side. Chris857 (talk) 21:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

They don't necessarily have to both be visible at the same time (in fact, that might be somewhat confusing and perhaps wouldn't work well on mobile devices and tablets if the VisualEditor is going to be used there). But I would like some way to switch between the two without having to discard an edit. Again, the tabs on the edit window that Wordpress uses are one excellent way to do this: they allow the edit space to be swapped out, providing a compact way to easily switch. A picture of it can be found here. -Thunderforge (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I've tracked a bugzilla request with the same intent and am adding your comments there. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Request for Yes/No Buttons when Leaving Page w/o Saving

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52955

If you open a page in the VisualEditor, make a few changes, and then decide to hit the "Cancel" button, you get a message that says "Are you sure you want to go back to view mode without saving first?". The options are "OK" and "Cancel", which aren't really proper answers to this yes/no question. As such, I'd like to request that instead the buttons be replaced with "Yes" and "No", which are clear responses to the question. -Thunderforge (talk) 21:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I've put your request into Bugzilla. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:42, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Changes rendering on page

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It seems that when I use the Beta Editor, as long as I am editing the normal page gets scrunched. MeanMotherJr (talk) 22:19, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, @MeanMotherJr:. :) I appreciate your giving it a try and offering your feedback. If this is still happening (they are rolling out fixes cosntantly), can you clarify a little more what you mean about the normal page getting scrunched? I assume this is a display issue when you are editing? Can you tell me what browser and operating system you are using? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello, @Maggie Dennis. I am using Mozilla Firefox 23 on Windows 7 Service Pack 1. It was a rendering issue where text and pictures would get misplaced and would either overlap each other or leave the margins. However, it is no longer happening, presumably fixed by an update. Thank you for your support!

So happy to hear that. :) Thank you! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Review

This new way of editing sucks. You can't properly review your edits to make sure your edit actually works before saving. This is especially true when it comes to things like adding links. Stephen Day (talk) 22:24, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Stephen Day. Sorry to hear that it's frustrating you. I just wanted to ask if this is a problem you are encountering when using "Review your changes" before saving (The user guide has a screenshot), or if you were unaware of the option to Review. Either is an issue, but they are different issues. :)

I see you ran into a problem with your edit that is not at all uncommon for experienced editors. I've done it myself. Those of us who know how to do wikilinks sometimes put the markup in directly through VisualEditor, and since VisualEditor does not do links in this way, it assumes that the brackets you've added are meant to be visible. It adds the "nowiki" so that they are. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

VE link suggestions don't include relatively recent articles

When editing Viareggio train derailment#See also, the suggestions list didn't include Lac-Mégantic derailment (the link I was trying to add). Obviously we can't expect instant updates, but the Lac-Mégantic article was ~5 hours old when I made my edit [44][45]. It really needs to be quicker than this as major news events often quickly gather inbound links from all sorts of related articles. Thryduulf (talk) 22:25, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I assume this has something to do with vague and mystical processes such as "server refreshing" (which may be a nonsensical combination of words). Does anybody else know? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Section titles should be included in edit summaries when VE is called from a section edit link

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52872

Even though section editing in VE is a long way off, it would be really helpful if the title of the section you click edit on was automatically included in the edit summary in the same way that the source editor does. For example, when making this edit I launched the VE by clicking on the edit link for the "See also" section, so I was expecting the edit summary to begin with the usual "-> See also". This provides context for the edit summary and so helps give context at recent changes and on watchlists.

I'll put this in bugzilla myself, but I thought it useful feedback to have here too. Thryduulf (talk) 22:34, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for tracking that. Until the section editor in VisualEditor actually works only on specific sections, I suspect that one won't be implemented, since people can actually edit anywhere in the article. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Add close buton [X] in popups (when displaying edit notices)

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52956

Hi, I'm from pt.wiki, we display edit notices when editing so some users can't figure out where to click to get ride off the pop up, I suppose not all people know the modal concept at all. Dianakc (talk) 23:43, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I just found the suggestion above, thanks a lot that is on the way, so I'd like to suggest:

Remove weird padding inside the flyout popup. I 'm not sure others but the editnotices seems strange inside the flyout because there's a weird padding inside the popup, without the padding the templates would look nicer (there´s already padding in most edinotices templates by default). Dianakc (talk) 23:56, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. :) I've now opened a request for this. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:01, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Visibility of comments

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51603

Sometimes when editing the source, editors will leave comments to other editors that are not visible to readers, e.g. "Please do not add X to this list" or "Discussion has established the following consensus". These need to be visible to editors using the visual editor too. I just came across this by finding some excess whitespace caused by a badly placed comment that couldn't be removed in the visual editor. Hairy Dude (talk) 00:01, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This one is on the to-do list, I believe. :) I've added the tracking number above. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Saving an edit using the keyboard

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52897

What is the series of keystrokes necessary for quickly submitting an edit by using the keyboard? It used to be that I could edit source, then use TAB to add my edit summary and then just press ENTER to press the "Save page" button. (I could also use TAB+SPACE to quickly mark the edit as minor, just before saving it.) Now when I go to save the page I cannot find any obvious sequence of keys which will save the page without having to use the mouse and press the button manually. It is very frustrating and makes using VE clunkier than just editing the source. Elizium23 (talk) 01:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I have filed a bug report to make Escape key cancel the edit. I think we do need to take a hard look at keyboard use of VE if we ever want experienced editors to be able to make regular use of it. I would file a new bug for keyboard stuff for submitting an edit. Since we've already gone the route of heavy JS, we could really make it a single key combo, as opposed to needing to tab around. Gigs (talk) 04:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

And for the saving part, I filed bugzilla:50897 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Code View

Where's the code view? I work better in that — Supuhstar * — 05:07, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. If you have the "edit" view open there should be another tab at the top that says "edit source". I believe you can look through your preferences and disabled the VisualEditor so that the normal edit tab does not lead you to the "WYSIWYG" editor. Killiondude (talk) 06:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

What is this?

I didn't ask for it to be turned on, and why isn't there a visible "turn this off" button next to it? – SmiddleTC@ 07:40, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This is how it'll be from now on, there should be an option in the preferences to turn it off, or you can just click edit source to edit the source. -- ^(T) Numbermaniac _(C) 07:52, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, but I have to say that whenever you force a new feature on the user, it's very important that it's easy to turn off. I found it on 'Gadgets' but I think it would make sense to have it on 'Editing' too. – SmiddleTC@ 08:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This beta editing thingy crap

Please get rid of it ASAP. Niemti (talk) 10:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

You can disable the visual editor by going to your preferences and selecting the first option in the "Editing" section of the "Gadgets" tab.

It would be helpful though if you could say what you don't like about it so that the devs can work on fixing those issues. Thryduulf (talk) 10:57, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

It's FUBAR, completelty. --Niemti (talk) 12:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The WMF coders say "Don't worry, it just has a few bugs!" but The Truth™ is that VE is a bug! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:11, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

please change it back

it was much easier the old way please change it back or give us the option to change it back to the old way Stevendsi (talk) 11:35, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The old eiditor has not been taken away - just choose the "edit source" tab (top of page) or link (section edits) rather than the "edit" tab/link. You can also choose to disable the visual editor completely by going to the gadgets tab of your preferences and choosing the first option in the "Editing" section. Thryduulf (talk) 13:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

adding edit comments

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52961

One thing I don't like about the new visual editor compared to the old process is the way you comment changes. With the original editor I would always enter my comments before I went to review/confirm the edit. That way I wouldn't forget and if I was OK with the review I could just hit confirm. I prefer that way of working to the new visual editor where there is a drop down box only when you go to review/confirm the change. Perhaps it would be possible to utilize both techniques? To have somewhere you can fill in the comment first and then review/confirm but also be prompted for a comment when you do review/confirm if the comment hasn't already been filled out? Also, as I read some other comments I just want to say good job on the Visual Editor and don't be discouraged that some people hate it, its inevitable, people hate change. Mdebellis (talk) 11:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

You are the second person I've read today who has requested this. :) I've filed a request. And thank you very much for the encouragement. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox magically disappears on BAC One-Eleven

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52366

The infobox on BAC One-Eleven decided for some reason to disappear when editing with VisualItsNotReadyButWe'llPushItOnTheWikipediaCommunityAnywayEditor. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 14:23, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This has the same root cause as a similar issue with styling templates for table cells. As a template writer myself btw, these infoboxes are pretty 'dumb'. The project should really look into moving away from such 'partial' templates. They are even less understandable to 'normal' people than plain infobox templates and I expect that in the long term, with TemplateData coming and everything, we wouldn't want to support them anymore as a community. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm so glad you know that. :) Thanks for linking the bug! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:25, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

too slow

this is waaaay too slow for my laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo T5670, 4GB RAM). Don't even make me think of using this on my RasPi! Enormator (talk) 15:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I understand the speed has improved and is still improving - I hope that you will find the issue diminishing as it does. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Opening external links

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52966

On the whole, I really like it. It's basically intuitive and seems to have massively improved since I first tested it out. The main problem I'm having involves the amount of effort now required to open external links in references (especially those using {{cite web}} etc). As far as I can tell, I have to click on the footnote, then the icon, then the text of the reference, then another icon, then the url parameter, and once I'm done copy and pasting I have to close two pop-ups. Is there any way around this that I've missed? It's not an error or a bug, but it's the main barrier to efficient editing that I've encountered so far. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if there's a way around that - I've pop this in Bugzilla however. :) Hopefully if this is the only path, it'll be streamlined! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Disappearing reference

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52896

When I pull this revision into VE, reference 1 appears blank. Looking at the revision, it is not blank. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Second bug. At the same revision, if, in VE, I place the cursor to the left of the line that begins "The Peach Springs Trad....", just after the malformed comment, then press backspace, in the hopes of starting to delete said malformed content, the entire infobox disappears. This is quite startling. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The second problem is because the infobox is between the malformed comment and the "The peach springs" line. I agree though that it is somewhat confusing, since the floating nature of this infobox disconnects it from the cursor position you are currently at. A similar problem exists for templates that don't even produce visible contents, and I have attached your experience to that report. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:30, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, the how to deal with the floating elements thing from a UI perspective is a difficult issue. You might consider looking at other software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, which faces similar issues to see what the state of the art is. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:07, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor refuses to deactivate

I want to use regular wikimarkup editing, but VisualEditor keeps appearing even when I disable it in Preferences. Needless to say, this is a very annoying bug, currently making it impossible for me to edit, because my tablet refuses to work with VisualEditor. – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 16:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't you have an "edit source" tab displayed, even with the Visual Editor enabled?—Kww(talk) 17:02, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, good point – it's working now. Thanks. – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 17:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Still impossible to edit sections, as opposed to the whole article – edit source tabs just don't work. But my main issue is, is there any way I can just deactivate the whole goddamn VisualEditor? Why doesn't it go away when I disable it in preferences? – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 17:08, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I had this for a little while, and somehow managed to fix it. Try making sure you hit the save button (easily missed as its down the bottom of the page), restarting your browser and clear your cache. For me the I was using the secure https version of the site when I had the problem, and things worked better when I switched to standard http. If all else fails you could try switching javascript off.--Salix (talk): 17:22, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing

I don't like the additional way of editing. I prefer the older way. I feel the newer way (less technical looking) will only allow more people to mess with Wikipeia. The older way prevented it due to it's "programming" look. Mcadwell (talk) 17:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• See the FAQ at the top of the page. Generally it is not believed that this will be the case, but the vandalism level is being monitored to see whether it does have any impact. Apparently the initial figures are suggesting that it is not making a significant difference. Thryduulf (talk) 17:52, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

My opinion

I personally find the VisualEditor appealing when all I want to do is make minor prose alterations, but as I often want to make sweeping edits to infoboxes, references, templates, categories and so on I find it isn't really particularly helpful for me in most cases. I refrained from comment for a while, thinking the VisualEditor might grow on me, but so far it just hasn't. I think the vast majority of serious Wikipedia editors will prefer the old system for the moment, but I realise the VisualEditor is in a very early stage of development so I will keep an open mind for the future. This is a good project and a definite step forward if we can get it right, so we should push on with it. I recommend that the developers focus on getting notes and references sorted out as a main priority. —Cliftonian (talk) 17:50, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, and I appreciate your keeping an open mind. :D I hope that it will become more useful to you in more sweeping edits as it goes - the community has really put some great ideas and feedback out there for developers to consider. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Categories: please display them in VE - not the right bug

My comment of 26 June got tracked as T52239, but I don't think that hits the spot.

I want to be able to see the categories when I've got an article open in VE: just as I can see them when reading the article, or when editing it in Edit Source. I don't want to have to click on "Page Data" to find out whether or not it's already got categories.

That bug is more concerned with another of my problems with categories: not being able to see the article while adding the categories. Not the same problem. PamD 17:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Ghislain Montvernay (talk) 18:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

@Ghislain Montvernay: Your idea is mentioned (visible categories in VE editmode), is mentioned in the comment of that bug. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

That was actually PamD - Ghislain just put his signature here. :) Pam, if you think it's not exactly right still, can you add a note? Or ping me, and I'll do it. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

"List of Publishers of Children's Books" "Heirloom"

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The link goes to a general Wikionary page defining the term heirloom, rather than specifically to Heirloom press. So kill the link! Kill it, kill it, kill it! Pittsburgh Poet (talk) 18:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I have removed it. If the company is notable, and somebody writes an article about it, a direct link can be added back. JohnCD (talk) 19:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Clear opt out

Doubtless there is some way to opt out and by the time you read this I'll hopefully have already found it. All the same, my first experience with using thi... your product was slow, unpleasant, and buggy and my first instinct (since I'm already comfortable with Wikimarkup) was to turn the d... your product off.

It's not an obvious option on the page ("edit" goes straight to WYSIWYG); it's not an option in my user preferences (even under 'editing'); and it's not available as a huge button within the WYSIWYG editor itself. Frankly, given that user experience is the only thing we're working on here and there's no advertizing money being made by a establishing such a user-unhelpful experience, that's nuts.

I understand why you're doing this and good luck to you (albeit I imagine retention is more an issue of bureaucratic capture by obscure committees, code bloat (especially unhelpful template formats like {{zh}}), and general noob-biting rather than any problem with barebones markup itself). But the difficulty in turning this thing off needs to die a fiery death. All the other regulars must've been telling you the same thing already, so it's a little baffling it hasn't already been implemented.  — LlywelynII 18:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah. New "edit source" button (obviously I'd prefer a "VE edit" but that's a matter of taste) and it's under "gadgets" in the middle of a long list of other random dreck. This is a huge thing: you really should make it more prominent within the page. People will not naturally look under "gadget" for it (why would they?), let alone halfway down the page. Move it to "edit" or the front page of the preferences. A prominent switch-to-code button within the VE itself would also be welcome.  — LlywelynII 18:56, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, the option to turn it off in Gadgets simply doesn't work half the time. I have to turn off Javascript to make it go away, which means that all of my web browsing (not to mention many Wikipedia functions) is affected. I can see the value of a visual editing interface, but at the moment it's still too damn buggy. – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 19:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

@Michaelmas1957: If it doesn't work half of the time, than that is likely an indication that you have another JS installed that is broken, which depending on how quick each of the parts loads, will cause a failure and stop other scripts from executing as well. You might want to look at your collection of javascripts and verify if they are all in working order. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Not sure how to do that on iPad. Apple doesn't offer a whole lot of settings beyond "Disable Javascript". Anyway, it's not a disaster, just inconvenient. – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 19:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

2 versions of VE ?

Hi, since the management of the VE project doesn't seem to take into account any of the concerns of many experienced users saying that VE is just not yet ready for production (the one week delay clearly isn't an answer to that concerns), I'd like to suggest an idea : would it be possible to have all features that are not really finished only accessible to users that would opt-in for them ? That way, unexperienced user would get a basic version of VE but without the parts that are clearly not finished, and other features could still be tested by volunteers.

In the features that are not really finished, I would put without hesitation template editing, media editing, reference editing (because none of them is currently easy to use and doesn't promote good practices, rather the contrary). Then, we could really start a discussion on each major feature about what possibility it should bring to users.

For example, for template editing, I think the most pressing issues are : parameters are sorted alphabetically, you can't see all the parameter values in a glance, adding parameters is difficult, TemplateData is not used enough. For image editing, I think the most pressing problems are : size specified by default (against all MOS), caption is not requested when adding an image (separate action), alternate caption is not possible. I haven't played with reference editing, but from the feedbacks I read, it seems worse than the current Cite extension. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 18:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry to disagree, but the principal reason for introducing VE is to enable contributions from a wider variety of people. References are the most important part of contributing to Wikipedia. The only new contributors we wish to attract are those who will source their edits. It therefore doesn't make sense to release VE without the ability to create and edit citations properly. If the citation features aren't ready, then VE isn't ready. - Pointillist (talk) 21:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I too must disagree. I am deeply critical of the design of the reference implementation, I feel that it is superficially technically excellent and logical, but that it entirely misses the point of how references are used, creating an unusable mess. However, making it impossible to edit references, as your plan would do, only makes the problem worse. Moreover, forking VE into multiple versions would only annoy and divert resources from the enormous efforts devs are putting into making things better. In short, your proposal would be worse, in my view, for everyone concerned. --j⚛e decker^talk 21:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Having two versions of VE would be a programming nightmare. The solution to concerns over making VE the default ("Edit") for IP editors is simple: Don't until there is a stable, production version in place. Adding IP editors to the mix accomplishes only one thing: it allows the VE team to say "We hit this milestone." It doesn't help with testing (there is more than enough feedback, to date, from experienced editors, to keep the developers busy for quite a while, and more than enough criticism - of, for example, the quality of the UI for editing templates and citations - to keep the team busy revising the UI for quite a while); it's going to take resources away from the VE team (if they continue to review most or all edits tagged with VE). But turning on VE for IP editors is a milestone, and the VE development team doesn't work for this community, they work for WMF management, which has expectations about such deadlines.

It's possible that the only way to stop the further rollout of VE on the English Wikipedia is to ask the WMF Board to intervene. That's hardly desirable; perhaps someone higher up on the management side will agree that where we are is far enough, implementation-wise, to start consolidating gains - to clean up the bugs, and to look at UI improvements that will convince a larger percentage of experienced editors to start using VE. But given that the developer team has not shared with this community a list of their "blockers" to the IP rollout, let alone asked for community input regarding such a list, it's possible that trying to get the WMF Board to intervene is the only viable recourse this community has. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

It's actually rather troubling that the question "are there any blockers?" needed to be asked - a quick glance at this page and the red-coloured bugs on the "known bugs" list linked above would show everyone there are many. The questions should have been "How many blockers are there?", "Which ones are they?" and "How long will it take before all of them are fixed?". Rolling the product out to everyone is not any sort of beta testing, it's a full release. Rolling a product out as default, even to a limited set of people, before it is feature complete and free of critical bugs discovered in prior testing is not beta testing - it's alpha testing. Thryduulf (talk) 23:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, on that front, just to clarify; I wasn't asking because I don't think there are any blockers (heck, I threw a whole google-doc of them at the team on Thursday) - I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any. The kind of process we have for making a go/no-go decision is an excellent opportunity to surface really high-priority bugs, so I wanted to ensure I wasn't missing any big ones through sleep deprivation, overwork or simply, well, probably spending less time here than you guys collectively do ;). You'll be pleased to know that the reference and template inspectors'....unique formatting was on the list. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

To address John's point; I don't have a concrete list of blockers to hand, I'm afraid, merely a list of things I consider blockers that I forwarded. In the future if you're interested in looking at the list, you can just ask for it and I'll see if I can rustle it up :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:43, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Documentation

At mw:Help:Contents, there are more than 20 help pages on how to do editing, pages that do not reflect how to edit using VE. Is the VE team responsible for updating this documentation, and if so, does it have a target date? If not, why should the English Wikipedia community (volunteers) be expected to do this?

(It's true that there is now a user guide for VE, but it is far less comprehensive than the above help pages, taken as a whole.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it has always been the case that most of the editing help pages were written by volunteers. It is an issue though since this transition creates a situation where most of the editing help pages are either out of date or missing. Dragons flight (talk) 23:25, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I totally agree, on both points - while they are volunteer-maintained, we have sort of...dated them, through this release :). updating the help pages is listed as one of the tasks we'd really love volunteers to engage with; I'm doing some work tomorrow with User:Rannpháirtí anaithnid on the matter. If you're interested in helping, pick a prominent help page and, well, help out! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it will be hard to get experienced editors to write documentation pages for the new editor while it is largely perceived as buggy and incomplete. Many of the experienced editors who might help in other circumstances presently seem more interested in simply learning how to turn the visual editor off. Dragons flight (talk) 09:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Enough of us are bloody-minded enough to keep testing the VE anyway (it may be buggy and occasionally horrible, but it's testable and it's really important), perhaps some will feel in the mood for the docs even if you and I aren't - David Gerard (talk) 09:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I opened a thread at the Village Pump. The task is complicated by some issues. One of these is the decision to roll out only in the Article and User namespaces, which means all other namespaces use the "old" way. Another issue is that for some things a user will have to use the "old" way.

There is also a broader question about the take-up of the Visual Editor. This question means we need to ask ourselves whether it is productive to do a big overhaul of help and documentation pages. If <10% of people use the Visual Editor then really should our documentation not focus on the 90% who use the Edit Source UI, with just passings notes on the VE (and possibly a separate single page of help/documentation cover it's functionality and coverage). --RA (✍) 09:24, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest that we simply add a paragraph to the beginning of every help page recommending that the editor disable Visual Editor and giving instructions on how to do so. Until Visual Editor actually works, there's not a lot of value in having instructions on how to use it. Any help pages devoted to using Visual Editor should be bundled together in a "how to participate in the beta trial" area.—Kww(talk) 17:22, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I would concur with the suggestion that the VE may not be sufficiently developed as yet to be worth writing help pages for. The interface for the hard bits is, frankly, hideous. The reference editor, for example, looks very like there was literally no design input (and I've asked for links to any such a number of times, and got tumbleweeds in response). The interface needs someone to actually design it - then it will be worth documenting - David Gerard (talk) 18:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there clearly is a problem with the last-minute additions to VE (references and templates), where the developers' priority seemed to be to get something to work regardless of design issues. Even some of the older design is questionable - for example, how to return to editing if one doesn't like what one sees in the "show differences" screen. So yes, maybe a deal with the developers - they stabilize the code, add the obviously important but still missing features (really, one can't add a row to a table?), and improve the user interface design (about which lots of experienced editors would, I'm sure, be willing to suggest specific fixes), and then we do the documentation. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Subwindow scrolling region for toolbar access?

It's kind of a pain to have to scroll up to get to the toolbar when editing the end of a long article. The wikitext source editor solves that by using a subwindow scrolling region so the toolbar can always be on screen. Is that a good idea for the visual editor too? It would also make it more obvious that you're editing instead of reading. Pointer wrangler (talk) 23:02, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The visual editing toolbar does seem to stay locked to the top of the screen for me (Chrome 27). What browser are you using? Dragons flight (talk) 23:22, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Serbianboy-Mozzila firefox 22.0

It is confusing, and I don't really like it very much. But I like the idea for the references I had problem copying source text. Gonna feedback along the way. VuXman ^talk 23:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Change of behavior for lead edit link

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Hi. Although each section has an edit and source edit link, the lead now only has an edit link. Previously, this link allowed editing the lead source. Now, it invokes Visual Editor. Now I have to actually copy, paste and alter an edit source link to achieve lead editing. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 23:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• The edit link for the lead section is provided by a gadget rather than being part of the core functionality of MediaWiki, and it appears that the gadget has not been updated to deal with changes brought by the visual editor. There is a little bit more on this in the #Cannot edit section 0 section above. Thryduulf (talk) 23:56, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Red links are blue

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T39901

Red links are blue in the Visual Editor until I save. This is unexpected (at least for me) and has caused me to miss an incorrectly spelled link target. Tobias K. (talk) 00:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes this a desirable feature and there is a bug report for it. There are also related bugs about link colouring annotation for external links (T40726), interproject links (T35084) and stubs (T39902). --Salix (talk): 05:25, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

What happened when I tried to change captian to captain...

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I think you guys might want to see what happened when I attempted to change "captian" to "captain" in a couple of articles: [46] [47] Greengreengreenred 00:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The wikitext has a bug there where it is missing an open table tag. See this section on that page. Parsoid stumbles on this piece of wikitext which has a missing open table tag. We will try to improve our handling of such wikitext, but at this time, a simple fix would be to edit the source to add the "{|" tag there, save it, and try editing in VE again (to verify that everything works as expected). Ssastry (talk) 03:28, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Disable Visual Editor

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This visual editor is a baffling, time wasting, piece of work. Where is an easy "disable" button to get rid of this thing? Why in the world do you want people to use this thing? I see no advantage to it and the user's guide is not helpful in the least.

My vote is to dump the visual editor project, kill it before it gets out of beta. Ande B. (talk) 02:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Ande B.: To disable: Preferences > Gadgets > Editing (section) > checkmark for "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" > Save

Re voting: Wikipedia, unfortunately or otherwise, is not a democracy. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

You can make a comment at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor#Call for audit and rollback.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the info re disabling and rollback. I had just checked back here to apologize for being so cranky. (I just got out of the hospital and feel dreadful.) But I was really flummoxed and disheartened by the Visual Editor. I can usually navigate new interfaces pretty quickly but, sheesh. Not this time!

I didn't even realize that the "feedback" feature, which popped up without prompting, was going to put my remarks on yet another WP page or what the "feedback" would be used for or by whom. Which indicates to me that even the feedback feature for this project is needlessly opaque. What would have been helpful, instead of the feedback prompt, would have been a link that said, "Want to use the old interface? Click here."

BTW, I can see why you would take me literally, but my comment re voting was just a figurative way of expressing, yet again, my utter dissatisfaction with the project.

Anyhow, thanks for the tips. Ande B. (talk) 04:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

clicking section edit links while viewing a 'diff' edits the wrong version

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52925

Click a link like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New%20Zealand%20English&diff=0&oldid=123 and then [edit] on one section - the old version is presented for editing instead of the newer version.

Clicking [edit source] instead of [edit] does edit the newer version of the page. K7L (talk) 04:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I hate the Visual Editor, which is terrible in its editing process. Wikidude10000 (talk) 04:46, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Wikidude10000:, nice, I hadn't noticed this, since I have previews disabled when I open a diff —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:30, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@K7L:, whoops, pinged the wrong person there I think. Thank you for the report K7L ! —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:47, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Overlapping of templates in edit view

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52970

When editing Taza, I note that the {{Infobox Weather/concise C}} template overlaps the {{Infobox settlement}} template, obscuring it sufficiently that one would not be able to see errors that would need to be edited. I also note that the "location dot" on the infobox map shifts very significantly when in edit mode, with the location name overlapping the legend, and the co-ordinates duplicated. Risker (talk) 05:07, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Whoa. I'll see if there's anything already in Bugzilla about that. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Note to me - ASAP. Unless somebody else gets to it first. (Sorry! Urgent phone call.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Done! Thanks, Risker. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Template editing

Template editing is a slow and confusing mess. I have to scroll down and click for every parameter - this makes quick editing very difficult. I do not know which parameter is which, making it a slow and laborious task Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 06:49, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, just realised that 'edit source' takes me to the old-fashioned way of editing. I like the move generally but template editing needs fixing. Also I need to be able to move the dropbox around so that I can see the template itself on the page as well! Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 06:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for the difficulty; there's a lot of outstanding improvement requests on template editing, which I hope will make this easier, including sortable parameters. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Change in how to Edit > Confusing

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What have you done??? You've made it nearly impossible to edit the page and to add new information! Where is the window that reveals codings and citations that can be used as examples for creating new references with citations? The way to edit a page wasn't broken before ... why did you find a reason to break it? Pyxis Solitary (talk) 09:17, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

You're going to have to disable it. The code may load by default, causing some browsers hang. Read the notice above: Go to Preferences, and at the Gadgets tab, add a check to "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface", then save. NintendoFan (Talk, Contribs) 09:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

You can also just use "edit source", which will take you to the old style. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:07, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

No media handler for basic images

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53126

When a file is directly included, e.g.

• [[File:Smile.png]]
• [[File:Smile.png|25px]]

Clicking on it doesn't cause the media handler to appear (no media icon to click and no size selector).

I do see that using the "thumb" style, e.g.

• [[File:Smile.png|thumb]]

Works correctly. Chrome 27, if it matters. Dragons flight (talk) 10:13, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding a link over another link behaves badly.

Consider:

A [[B]] C

In VE, select the entire phrase "A B C" and attempt to add a link to the page "Dog".

The Visual Editor result is to expand the link but ignore the new requested target, resulting in [[B|A B C]]. Dragons flight (talk) 10:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

See also my reports at #Attempting to change a link results in unwanted and potentially misleading pipes and #Changing link text often results in bad code, wrong links and unmatched </nowki>s. I've not bugzillaed them yet as I was wanting confirmation/someone who can translate them into dev friendly language. Thryduulf (talk) 10:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I can't reproduce this when waiting for the link target to be resolved before pressing [enter], but if I press [enter] before the result for the search is displayed, I get the behavior you describe (plus a display issue with the dialog). Let me know if this does not capture your experience accurately, or feel free to comment directly in T51941. Eloquence* 00:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference Bug - need triple click to show transclusion handle - handle misplaced (Chrome)

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Example of the misplaced template selection box that is unreachable for me

For me (Chrome 27), when a reference contains a template, e.g.

<ref>{{cite web|url=http:www.go.com|title=This}}</ref>

I am completely unable to edit this. I select it, the reference icon appear, and I can open the popup window. That's where things fall apart. I am unable to select the template or get a transclusion icon to appear. If I hover over it, a blue box appears but it is displaced far above and to the left of the actual reference text. If I try to move my cursor over to the blue box, it disappears as soon as I move off the reference text. Since I can't open the template, I also can't edit it.

Thus, it appears that I am unable to edit any reference that includes citation templates (which is a large percentage of all references). Dragons flight (talk) 11:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

What is your example that is failing? I am working with Chrome 28 on Linux and I was able to do exactly what you are talking about. One problem was, in fact, getting the transclusion icon to appear so that I could edit it -- this tricked me for a minute. If you double click at the start of the template inserted material in the reference dialog, you will likely see a blue band near the top of the dialog box and the transclusion button on the upper right. This appears to be a problem with the formatting of the dialog box in Chrome (have not tried in other browsers). (if you see the same thing ... let's reword the title of this section to indicate the bug for pickup) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added a screenshot above. When I hover over the template within the reference editor the blue selection box ends up out of bounds. If I try to bring my mouse to it, then it disappears as soon as I move off the true location of the template. I never seen the transclusion puzzle piece and there appears to be no way to use the mouse to open the transclusion editor under these conditions. Chrome 27.0.1453.116 m on Windows 7 Ultimate SP 1. I even tried restarting the browser with no luck. Dragons flight (talk) 00:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Could you try a triple click in the dialog box and see what you get? I was just editing and needed to triple-click to get the transclusion icon to show. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that works. If I triple click on the true reference location, the transclusion icon appears on the misplaced blue bar and I am subsequently able to open it. Now if someone could explain to me why triple clicking works? (Double clicking definitely does not work.) Dragons flight (talk) 00:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I had the same problem on Firefox and Maggie Dennis (WMF) reported it in bugzilla. Maybe can add the problem with Google as well? For me now it works fine. Till it get fixed I was using the arrows on my keyboard to manage select the reference and edit it. Triple click is really weird...I'll have it in mind if it happens again! TeamGale (talk) 00:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52991

I've seen this bug pop up before, but it seems to be elusive, possibly some kind of race condition. I'll file it so we can at least track it. Eloquence* 00:46, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Some tags are not properly escaped

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Typing certain tag based code into VE such as:

• <math>1+2=3</math>
• <ref>Hi</ref>

Will result in these items being treated as true wikicode after saving. Other tags such as <nowiki> and <span> are properly escaped and only regarded as plain text by the visual editor. Dragons flight (talk) 11:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Good find! This is a bug in Parsoid. Threw it in bugzilla T52944. Ssastry (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Fix deployed. --GWicke (talk) 01:02, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing "hidden" templates?

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51806

I can't edit hidden templates, that have no visual output (like use_dmy_dates at the top of Otto I as example). Apparently there is no clickable area assigned to such templates. Suggestion: assign a small area with the transclusion puzzle icon to highlight a "hidden" template in that area of the article. (Ignore at will, if this is already noted - i couldn't find that bug in bugzilla). GermanJoe (talk) 11:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Known issue —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Monitoring formatting problems inserted by VE

I set up a simple filter to monitor for "nowiki" being inserted into an article. It's a pretty good indicator of an article being mangled because of the interaction between Visual Editor and the user. You can see the real-time list at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:AbuseLog&offset=&limit=500&wpSearchFilter=550 . It's pretty illuminating. At the very least, it's a good list of articles that need some love and attention.—Kww(talk) 14:52, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for making this. It will be good both for fixing bad VE edits, and hopefully so that the devs can figure out how to prevent some of these problems. Chris857 (talk) 15:48, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

New Editing Layout

I do like what you did with this new editing system on Wikipedia. But you need an option that reverts the editing text back to the original format older Wikipedians were using. Rowdy the Ant talk to Rowdy 16:47, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

It should still be available as "Edit source". There's some debate, I gather, about whether to change those names to make that more obvious. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:13, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

This thing sucks

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Old style was fast and reliable, I can't do anything on this. Ail Subway (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Ail Subway: You can always edit the old way (select "edit source", for articles and in userspace, rather than "edit"). And you can disable VisualEditor (and then you'll just see "edit", for the old wikitext editor). To disable VE, when you're logged in, go to your Preferences (upper right on your screen); then on the gadgets tab, in the Editing section, select "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface", and save your change. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Link completion fails to find short names

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53013

The link autocomplete function fails to find many short page names and regards them as redlinks, e.g. A, B, To, Hi. Dragons flight (talk) 10:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I presume this is because of case insensitive compare problems, as you note, these have all counter parts/redirects in another case. Linked the issue. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:09, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think this is the same issue. With the prior example, there was a case choice that it definitely knew existed and it would find. With these both a and A are considered missing. Similarly for Hi, hi, and HI are all missing. If I had to guess, I might imagine the problem is something like:

• User enters $str.
• Autocomplete looks up at most X number of strings beginning with $str.
• As more than X strings exists starting with $str, it may be that the exact match $str is not necessarily in the first X results reported.
• Consequently for short strings there could be some non-trivial chance that the exact match is not reported back to the autocomplete function.

Dragons flight (talk) 16:26, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I suspect you might be right, Dragons flight. I changed the bug number in the tracked template to a new one I just filed. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Attempts to delete or cut section header fail

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51452

In visual editor, if you select a section header and attempt to delete or cut it, the result is code like:

==<nowiki />==

Which essentially leaves an empty header in place of the existing header that one tried to remove. Dragons flight (talk) 11:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

This has been noted before. When I questioned this, I was told I was doing it wrong - David Gerard (talk) 13:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

On one level, that is true - you can usually avoid this problem by deleting more carefully - but this is still a bug that needs to be fixed. Empty headers shouldn't be allowed. There is bugzilla:49452, which has been classed as an "enhancement" for some reason. (By the way, I hope it wasn't me who told you you were doing it wrong!) — This, that and the other (talk) 10:19, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Old revision notice

I understand that the old revision alert given when making a second edit is a bug, but it's also in the way of the page itself (so this would apply when you really are editing an old version of a page). When editing the source, the warning that you're in an older version is just a wide but short banner, but in VE this is a narrow but long bubble that covers the edit space, which is very distracting. You shouldn't have to click on the bug notice before being able to edit. Reywas92^Talk 13:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you think of a better way to display it? The problem with horizontal banners is that they vanish when you scroll, which means that if you scroll immediately before something has finished loading...you get the picture. Personally I think that, absolutely warnings of "if you hit save on this you'll undo all of the future edits" should prevent you from editing until you've acknowledged them. (the specific bug is itself now fixed; went out yesterday evening, I believe). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thumbnail resizer non-functional

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53026

When preexisting images are specified with "thumb", the VE interface allows one to stretch the image. However, it appears that resizing such images has no effect as the changes in size are not saved. Dragons flight (talk) 13:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Bugzilla'd :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Manipulating templates?

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52359

Are we suppose to be able to drag, cut, or copy templates? I've tried, but so far it appears that templates are immovable. Obviously we ought to have the ability to reposition templates as needed. Dragons flight (talk) 13:43, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

ooo, nice point. I just tried to move a quote template in Clinton Presidential Center and it seems glued in place ... can't cajole it to move; it is currently placed between the section header and the first word of the section paragraph and one cannot select the template along to cut and move that way. Appears the only way to move a template right now is to edit-source. Input from others? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:26, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

In bugzilla; thanks :). It's a feature we need, but not one we currently have. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Parsing failure on 2012 Olympics

On 2012 Olympics the editor craps out somewhat after the "Sports" subheading. From that point on much text is abnormally small and the links and images remain clickable in the editor (i.e. clicking on them causes you to leave the page rather than edit the element). Dragons flight (talk) 14:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I found the problem. There was an unclosed <small>. It appears the current parser essentially closed this shortly afterwards at the start of a new table (or some such thing). The Parsoid system on the other hand seems to have choked on it and didn't process the part of the page after that unclosed tag correctly. Dragons flight (talk) 05:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Oy :(. Suggested resolutions? Really we shouldn't have unclosed tags, but.... Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, we shouldn't have unclosed tags, but really there are a couple parts to this. 1) The existence of unclosed tags shouldn't cause VE to fail. Whatever else is done, VE ought to know how to recover from bad user input. 2) A decision should be made about when to close the tag. Doing so at the end of the next highest container, e.g.

<p> ... <small> ... </p> automatically converted to <p> ... <small> ... </small></p>

Would seem sensible, though as far as I can tell neither Parser actually uses that rule right now. 3) It would be good to give the user some warning about unclosed tags so they can be fixed more thoughtfully. Dragons flight (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Link tool allows for malformed links

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T35094

The link tool allows the user to enter nonsense that will appear as if it is a good link until after they save.

For example:

[[ <abc[]> {{main}} [[567]] | My link ]]

The link target on the left hand side of the pipe contains multiple examples of code that is not allowed to be included within a wikilink, and yet the link processor will happily allow you to add any of that as a link target and not reveal the problem until after the page is saved. Dragons flight (talk) 14:49, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

An old bug that is back again: bugzilla:33094. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:23, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The newline symbols

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T50290

Sometimes VE inserts a newline symbol, ↵.

It doesn't do this with every newline, which I would say makes them confusing. If they aren't always present, then when are they present and what meaning are they intended to convey? In addition, they are "editable" but not functional. In other words, I have the ability to delete them when editing but according to the diff nothing changes. Since removing them apparently doesn't do anything, I'm not sure what is the point? Decoration? I have no objection if the developers want to consistently use ↵ and tie them directly to the newlines. As is though, I think the user would be better off if the haphazard and non-functional symbols were simply removed. Dragons flight (talk) 15:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

This is one of the few features that really makes VE somewhat useful. In WP:Accessibility, it says "When editing, never break up a line unless absolutely necessary, as the easiest way to edit with a screen reader is to navigate line by line". Chris the speller ^yack 18:11, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

See #In edit mode, a category appears as non-alpha characters below. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

So VE finally has a useful feature, which allows editors to improve Wikipedia from an accessibility viewpoint, and now they want to rip it out? Why not spend some effort to fix some of the actual bugs instead? Chris the speller ^yack 16:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Chris, if you read the bug removing it is only one of several options we're considering. What is being discussed is a way to identify newlines that is more intuitive and transparent. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

How is it useful? I can't even figure out what rule Mediawiki is applying. It is some newlines but not others. Nor is it triggered consistently by the presence of several newlines in a row. One can have several line breaks in the source and HTML with no symbols and in some cases there are strings of newline symbols (↵↵↵↵) when there is no line break in the HTML. I agree that it could be useful if there were some rhyme or reason to it, but right now I regard the unpredictable placement of the symbols as more confusing than helpful. Dragons flight (talk) 16:19, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Not at all clear how to create a redirection page

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T49328

I put "#REDIRECT Joseph L. Rauh, Jr." in the box and there was no option to preview until after I had clicked "Save Page". Then it became clear that the editor had nowiki'ed my redirection. So how to I get what I want? None of the (unhelpfully obscure) icons seems to be for creating a redirection. Dominus (talk) 15:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no method for creating redirect pages via Visual Editor at present. You should create the page using the "edit source" tab and enter the wikitext you have there just as you would in the past. Dragons flight (talk) 15:16, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there a bugzilla for this? Seems like it'd be a useful feature to have. Theopolisme (talk) 16:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The wording of such an enhancement request might go something like: Provide a "create redirect to this page" link in the _Toolbox_ (left-hand panel) which opens a) a dialog which pre-populates with the page name, b) provides a selection of anchors existing on the page to choose from (excluding citation-related anchors) and c) provides a lookup for addition of one or more R-templates (Redirect description templates). ← this would be a great addition, I think. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

There's a bugzilla entry at bugzilla:47328 that seems to cover this. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

VE added extra whitespace before a wikilink

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53024

In this edit, VE added an extra space between "1965" and "[[novel]]" in the first sentence of the article. (This edit also removed the infobox but that was "my fault" insofar that it is my fault that infoboxes seem so easy to accidentally remove.) Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 16:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Orange Suede Sofa; now tracking :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Server errors

I decided to give VisualEditor another try, but it keeps failing to complete edits – it just brings up a "Server error" message. My internet connection is fine, and the same problem does not occur when editing the same text with the usual wikimarkup. Why make VE the default system for the whole of Wikipedia, if you don't have the server capacity to handle it? More to the point, why can't we choose to opt in to VE, instead of having it forced upon us (also, as I've said before, the Gadgets option to disable it doesn't work). – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 16:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Michaelmas1957: does this happen mostly when, for example, you open the edit window and then spend a lot of time editing before saving? It's not to do with server capacity, it's to do with the edit token expiring - which happens with the source editor as well. This is a known bug, and one that is being worked on. As said, if you do not like the editor you can still edit in markup using "edit source"; I'm sorry the gadget isn't working :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Italicizing or bolding a trailing space

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53023

A common way to highlight/select a word or phrase is to double-click a word, or double-click and hold and drag through following words in the phrase. This also highlights/selects the following space. Clicking on the "Bold" or "Italics" symbol adds the closing markup after the trailing space. Seems to me that there is no point in having the markup after the space, and it makes the source ugly and confusing. {Firefox 19 on Window Vista) Chris the speller ^yack 17:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I can see it myself; reporting. Thanks :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:19, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Please don't ever bring up Linus' Law in connection with the VE

Linus' Law - "Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone." - only works in an open source project run as a functioning bazaar model - where there are not only lots of bug reports, but where random passers-by can effectively contribute. MediaWiki is free software, but has long run on a cathedral model where effective development is a WMF house project; and the serious problem with barriers to outside contribution has been a long-running issue. You don't have the co-developer base, and one wasn't developed for the project. So you see bugtrackers that look like the one at OpenOffice.org used to - with hundreds of thousands of bugs and only twenty devs to work on them. So please just stop saying that, and take it out of the intro of this page - David Gerard (talk) 18:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

If the development environment isn't open to volunteer devs that's something you should bring up with Sumana and her team; I know they're trying to solve for. We've got several volunteers working on the VE, with focuses as wide-ranging as browser support, RTL work and (either) Math or general-LaTeX support (It was one or the other, and I can't remember, which is dumb of me). Looking through the gerrit queues for the VE and to a lesser degree, Parsoid, I can see quite a few volunteer contributions. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

In edit mode, a category appears as non-alpha characters

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T50290

I was editing House of the Virgin Mary using Visual Editor, and I noticed the following characters at the end of the page (following External Links): ↵↵↵↵↵↵↵↵ ↵↵. My first inclination was to delete these as I assumed they were stray text. Then I thought better and decided to review the change. Deleting these characters would have deleted Category:Christian sites of the Roman Empire, which happens to follow an HTML comment associated with the preceding category:

[[Category:Islamic pilgrimages]]<!--not bogus. revered by Muslims as well. There is a kiosk catering to Muslims there --->
[[Category:Christian sites of the Roman Empire]]

-- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I'm not sure whether if/how this fits in with the description in #The newline symbols earlier on this page. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

P.P.S. I'm using Firefox 21 with Windows 7. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:23, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

You can't remove categories by deleting/backspacing text in VisualEditor - try and try all you like (even select all and backspace), but it is impossible. The only way to remove categories is to use the "Page settings" dialog.

As for the ↵ characters, yes they are ugly, and there is a suggestion to get rid of them: bugzilla:48290. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Several bugs attempting to work with Visual Editor cleaning up Ernestine Eckstein

1. I've previously noted the problem VisualEditor has where it won't, in many circumstances, allow the removal of a space between a period and a following reference. Note that the attempt to fix various WP:PAIC issues in this diff was able to do so with respect to refs 1,3,4 as I requested, but not with respect to reference 2, as I requested. That is bug 1 in this report
2. Edit, using VisualEditor, the "Early Life" section at [48]
   1. Place cursor to the right of the period following reference 5
   2. Press backspace
   3. Move cursor to left of reference 5
   4. Type the period symbol (effectively fixing a WP:PAIC issue here.
   5. Note a problem in that there appear to be two lines following that paragraph, before the quote. That is bug 2 in this report.
   6. Move cursor to the second of those two blank lines
   7. Press backspace
   8. Note that the entire quote, following the cursor, has been removed from the article. This is unexpected, as the quote follows the cursor. That is bug 3 in this report.
   9. Press [UNDO] (Crtl-Z)
   10. Note that the quote is not restored via Undo. It is impossible to correct the bug in bug 3 using UNDO. This is a particularly bad bug when one has, as I had, makes twenty-some other corrections before hitting this bug in the same edit, and has to abandon them all to preserve the text. This is bug 4 in this report.

Enjoy! --j⚛e decker^talk 22:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed report! I've filed "bug 3" (which seems to be the most severe, and possibly one and the same as the unintended whitespace) as T52995. Eloquence* 01:20, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm a little disturbed by UNDO not working, but perhaps once 3 is fixed that will work too. --j⚛e decker^talk 06:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Editor timing out

This might have already been brought up, but the editor times out after a while. I sometimes work on edits over a period of several hours, but with VE I have to re-type the content (fortunately, I foresaw that that might happen, so I replicated the content in Word). It would be handy if the developers (those poor slaves - I'd hate to be them right now!) could implement a way to refresh the editor without eliminating the new content.--¿3family6 _contribs 23:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you give us some more details on what happened, and how it differs from the experience when you edit wikitext?--Eloquence* 00:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

(a more focused request for details) I am using DSL and an in-home LAN connection and I do see the lengthy period, but it does not time-out. Are you using either a dial-up connection or a slow wireless connection? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

My wireless here is 72.2 Mbps. I did put my computer in hibernate at one point, but I left my browser open. When editing Wikitext, sometimes I get a message to the effect that the session expired, but all I need to do is hit the save change button a second time. Visual Editor does not do this. In this particular case, when I tried to add references, it wouldn't add the cite web template.--¿3family6 _contribs 02:03, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, so the problem is that it times out not loading, but refuses to save? What message does it give you? I suspect this is the problem of edit tokens expiring. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

In this case, I didn't get any message, I as just re-opened the editor and pasted in the changes after the references would not save. Previously, it just won't save any changes, and won't leave a message.--¿3family6 _contribs 12:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor "needcheck" tag woefully optimistic

I've looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&tagfilter=visualeditor-needcheck and compared it to Filter 550 and it's pretty obvious that monitoring the tag alone doesn't give a feel for how many edits are being corrupted due to people misusing Visual Editor. People that want to mitigate the damage being done should be paying active attention to Filter 550. Filter 550 simply monitors the insertion of "nowiki" tags so it has some false positives, but my estimate is that about 80% of these are cases of VisualEditor not recognizing that the editor has inserted markup.—Kww(talk) 23:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

"Needcheck" is intended to identify edits where Parsoid/the VE has potentially borked something; it doesn't hunt for nowiki tags, because strictly-speaking they're not a bug at the software end. We are working on ways to (for example) prompt users who start entering wikimarkup into the VE. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Preview font too small

The font in the preview is very small, making it impossible to read the text. CuriousEric 23:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Are you referring to the "review your contribution" which is available between editing and saving in the Visual Editor or the Preview available when using the Classic Editor? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@CuriousEric: are you using Monobook? If so, this is a known (and a bug that's being worked on). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:30, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference numbering problem (might have been reported before)

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52474

I am working with the article Methyl iodide. I find that the number of references is different in the article vs. in the article-in-edit-mode. I am currently attributing this to one primary reference residing in the infobox on the page. Wondering if this is something observed by others. Thanks. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You're on the right track. The reference inside the infobox displays as a number, but isn't presented in the reference list.—Kww(talk) 01:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Ceyockey: exactly :). It's been observed, and is being worked on - see 50474. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:27, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Transclusion Helper Mess

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52728

An example of the dysfunctional display created by the transclusion UI.

When one has TemplateData available and you try to add a new template, the UI attempts to provide a list of possible attributes along with various textual descriptions. That said, the present result appears to be a giant mess. As shown in the provided image, some of the field description run out of the window (with no horizontal scroll bar provided). In other cases, multiple items get stacked on the same horizontal line. It seems very dysfunctional at present. In fact, it is so bad that I wanted to stop and ask if it is just me? Is this a problem with Chrome in particular or is everyone seeing this kind of a mess when they attempt to add a template like {{cite book}}. Dragons flight (talk) 04:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The display width issue (text out of view and not scrollable) is known and high priority -- unfortunately our three VE front-end devs were sick today or it might already have been fixed. (While it's cut off in the list view, you do see the full description when you actually add a parameter.) I've not seen the messy layout issue before and can't repro with {{cite book}}. Can you give exact steps to reproduce and browser version? Independent of these issues the template dialog needs a fair bit of UX love still.--Eloquence* 06:08, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a known in Firefox, too (as is the UI love); this is bug 50728 and 50458 respectively. Thanks for reporting this instance, Dragons flight; it's useful to know it happens in Chrome, too, and I'm updating the bug to reflect this :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Problem with image and other information in an infobox

When I open Japan Airlines Flight 350 to edit, with VE, the image in the infobox now takes up half (or more) of the entire editing box, and the rest of the infobox information isn't visible on the screen. Very problematical. -- John Broughton (♫♫)

It appears the template is essentially asking for [[ File:Airplane.jpg | 250pxpx ]], with an extra "px". The current parser apparently is happy to render that as if the size specification was "250px", but apparently the Parsoid system used by the visual editor aborts and gives a full sized image. If we were starting from scratch, I'm not entirely sure which system would actually make more sense, but given the millions of existing pages, we probably want Parsoid to have the same behavior as the previous parser. Dragons flight (talk) 05:20, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Possibly, but do we know how common this kind of problem is? If it's just occasional typos we can probably solve for it at the community end - if it's more systemic, I think a bot would probably be better than building gross tolerances into the VE. Ultimately we can choose where to spend our developers time, and there are a lot of open bugs that are only solvable by them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I suspect that there are almost no examples of a user intentionally entering pxpx. The underlying issue is that the template had a field called "image_size" that expects a plain number and appends "px" to it when constructing the image link. However, some users will (not unreasonably) think to do something like "image_size = 250px", which is how one ends up with "250pxpx" in the file request. The current parser doesn't see any problem with that. I found a second example of this error (involving a different template) while doing a brief search, but because it is a combination of template design and user error, I don't think these things will be all that easy to identify. Dragons flight (talk) 18:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Fruit of the Holy Spirit template, paragraph divisions; unclear.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53015

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53009

When I opt to visually edit Fruit of the Holy Spirit, I find the first paragraph becomes bifurcated (after "likened to trees,") and the second part of the paragraph is treated as a transclusion for some reason. This is Firefox 22.0 on Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit.

Also, are we going to add blockquote support? Thanks. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 06:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh lloyd. Good bug! I'll throw it in bugzilla. Blockquote support in terms of allowing blockquotes to be edited, rendering them properly...? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I meant editing (I can't at all, at least); as for rendering in my browser they also render with ~1.5 line spacing in edit mode, but normally in view mode. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

They should be editable; if you click on one, do you get a little puzzle-box icon? Click on that, see what you see :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

No such luck; I only get a tooltip, "Sorry, this element can only be edited in source mode for now." These are blockquotes written in the source with <blockquote></blockquote>, for example, lede at Plato. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This is bugzilla:51009. It is still "unprioritized", but I daresay it would be quite low on the list of things the VE team has to do right now. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference in image caption

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52459

How should one edit a reference in the caption for an image using the VisualEditor? Thanks. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 06:32, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

bugzilla:50459. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:40, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant!

Great to see the new editor live on wikipedia! Toby (talk) 07:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Toadams: thanks! Let us know if you see anything wrong or broken; we'll do our best to fix it :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

VE's vicarious changes

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53017

I was about to congratulate VE for making it easy to clean up some wierd formatting added by some broken browser extension [49]. This can be tricky and tedious to do with the source editor, but VE made it easy, so +1 there. However it didn't work so well for cleaning up the same formatting bugs in the template. VE could not parse the template parameter correctly and split some parmeters into two.[50] A case of junk in, different junk out. Overall a score of 0 for VE.--Salix (talk): 08:29, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Salix alba: I'm seeing a broken link, but no parameter-splitting :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Wait, I see what you mean now; the "revenue" param? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It split "product" and "foundation" creating two unnamed parameters. --Salix (talk): 08:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

If I look at the source view of that edit, I can't see it. It shouldn't be moving revenue and location to the same line, but I can't identify newly-created null parameters. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Missing keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts appear to be missing for most of the buttons in the VE ribbon. Particularly there seems to be no way of activating the "Save page" button without switching to the mouse. In the hope that I might be able to get to it by pressing TAB multiple times, I tried such, but all I achieved was to cycle through every link on the page except those on the ribbon. Being able to select the page options faux-menu for category additions by a key-press would also be useful. (I've already suggested ESC elsewhere for cancelling the whole edit.) Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

There's no shortcut for save; what else is missing for you? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:46, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Uncreating links

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52868

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53018

A coupel of issues with links:

a) When a link is selected the icon for "clear formatting" lights up, but clicking it does nothing.

b) I highlighted some text to create a link, pressed CTRL-K then realised I had selected the wrong text, so I pressed ESC in the hope that that would stop the process. All that I succeeded in doing was creating a link to a non-existent article called by the highlighted text. If I can create a link with a keyboard shortcut, then I should be able to uncreate or stop the creation process with the keyboard too.

After some experimentation, I've found a mouse work-around (click the dangling link icon and find a tiny rubbish bin in the top right-corner). Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm finding the same thing with clear formatting. A "get me out of here" keyboard shortcut would be good. Will post both to bugzilla :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Now tracked :). Thanks for the helpful bug reports! Keep them up (although hopefully you won't find much more to report. Knock wood ;p) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Images displayed on wrong side and uneditable

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53039

When editing lung, the first three images are displayed as a single item on the left instead of the right, and can't be edited. --WS (talk) 11:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This one is quite interesting. I tried to reproduce the issue in my sandbox by copying the images in the page itself: Test 1. Since i could edit that page just fine i added a larger share of the page and found out that it stopped working. Afterwards I have been removing sections until I reached the point where i ended up with a page identical to the page in the first edit Test 2.

If you diff these the result will tell you that both revisions are identical. Yet for some reason the visual editor can edit the first revision just fine, and breaks on the second. On first glance i would state: "This doesn't make sense to me" Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 11:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I have e-mailed jforrester about this a few times but heard nothing. bugzilla:50165 was created to track this, but because of the intermittent nature, it was erroneously deemed "fixed". — This, that and the other (talk) 12:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems it was written down as a caching issue / something an update fixed. Seeing i copied the content to a new page i can't imagine that this is caching (Especially since the Lung version doesn't work, my first test does and my second test doesn't). Can't imagine this being a regression either, seeing the time frame of the succeeds and fails. Now what is the correct method to report this - a new bug report mentioning the old one? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 12:49, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Here is another example where this happens: gallstone, the first three images after the infobox. --WS (talk) 13:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually two occurrences within that page: the two images under diagnosis as well. --WS (talk) 13:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Progress indicator only visible at top of page

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When clicking edit, a progress/busy indicator appears at the top of the article. However when you click one of the section edit links, the only noticeable change is that that the text goes gray and moves around, giving no further clue that anything is happening at all, unless you scroll all the way to the top of the page. This is especially problematic with the still quite long load times of the editor. --WS (talk) 11:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

bugzilla:50206. — This, that and the other (talk) 12:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

What does add content do?

What is 'add content' in the template dialog supposed to do? The only thing it seems to be doing is add the text I enter after the end of the template syntax. Either it is broken or it is useless. --WS (talk) 11:54, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It actually allows you to add arbitrary wikitext to pages, but that's not the real purpose. For more about this feature, you can read mw:VisualEditor_talk:Template_test, where I asked a similar question. — This, that and the other (talk) 12:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Now try to convey that in the UI... --WS (talk) 13:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The end of WP:ORDER?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52882

VE takes no notice of the rules laid out by WP:ORDER for the order in which elements of an article should appear. As an example, I added a third category to Permyak Salty Ears (it's a sculpture I was stub-sorting!). VE put it at the end, after the stub category and inter-wiki link, separated from the other two categories.

I raised this issue a long way back and was told that order of elements is a project-specific issue.

So has English Wikipedia agreed to abandon WP:ORDER (aka WP:FOOTER or Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#Order_of_sections? If not, then the developers of VE need to take it on board. WP:AWB can sort this out as part of its general fixes: if nothing else, can't the developers of VE copy the logic it uses, and use that logic in deciding where to put new elements added by editors?

I haven't checked what happens at the top of the article - eg the rule that navigational hatnotes go above everything else (for accessibility issues) - but it would surprise me if VE is getting that right either. ... pause for quick experiment at User:PamD/sandbox for VE ... no, of course it doesn't. Nor does it add new maintenance tags within an existing {{multiple issues}}, as Twinkle would. In short, VE is dumber than two existing facilities - AWB and Twinkle - where it ought to have learned from them to create a wonderful user experience. We aren't there yet.

OK, I've for once managed to search Bugzilla successfully and I find that this is T52882, albeit labelled as "unprioritized minor" which sounds about as low as it can go. Sad. Meanwhile I and many other editors will be following most VE edits with a cleanup edit in Edit Source - or just using Edit Source for speed, if I haven't the stamina to use VE. (I'm trying to use it to test and debug it, but it's just too much like hard work sometimes). PamD 12:02, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You raise good points here. It was myself that made the comment about it being a project-specific issue. I'll let someone from WMF (Okeyes (WMF), perhaps) answer the rest of this, but you can at least rest assured that this bug has not been classed as "trivial" or "Lowest priority"! — This, that and the other (talk) 12:39, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It's harder than it looks for machines to respect WP:ORDER. I've been working on a Python script to insert elements (e.g., navigation templates or categories) while correctly following the policy, and it's a complicated mix of searching, regular expression, checking template contents, etc. Theopolisme (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

can't edit tables

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T41596

Don't seem to have any table support. Resuna (talk) 13:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You can change entries in a table, but there is no support yet for changing the structure of a table. Support for table-editing is planned but not yet existent. Looie496 (talk) 14:23, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

References List

Is the references list icon supposed to be doing something for me? As far as I can tell it always just opens a blank dialog box. I'm not sure what it is for. Dragons flight (talk) 15:04, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Personally I use it when there is not reflist on an article (e.g. when you are creating an article) and it automatically appears all the references added till that moment on the article. When I add a new one, it is also added to the list. I don't know if it does something more to an already existing article with a reflist because I didn't attempt to use it there... :/ TeamGale (talk) 19:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

KHAN BIRMANI

ALI KHAWAR ALI KHAWAR KHAN BIRMANI (talk) 16:17, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a question? Looie496 (talk) 16:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Header templates deleted

This edit. May have been me, not the VE, but I didn't realise until I went back to check, so is way too easy - David Gerard (talk) 16:50, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah :/. Suggested better ways of handling it? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head. A problem that's hard enough that it's philosophical, but will bear some serious thought - David Gerard (talk) 20:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Consecutive spaces

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53056

In visual editor, type something like:

abc         def

With many consecutive spaces between words. In the editor it will display as many spaces. If you save it, the multiple spaces are placed into the wiki source. However, when one goes to view the page, the consecutive spaces are rendered as a single space (e.g. "abc def"). Collapsing multiple spaces is a convention that Mediawiki borrows from the HTML standard.

Personally, I think users probably should be able to add multiple spaces, if that is what they want to do, but in that case the editor needs to translate these to "&nbsp;" or some other format that prevents them from be collapsed during the page view. Dragons flight (talk) 17:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This is a tricky issue, and any action should be well thought out. Looie496 (talk) 17:29, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm going to post a bugzilla linking to a fixed diff of this conversation; I'm not sure if I can explain it second-hand as well as Dragons flight has. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Now tracked. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Allowing image resizing is a terrible idea

Providing the ability to resize images using the handles at the corners is a terrible idea. Thumbnails should not have a size attribute unless absolutely necessary, as doing so overrides users' preferences, makes the formatting of articles inconsistent, and potentially creates problems for readers with phones or accessibility issues. Removing unnecessary size specifications is going to be a very tedious and entirely avoidable job. Celuici (talk) 17:17, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This is a really good point; I'm going to discuss it with the devs now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Now discussed. So, basically the problem is this; we've got no way of easily preventing it just for thumb images - or rather we do (disable when the thumb tag appears), but not a way of doing it that would be easily understood by users. Some images would not be resizable, some would, with no clear explanation (from the visualeditor) of why. Because resizing does have some legitimate uses. Instead it looks like we'll go for (a) letting the community do what they've always done fantastically, and enforce policy around when images should and should not have a size specified and (b) make it really easy to do - so, images will default to thumb size, and there will be a method of easily restoring something to thumb size from the VE. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:25, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

There are some bugs for this T52379 is about default sizes for images and T40129 is a much richer dialog for image properties, including image size, alte text etc.--Salix (talk): 19:20, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Correct Name

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I am assistant to Mr. Carlos Wizard Martins.

We asked to change the name "Carlos Roberto Martins" to "Carlos Wizard Martins."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Roberto_Martins

We count on your help. Murilovisck (talk) 17:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Replied on user's talk page. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 17:50, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

TemplateData changes in doc not showing in VE until an edit to template itself is made

Initially I wasn't having any luck getting my finishing changes to the TemplateData in the Template:LSJ/doc to show up in the VE transclusion dialog. Then I tried just making a null edit to the template page itself, and it worked! I also made a change to Template:Citation needed/doc TemplateData, but that change hasn't showed up either in VE.

Is it the case that changes to TemplateData on the /doc page won't show up until the main template page is edited? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:25, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Atethnekos: yes and no. So, the job queue for processing updates is now somewhat backlogged. A null edit bumps it up said queue. So, you can make them, and in the short-term it's probably a good idea, but once this lag is fixed they won't (strictly-speaking) be necessary :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, again. I won't do any more null edits, unless I've made a mess that needs to be cleaned.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Atethnekos: Also note that as of Tim Starling's change yesterday to how null edits affect templates (gerrit:72064), these null edits no longer force updates across all pages using a template, so are low-impact even on high use templates. So null edit away without feeling bad about the server kittens. ;-)--Eloquence* 02:26, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Typing in the link editor

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53177

When using the link editor tool, it appears that the link is only updated if one either presses enter or clicks on a suggestion from the autocomplete list. This was very counterintuitive to me. If I am editing a link, I expect to be able to type the target (e.g. "Japan") and then move on by clicking elsewhere on the page. It is not at all obvious that I actually need to type "Japan+<ENTER>" before clicking outside the box. Obviously, now that I know what is required, I can do that, but it seems much more natural to have the link autoupdate to match new text as it is typed in rather than requiring the additional push of the Enter key. Dragons flight (talk) 19:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Ditto. Clear "Confirm" and "Cancel" buttons should be a requirement at every dialog box, but it's clear that developers are playing by ear with respect to the interaction design. Diego (talk) 21:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"Leave feedback" link was split on two lines...

so I thought (hoped) that "Leave" would lead to the old editor... Pifvyubjwm (talk) 19:30, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Pifvyubjwm: If you put your mouse pointer on a section "edit" link, and wait for a moment, the "edit source" alternative will become visible. That's the way to do editing the old style. If you find this irritating, you can turn VisualEditor off completely (so clicking on "edit" gets you into the old editing interface). To turn off VE: In your preferences (link is on the upper right of your screen), go to the "Gadgets" tab, then the "Editing" section, and put a checkmark by "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface." Then click "Save", and you're done. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Tables

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T41596

There should be a much easier way to add a table row using the visual editor. WikiTryHardDieHard (talk) 20:21, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Altering the layout of a table is not currently supported by the visual editor, that is coming in a future release. Currently you can edit the content of table cells. Thryduulf (talk) 20:25, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Deactivation

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How do I delete this account? Eban Hyams (talk) 20:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Replied on users talk page.--Salix (talk): 20:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Section editing

A minor point, but if I mistakenly click the edit button by a header to edit a section, but had intended to click edit source, there's no easy way to switch from the VE view to the source editing view. Ideally, once I've started to edit a section with the visual editor, there should be a really easy way for me to switch to editing the source view of that section alone (as if I'd pressed edit source for that section in the first place). ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@ItsZippy: VE loads the entire article, not just the section you've selected. So it's not quite as easy to "switch" to a direct edit of wikitext as you might think. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Is it not true, though, that when I choose to edit a specific section, the visual editor goes directly to that section in the article body, rather than the top? If that's the case, then surely it knows which section I clicked the edit button for and thus which section to direct me to if I want to edit the source. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The url you click on to edit a section with the visual editor does include a section identifier, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland?veaction=edit&vesection=22 although the url actually loaded omits the section parameter. I'm not sure why it does that as manually adding a section doesn't seem to make any difference. I note this as if it retained the full url just deleting both instances of "ve" would do what you are asking (albeit crudely). Thryduulf (talk) 00:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Damaged wikilink shows as okay in VE editing window

Here's a damaged wikilink: [[./Francis_W._Parker_School_(Chicago)|Francis W. Parker School]]. (It's damaged so badly that it doesn't even need nowiki tags to prevent redlinking.) It was damaged by this edit. (It's been more than 24 hours ago since it was flagged as a possible VE-induced error, yet it's still not fixed ... but I digress.)

I'm posting here because when I go into VE to edit the problem (it's in the "Legacy" section of the article McCormick family), VE displays the link as being perfectly okay. And when I click on what is displayed ("Francis W. Parker School"), and look what it links to, VE shows the correct link.) That obviously makes it difficult to actually fix the problem.

I'm leaving the wikilink as is, in the article, until someone adds this as a bug, or notes that it is already listed elsewhere as a bug. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The addition of .\ in wikilinks is bugzilla:50720. They blame the addition on old Firefox versions and don't mention your observation that VE acts as if the link is OK. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

No comment about how such links are created, but I can confirm that VE in Chrome 27 hides the "./" and seems to pretend that the link is valid. Dragons flight (talk) 01:26, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

@Dragons flight, John Broughton, and PrimeHunter: Blacklisting of affected versions of Firefox is implemented as of gerrit:72675 and will be deployed ASAP, likely tomorrow (obviously this behavior should not occur, but for now it's best to just exclude these browser versions until any page corruption can be eliminated). I've noted the fact that VE ignores the invalid markup [[./Bla]] as T53090, which is presumably a lower priority issue once the corruption issue is fixed.--Eloquence* 02:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference List

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52769

Reference list does not update with new references. Very confusing, especially with no refresh capability. Naugahyde (talk) 02:36, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

@Naugahyde: yep, we're working on it :). bug 50769. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:24, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

font too small

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52058

I just did this edit, it actually worked and let me fix a typo. But before I saved it when I tried to preview the change it came up in an uncomfortably small font, barely readable. I'm testing this on a decent sized screen, and my glasses are a fairly recent prescription. With the greying of the pedia we should be getting more conscious of access issues like this. The normal editor doesn't have this problem - so it would be perverse to implement an editor that is in at least this respect less user friendly than we were before. ϢereSpielChequers 06:45, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Monobook? - David Gerard (talk) 06:46, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I suspect so. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:37, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes of course I use Monobook, do you think I would have stayed on this site so long if I used Vector? I'm tempted to suggest that we simply disable V/E for Monobook but of course that would make it more difficult to upgrade new editors from Vector to Monobook when they start becoming serious editors as it would be a double transition. ϢereSpielChequers 19:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I have the same problem. Not only the preview, but also in order to read the edit summary, I have to enlarge the font three times, and then of course reset the font size when I'm done. I don't have to do this for any other purpose, and certainly not when using the standard editor. —Anomalocaris (talk) 05:13, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed; this is tracked and being worked on. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

No, this was NOT answered and the bug was not correctly assigned.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52797

See Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#No_way_to_edit_templates_in_Visual_Editor. That bug, Bug 50797, was incorrectly called a duplicate of but 47790. 47790 deals with blank lines that aren't really there but that show in the VE. But the bug is that blank lines that are in fact actually there are impossible to remove in Visual Editor. See this diff. Please do look at that again and update the bug status or add a new one. I am not at all familiar with bugzilla's inner workings and feel quite incapable of doing it myself. I appreciate your time and effort. Red Slash 06:43, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

You are right, reopened. Thanks for paying attention. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:28, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, TheDJ. But the link placed on the bugzilla is not the permanent link to the messed-up version. If someone deletes that white space using the source editor, the link will no longer illustrate the problem. Please, I ask you or whoever else is watching this, please put exactly the following into the bugzilla comments: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Burr%E2%80%93Hamilton_duel&oldid=561095260 Thank you very much. Red Slash 19:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added the permanent link to the bug report for you. Thryduulf (talk) 21:13, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Red Slash; your attention on the problem is much appreciated :). I think communications problems are always going to happen - we have editor translated into Oliver translated into Developer - but as long as people are willing to chase it up, we can solve for the issue. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

+1. The {{answered}} template does stand the risk of irritating people, I know, and I apologize for that, but it has two valuable uses that I hope outweigh that - first, it lets us know that a section has been handled, so we can easily spot sections that have not. This is very important high on the page, since the tendency is to look at the most recent. Second, it lets you know that we think we've done all that needs doing in a section, so you don't wait for further response and so you can let us know if we're wrong. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding references with links

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52943

Image of the issue

I tried adding a reference to an article, and it seemed I stuffed it up a bit, although with care it could be fixed. However, I think this is probably worth looking at because of the process. I don't use cite templates, so I tried manually formatting a reference in VE. The first part went ok, and then we're taken to the window for formatting the reference. I typed in the reference details, (author, title, etc), then highlighted the title to provide an external link to the source. When I did so, a pop-up list of options appeared as possible wikilinks. There were a lot, and due to the window size this almost fully covered the text box. It also was a bit too long, so under Safari at least the text box for the group name appears as part of the list in some odd way. To add the URL I had to blindly paste it into the box, as I couldn't make the list of wikilink suggestions disappear in order to edit text. (If I click anywhere to make the suggestion list disappear, I can't enter text, and if I click on the text box again the list reappears and prevents me from entering the URL). When I do paste the URL, it shows up in the list again as options for both an internal link and a newpage. Here I gather I should click on the external link option, but the new page option overlies the text box. Thus I tended to accidentally click on the new page option when trying to get back into the text box. Unfortunately, that made the options list disappear, so I missed that it had changed to an internal link. And although it is technically a redlink, it now appeared as a blue link in the box, so there is no indication that it is a wikilink instead of an external link.

I hope that makes some sense. :) Short version - the pop-list of suggested wikilinks was malformed if it was long enough to cover the group name box, and prevents the user from seeing the text box when pasting a URL. When a URL is blindly pasted, it is easy to accidentally click on the wikilink option, but there is no indicator that this has occurred once the pop-up list disappears. - Bilby (talk) 12:54, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense, although I'm never 100% sure that I'm catching all the nuances. :) I've tracked it at bugzilla and created a screenshot to illustrate. Please let me know if I've missed or messed up on something. Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:51, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

You've pretty much got it. Thanks! To clarify a couple of points (your screenshot is great):

• Right down the bottom of the popup list you can see a textbox overlaying the last option. That is the group name text box, which appears as an element in the option list if it is long enough to overlie it. If you had one more item in the list, that box would appear between the last item and the second to last one.
• Once you have a URL in the box, another pop up list of two options is displayed to ask whether it is an external link or an internal one. The internal link option overlaps the text box.
• If you accidently click on the internal option, which is easy to do because of its position, the two options disappear, but your link will no longer work as it will be turned into a wikilink instead of an external link. As it appears as a blue link, there is no indicator that it is internal rather than external.

When wikilinks to non-existing pages are red there will be a better indicator of the problem, so that will help with the last issue. - Bilby (talk) 16:13, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• • You seem to have it well in hand. :) Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help! (And sorry for my delay - I was off having family obligations on the 9th.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Save dialog

• The save button should make clear that it leads to a dialog rather than saving directly. E.g. change the label from 'Save page' to 'Save...'. bugzilla:42138
• The edit summary should carry that name, so people know what others are talking about. E.g. write 'Edit summary' just above the text box. bugzilla:50900
• The font size in the dialog and in the diff is too tiny, nearly unreadable. Icons for closing those boxes are not shown completely, which makes it even harder to guess what they do (how about tooltips?). Observed using Firefox 22.0 on Ubuntu 12.04, MonoBook skin. bugzilla:50058
• The number showing how many characters are left could also use a tooltip explaining what it is. bugzilla:50902
• Cursor keys, backspace and delete sometimes don't work in the summary (can't reproduce it now).
• The button label "Review your changes" is weird. Usually buttons are labeled as a command from the user to the computer ('Show changes'), not the other way around. Similarly, using commands to the user as headings of pop-ups ('Review your changes', 'Save your changes') seems weird.
• The save dialog should be modal. Right now it's possible to select text in the main window while the save dialog is open. bugzilla:50903
• Why is the text about licensing grayed out? That looks like the license is disabled. bugzilla:50904

P.S.: You're archiving unanswered questions. — HHHIPPO 17:52, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Where has User:Okeyes (WMF) and the other crew gone when we need them most? Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 19:06, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Not everyone works weekends. Whether any of them are working this particular weekend, I don't know. Dragons flight (talk) 19:21, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I've filed and/or linked most of the issues you reported and placed links to them inside your report. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:34, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey; yeah, we've been working pretty much non-stop for the last 2-3 weeks, and I was basically ordered to take a couple of days off for my own sanity :). Unfortunately that includes today (so don't tell anyone I'm here. shhhh.) but Maggie will be by in a couple of hours when she awakes, I predict. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Insulam Simia, Oliver and I were both off for the weekend (although I see neither of us completely resisted pitching in :P), but the archival time was adjusted to help compensate for that. We've got extra staffing assigned to this page at key points, but it's worth noting that many of the things that need doing here can be done by anyone. :) I'm very grateful for people like @TheDJ: for helping to file all these bugs and requests for developer attention. With several hundred Wikipedias receiving VisualEditor over the next several weeks, we wouldn't stand a chance without this kind of collaboration. So, thanks, TheDJ. :D @Hhhippo:, I wanted especially to ask you about the unanswered questions - we're hoping to avoid this, obviously. Is there a question that you asked that was archived prematurely? Or can you point me to something that needs handling? It's rather difficult to keep up here, but beyond the excellent volunteer assistance, we've got multiple staff members assigned to try. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@TheDJ: thanks indeed! @Mdennis (WMF): it's nothing urgent, just saw that my first post was archived and wanted to make sure it's not lost. About weekends: please do take them off! Burning out the staff won't help anybody, and I'm sure the other Wikipedias won't mind waiting a bit longer if they get a better result. P.S.: This page is a good demonstration of why we need something like Flow. — HHHIPPO 18:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Re:Flow, I eagerly await the day. :) I love {{ping}}. It's already a huge help. I'm afraid that the change management doesn't set the schedule for deployment, but happy that I am not coming back after the weekend to full deployment here. Extra bug fixing time is a good idea, in my opinion, before we put this out to IPs. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

You mean there's people who decide when things get deployed, and they don't ask the devs if the code is ready for deployment? That sounds weird. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

No, no. :) I just mean we don't - we are neither the devs nor the people who decide stuff. The change management team is here to help with the rollout by doing things like triaging feedback pages and making sure that FAQs are translated into the billions of languages that are scheduled for rollout. Certainly, we pass along feedback, though - that's part of what we're here to do. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've resurrected your post here, @Hhhippo:. I'm afraid we don't have the excuse of the weekend for overlooking that one. :/ It was probably because of the complexity. We've been processing things at breakneck speed, and I know not being techie myself, I at least tend to leave the ones that seem to require some tech knowledge for somebody else. This is one of the reasons why I started using {{answered}}, though - to make sure that people can see what needs (or seems to need) input higher on the page. But let me see if I can come up with any answers and maybe other people can help with the ones I can't/don't/run away in terror from. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

First impression

(I hope you don't mind, but I'm refactoring you to make this easier to read. No offense intended, but I tried the "interrupted" template, and it just made things even more confusing to sort through. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC))

No problem. I'm trying to expand my original post in a usable way. Don't show this thread to Jorm unless you give him a lot of Aspirin ;-) — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Unanswered

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.

• Why does the Tab key behave like Page down? Still doing that. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
  • When I go into "edit" mode and press "tab", it jumps from wikilink to wikilink. "Page down" pages down. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
• Editing links:
  • 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). Not a big thing, would just be nice to stop people from accidentally adding DAB links. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
• When marking a block of text, empty lines are not shown as marked. Still the same. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
  • @Hhhippo:, I'm not sure what you mean by "marking a block of text". Can you clarify? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
• Beta menu:
  • It's not at all obvious that Leave and Feedback aren't two different entities. Still the same. It's the second link in the "Beta" flyout. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Found the "Leave feedback". They look like one link to me. :) Can you clarify how this is confusing or how it looks different to you? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Why is the feedback link grayed out? Ditto. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Don't know - once we work out the above, I can track this (in case I need to say something about that, too.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty answering these, in part because I do not know. :) I can find out (or try to) if others do not know (but want to give them a chance if they do) and file bug or feature requests as needed, but I'm also wondering if some of these have resolved. The box seems wide enough to fit the default sortkey, for instance, to me. Has this changed since the 3rd, or does it still seem too small to you? I do not see the "Leave Feedback" request. Is anyone aware if the disambiguation page thing is an issue? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Hhhippo: Some are answered by me now. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Answered

• I'm missing Show preview and even more Show changes (with a diff of the source code), especially while we're still in beta. — Hhhippo 22:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

• Don't know if you've found this one yet, but there is actually a "Review your changes" option just before confirming save, below the edit summary window. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, found it. And then suggested to redesign the "Save page" button such that it's obvious there's more than just saving hidden behind it. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• I'm missing a way to save unfinished edits locally, by copy & paste of some sort. — Hhhippo 22:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

• There's a request in for that one. T52687. I've added your notes. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think Page Title should be offered as a paragraph style. — Hhhippo 22:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

• I don't know why it is. :/ I will ask about that. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• How can I change the indentation level of a paragraph that's not part of a list (add a colon in the source)? Still don't see a way. Can't copy and paste the indentation mark either. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Known and apparently being worked on: bugzilla:48010. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• 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) — Hhhippo 22:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

• There is a new bug that i believe covers this ground: T52945. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• • The 'close' button in the linking dialog looks like a back/cancel button (actually it doesn't look like a button at all). I think this has changed a bit, but it's still unclear if "close" means "accept changes" or "discard changes". — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Is this the same as bugzilla:48067? — This, that and the other (talk) 07:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• Category sortkeys:
  • Why not make the box wide enough to fit at least the default sortkey? Still too small for longer titles, see e.g. Glossary of elementary quantum mechanics — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
    • I just filed this as bugzilla:51012. Thanks. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Why not make the default text editable, since the desired key is often close to the page name? Still the same. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
    • bugzilla:50002. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• 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. — Hhhippo 22:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

• T52955. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:43, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• • I'm missing a Cancel button next to Apply changes, and I would expect that X acts as cancel. Still the same. — HHHIPPO 19:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Tracked in Phabricator
      Task T53116
      
      --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

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)

Cannot edit section 0

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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The [edit] link for the lead section has been altered to edit using VE (I've informed VPT). It also loads the whole page (why? I only want to edit one section) and after taking ages to load, takes me to the first section after the lead, which is not the section that I want to edit. Finding that every section is editable, I scroll up, only to find that the one bit that I want to alter - a hatnote - is inaccessible because it's in a template. Please can I have it back the old way - or at least give me the choice. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

VE always loads the whole article, even if you click an "edit section" link. That's been discussed and might change eventually but won't change very soon. As a consequence, it is utterly useless to have the "edit lead" link go to VE -- it wouldn't be any different from using the edit link at the top of the page. The "edit lead" function is provided by a gadget -- it isn't part of basic editing functionality -- and that gadget really ought to continue providing an "edit source" function. Apparently it is behaving erratically right now. Looie496 (talk) 20:03, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hear, hear. This problem is very inconvenient. (Using Ff 22). Nurg (talk) 23:45, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

This is not a Wikimedia Foundation gadget, as I understand it, and it may require some patience before the volunteers who created and/or maintain it address it. :/ Of course, maybe they already have. Hope so! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe a better question is "why is the 'edit section 0' button an unsupported gadget rather than a normal part of the Wikipedia interface? VQuakr (talk) 05:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Please fix this problem ASAP. For technical reasons I can't do large uploads so the removal of the ability to edit the lead section is very inconvenient (e.g. I can't remove the Wiktionary tag from the top of the Vehicle article). DexDor (talk) 05:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe that I have fixed it, see here and WP:VPT. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64! :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

This is shit

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Change it back I can't do shit Kuriboh500 (talk) 22:02, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

@Kuriboh500: if you click 'edit source' instead of 'edit', you will return to the old interface. Can you give some details on what you dislike about the software? We can't fix it if we're not told what's wrong with it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Links and cites discouraged, vandalism encouraged

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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VisualEditor encourages frivolous textual changes (Barack Osama), but discourages adding links, citations and templates: key elements of an online encyclopedia. It is always a struggle to maintain quality. We can now expect rapid deterioration. "Wikipedia: You type it, we display it." Like blog comments, but you change what the blogger wrote. This seems irreversible. There will be earnest efforts to fix bugs, but VisualEditor will not be scrapped. Millions of hours of effort down the drain. "Wikipedia: Crap." Sad. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• Exactly. Once again, there is a reason learning curves are good, and we don't give handguns to toddlers. μηδείς (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not happy with the current state of VisualEditor but comments like these remind me of the debate over getting rid of the morse code requirements for ham radio licenses. Just because something once was hard and arcane doesn't mean it needs to stay that way forever. This is a wiki, which is built on the idea that there's more constructive than destructive people in the world, and that on the balance, it works out. Don't lose sight of that. Gigs (talk) 04:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
    • I am uncertain if that analogy applies. More interestingly is the phrase before the comma, a new encyclopedia (2003) was about collecting all human experience and a ve could help. Editing WP (2013) is more about providing links and cites, which clearly was never included in this ve's specification:- so an analogy about deck chairs and Olympic class ocean liners may be more appropriate -- Clem Rutter (talk) 07:36, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
      • Most people are well-meaning but unclear about what belongs in an encyclopedia, and often add unsourced content. A new editing tool should encourage anyone adding content to provide citations. This one discourages citation. Adding links, infoboxes and other templates should also be easy. VisualEditor makes that harder. It is yet another WYSIWYG editor. We need a Wikipedia editor. VisualEditor has made what was already easy a little bit easier for novices, a little bit harder for experienced editors (more mouse movement). It has made what is already difficult for most editors even more difficult. The inevitable effect will be a growing percentage of unsourced stream-of-consciousness text. As overall quality declines, editors interested in quality will turn away in disgust, in a vicious spiral. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:02, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
        • Agreed. VisualEditor does make editing prose easier, but it is needlessly hard to add wikilinks, references, templates etc. I hope it doesn't lead to a wave of vandalism – sure, we can deal with it, but having to constantly revert vandal edits makes it harder to add and maintain good sourced content. – Michaelmas1957 (talk) 13:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
          • We're working on those areas. Clem, if it wasn't contained in the specification there wouldn't be link editing at all. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

References lost in copy and paste

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T51396

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spotify&diff=563199041&oldid=563198805
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spotify&diff=563198162&oldid=563187977

I can't vouch for how the editor was reorganizing the content but the editor appears to be cutting content with references from one location and pasting it into another location. The references are being pasted as ^[8] rather than the encoded reference. I'll inform the editor of the problem and ask the editor to supply steps to reproduce. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Happy to explain. in VE I copied and pasted several paragraphs from one section of the article to another. The bracketed numbers came over, but the refs did not. Thanks for your attention. Lfstevens (talk) 05:12, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

@Lfstevens: could you please also also report which browser and version of the browser you are using ? That might help solving the problem, since I was unable to reproduce this problem with my Safari 6 browser. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

You may need to request on the editor's talk page. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Chrome. 27.0.1453.116 m Lfstevens (talk) 17:46, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I just noticed that another editor did similar which is why I came back to see what was happening with this.

I can confirm that this is happening in Windows 7 64 bit, SP1. I cut the copy with reference, the remaining references re-number, and then I paste. The reference is converted to brackets around the former reference number. This does not happen if I copy and paste the contents and then delete the old contents. Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:32, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeek; yep. Copy-pasting needs a lot of work. Looks like bugzilla:49396. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Filling out cite templates

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53120

Hi all, I want to preface this statement by saying that I'm not a huge fan of using the Visual Editor myself but am grateful for how easy it's going to make my upcoming workshops. That being said, I think you could make some improvements to the way references are edited. I think labeling the button "edit reference" as opposed to "transclusion" or even removing the screen in-between clicking on a reference and editing it would make it much easier to tweak references. Thanks much for considering. :) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Ooh, one more thing, I can't figure out how to add special characters and it goes all wonky when I try to copy/paste them. This is particularly frustrating as my current project is Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome. Is there a special character menu like in the source editor that I'm just not finding? Thanks. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:38, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree, availability of special characters is a sine qua non of editor usability. One shouldn't have to paste them from somewhere else. They should be available right there, as they are in the standard editor.—Anomalocaris (talk) 05:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've tracked the "Special character editor" request. :) Thanks for noting the need! I believe your question about renaming the button may tie into a discussion taking place elsewhere. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Yay, thank you! I will take a look at that discussion as well. :) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 04:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Cite error message when editing template in Global warming

This may be a known issue, but when I edited "Greenhouse gases" subsection of Global warming (or maybe it was the "Initial causes of temperature changes (external forcings)" section, I don't quite remember), then edited the template Template:Multiple image on the left-hand side to change the parameter "image1" from "Annual world greenhouse gas emissions, in 2005, by sector.png" to "Annual world greenhouse gas emissions, in 2005, by sector.svg", I got the following Cite error message popping up as soon as I saved my changes to the template: [51]. When I saved the page of course the error did not appear and the edit it made was correct, although it did also needlessly remove whitespace from the "image2" parameter. The editing was also very slow on a large page like this, with high latency and taking a couple minutes to save, but I think that's a known issue (I was also running another CPU intensive task on my system). Dcoetzee 09:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Dcoetzee:, is this possibly T52769? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Known issues

Would it be good to have a known issues section? I'm thinking a summary table for the major points which reoccur here. Something like

Features not yet implemented:

• Tables - (link to bug number/archived discussion)
• Redirects - (bug no)
• Mathematical formula - (bug no)

Editing problems:

• Insertion of nowiki tags (bug no)
• Problems with inserting links

I'm not thinking of something with the depth of bugzilla, more a summary. This could help to wiki users get a feel for quite how fit for purpose the system is, and maybe save some repeated questions.--Salix (talk): 17:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea, particularly the first. I suggest two new pages:

• Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Missing features
• Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Known problems

I'd be happy to help build out these pages. For the first, I suggest at least four columns in the table: general area ("Tables", for example), missing feature ("Cannot add or delete row or column, or change table formatting"), bug # (whatever), and comments (for example, target date to implement, and/or link to a discussion of the issue). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.--Salix (talk): 18:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

That kind of already exists although I agree its not very clear. You can click here for a list of most of them. Although not all the Visual Editor related changes are here. Some are under other categories so its only partially helpful. I think an FAQ type page would be good but the problem is bugs are added and removed constantly so it would be a pain to keep updated. Kumioko (talk) 18:09, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes it does rather mirror the bugzilla, but there is a a big advantage to having a page onwiki which users here can see, and have in their watchlist. Keeping it updated is really part of the need to inform users of whats happening.--Salix (talk): 18:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I created a basic table at the Known problems link above. I kept it simple for now but it can be expanded fairly easily if needed. Kumioko (talk) 20:13, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've just added a summary General issues, Specific parts of markup and fixed bugs to Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Known problems. Still working on find all the main issues. If anyone else was to add more feel free.--Salix (talk): 12:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Hate it

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Can someone please tell me how to make these "edit source" buttons fuck off? I'm sick of mis-clicking them. I ALWAYS want to edit the source. Parrot of Doom 21:13, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see someone has already added it to the preferences section. Thank God for that. Why is the default on Wikipedia always to try and force people to do things differently? If people want a new interface, let THEM be the ones who have to learn to click a new button. Parrot of Doom 21:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I think i can give you a sensible rationale for that. The visual editor is mostly geared towards new editors who just started editing - the ones that barely know their way around at all and are thus extremely unlikely to find any option whatsoever. More seasoned editors are at least more likely to figure out they can press "edit source" for the old editor, and they can also find a help page that explains how you disable it. And erm, to be frank - is clicking "Edit Source" or searching for a setting once in a lifetime really such a big deal to start with? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

So tell me, how am I supposed to click a button which only appears when you hover over the edit button, on a tablet? Try it. Parrot of Doom 09:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The 'edit source' link at the top of an article works fine; the problems around tablets are a known, and something that will be fixed in time. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You're not alone... Currently, you can use edit source instead of edit, or hide VE using "Preferences/Gadgets/Editing/Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" (not perfect, an option to really remove VE as be requested by many users at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#"Opt out" of VE needed under preferences). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

edit summary

• Please see and join the discussion at the village pump. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

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I cannot see where to leave an edit summary... Pstanton (talk) 01:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You'll get the option to do so when you press "Save" (that could be a bit more intuitive - it's been suggested to change the button label or style - but it seems preferable to having the edit summary field present even while you don't need it).--Eloquence* 01:27, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the button is labeled "Save page". That's the same label as on the button, in the old editing interface, that completed the edit session. Lots of effort has been made, over the years, to encourage editors to write an edit summary before they click "Save page", and now VE is designed exactly the opposite. The button ought to be labeled "Finish edit" or "Continue" or "Final steps" or just about anything other than "Save page".

The current problem is even worse than just one poorly labeled button. In VE, after clicking "Save page", a dialog box appears that also has a "Save page" button. So now an editor has to understand that the two "Save page" buttons do not do the same thing. And documentation (when it's written) is going to have to clarify which "Save page" button is being referred to - unless the label on the first occurrence of "Save page" is changed, as it should be. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:17, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I have boldly changed the local label for the first "Save page" to "Finish edit". People have repeatedly complained or been confused by that "Save page" button that doesn't actually save anything and in my opinion "Finish edit" is the best suggestion that I've heard that also fits well in that space. As with anything, if people think this is "too bold", we can always go back to the old version. Dragons flight (talk) 04:58, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for being bold. :-) Looks like a sensible change to me. "Finish" is a bit nonstandard and perhaps difficult to translate, so perhaps we could find language that's more commonly used, but this should do for now.--Eloquence* 06:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"Complete" maybe? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:17, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Seee bugzilla:42138, where I referenced this discussion. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:17, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The newly labeled button is a thing of beauty. Thanks, Dragons flight. Chris the speller ^yack 15:55, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The change I implemented was reverted by a WMF staffer. See: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#VE_.22save.22_vs_.22finish_edit.22_button. Dragons flight (talk) 23:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Reverted using my volunteer admin account, I'll note for the sake of formality. I don't work on the VE team, so please don't take my word as theirs. Steven Walling • talk 00:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I suggest, since this is (at least initially) a community decision, that discussion continue at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#VE_.22save.22_vs_.22finish_edit.22_button. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Transcluded pages

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53119

In German Wikipedia quite often pages are transcludet into other pages like here is it possible to make clear that this part is transcluded and has to be changed on the other site. Also it messes up the parts which are actually on that page.--Livermorium (talk) 02:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The Visual Editor isn't enabled for that page yet, is it? Looie496 (talk) 02:39, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You have to activate it in your preferences at the German Wikipedia.--Livermorium (talk) 02:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I see. It does look like it properly refuses to let the transclusions be edited, but isn't cleaning up correctly after a transclusion is finished. Looie496 (talk) 03:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Livermorium: odd :/. Can I suggest reaching out to Lydia or Jan at ? They're probably more familiar with templates on de-wiki and so more able to help :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Hm, I'm using Chrome 27 and VE says in the template interface that you should edit the actual article just as the note in Wikicode does. However, the template seems to eat into the respective next non-template entry as well, providing within the template interface the content (example) "<!-- Änderungen bitte dort vornehmen, siehe unterhalb des Bearbeitungsfensters --> * [[Christina Rau]], geb. Delius (* 1956), deutsche Politologin". Therefore, the respective next entry gets transformed into template content instead of being directly editable. If your finding looks like mine, we should figure out how to fix that. If your issue is different, I would be grateful for more specifics :); regards --Jan (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@JEissfeldt (WMF): No thats exactly what I get with Firefox too.--Livermorium (talk) 20:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

K, thanks Livermorium. I looked for ways around this, tried, it actually turned out to be two-fold (i.e. worse), and then I put in a bug. Lets wait and see, regards --Jan (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Removing template and adding content breaks editor

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53130

When editing a template, when I click remove template, and then without closing the dialog, click add -> content and enter some text, the template is not removed and the editor hangs on saving and reviewing changes. --WS (talk) 11:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Tracked. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Remove template text color

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53133

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53135

"Remove template" is displayed in red, which gives the impression that it is a wikilink to a non-existing article. Presumably the developers want to warn the user that it is a potentially dangerous action, but that its probably better achieved in different ways. Furthermore why is it listed under options? --WS (talk) 11:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Since the light red may present issues to color blind, I'm inclined to agree. I'll ask about that, but first, @Wouterstomp:, can you explain your issue with listing it under "options"? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not a native English speaker, but under options I would expect settings of the template itself. I would imagine it be title 'actions' or something similar if it includes a remove template button. --WS (talk) 19:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I've added them to bugzilla for developer consideration. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Template dialog title

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Why is the template dialog titled 'transclusion'? That makes no sense to most people who are not familiar with the technical details of the template system. Just name it 'edit template' or something similar, or even better the name of the template being edited. --WS (talk) 12:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. "Transclusion" is a term of art for Mediawiki and not something that should appear anywhere in a UI that is intended for new users. Dragons flight (talk) 15:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

To be fair though "Edit template" is also a term of art for Mediawiki. However, at least "templates" are things that have an analog in the real world. According to dictionary.com, "transclusion" isn't even a word. Dragons flight (talk) 16:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

dictionary.com is wrong. :) I can find book references dating back to the 1990s using it. That said, I don't disagree with you that our language use there may bear improvement, and I see you've proposed that at Village pump. Turning off my linguistic nerd mode, and back to sorting bugs! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Template editor allows for duplicate parameters

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52715

The template dialog should not allow you to add parameters that are already present and should not display them in the list under add parameter. --WS (talk) 12:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This might be an issues with the disease infobox templatedata, as some other templates do hide the already used parameters. --WS (talk) 13:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox disease can (and should) take multiple copies of each parameter because there are often multiple codes for disease concepts within a particular clinical classification. See the Template data section at the end of the template documentation for the list of parameters that do accept multiples. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it works that way. If name= is listed twice, only one of the two is displayed. For ones that can have multiple codes there are extra uniquely named parameter, e.g. MeSH2, 3, etc. --WS (talk) 09:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

This is probably https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50715 --WS (talk) 06:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Double-click to add parameter

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53143

In the template dialog, in the add parameter view, I would expect double-clicking on a parameter would add it, instead of having to find the add parameter button at the end of the list (which should, by the way, not be at the end of a scrolling list, but always visible in a fixed place). --WS (talk) 12:17, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree with this - it took me a while to figure out that I had to scroll to the bottom of a long list of reference parameters to find the button. GoingBatty (talk) 04:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Added to Bugzilla. :) Thanks. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit template icon should be in the current view

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53144

When you click on a large template, often the edit button displayed in the top right corner of it is not visible because it is outside of your view, making it in-obvious how to edit it. The edit icon should always be displayed within the current view. --WS (talk) 12:21, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Added to Bugzilla. Thank you. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Edited reflist - it disappeared

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53146

I've not yet done a lot with refs and reflists (a lot of my work is stub-sorting where it rarely crops up) but....

Editing Howard Wilson Elementary School I changed the number of columns of {{reflist}} from 2 to 1 (there's only one ref and it looks daft over 2 cols). The whole reflist disappeared, while I stayed in VE - see edit summary. On saving the page, it was there all present and correct.

This is one of several instances where VE alarms the editor: if it's supposed to be a Visual Editor, it needs to reflect changes made and not give the impression that the template has been deleted. Worrying enough for an experienced editor - totally offputting for someone new.

Apologies if this exact problem, or a more generalised case, is already tracked. PamD 16:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Tried it out and replicated it myself. That would be alarming. Tracked; thanks, Pam! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Couldn't fix typo in reference quote

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53058

I was trying to make this edit. Opened article in VE, saw the "as as" was in footnote 134 ... couldn't edit there ... went up to reference 134, clicked on it to edit, and it was the wrong reference link. It actually gave me the reference that's numbered 220 (in that version) to edit! - David Gerard (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Blurk. I think it's because of how the VE reference-handling treats references in templates (i.e., poorly) - I'll throw it in now.

Unsigned note by Oliver. :) Not pulling up the timestamp - too much activity on this page! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I can edit just fine the old way, thank you very much.

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I clicked the edit link of a paragraph but found the whole article on display and couldn't find the paragraph to edit so I chose the option to get to the old method, and left feedback on the way. Pifvyubjwm (talk) 19:28, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You're not alone... Currently, you can use edit source instead of edit, or hide VE using "Preferences/Gadgets/Editing/Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" (not perfect, an option to really remove VE as be requested by many users at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#"Opt out" of VE needed under preferences). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikilinking to a section of an article?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52881

There are times when one wants to link to a section of an article, such as Strategy game#Wargame. To continue this example, in wikitext the link might look like this: [[Strategy game#Wargame|game of ''Strategy'']]. Can VE do this?

If so, it's not obvious how. When I added the "#Wargame" part of the link, in VE, it objected (target link text turned red). And when I saved the edit, VE just ignored the "#Wargame" text altogether. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@John Broughton:, can you try this again. I can confirm the first part. Adding a link like Strategy game#Wargame does indeed get shown in red in the drop-down and labeled as a "new page", but I can not confirm the second half of your report. The #Wargame version of the link seems to save fine for me. As noted higher up the page, you need to either press Enter after typing the link or click on the link title in the drop-down to confirm. If you type out the link without pressing Enter and then click outside the link box, the link tool will forget your changes. Is that perhaps what happened to cause it to lose the #Wargame? Dragons flight (talk) 02:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Extensive testing at [52] shows that section linking works as expected provided you confirm the link you are added. There should be a GUI way of linking to a section, but that's a different issue. Thryduulf (talk) 16:35, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I've tracked the first issue as bugzilla:51118, and the lack of GUI as bugzilla:51121. Thryduulf (talk) 16:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

That first one was marked as duplicate of bugzilla:50881. Thryduulf (talk) 17:15, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

@Dragons flight and Thryduulf: My apologies for not completing describing the situation. I was testing a piped link, where the underlying text was "strategy", and the intended link was to Strategy game#Wargame. The extensive/impressive testing by Thryduulf doesn't seem to cover this use case. And no, pressing [Enter] doesn't help - in fact, it makes the "#Whatever" text disappear.

I've just discovered, however, that if I add the section link and then click above, in the section of the dialog box with the word "Hyperlink", then the section extension (#Whatever) does remain. So I agree that there are two bugs here: (1) the target link turns red once the typing of the section link begins, and stays red even when what is typed does correctly point to a section; and (2) the only way to save the typed section name is to click above what is typed; typing [Enter] deletes the section link rather than keeping it, as does exiting the dialog box by clicking elsewhere on the page. (I don't agree that it should be necessary to press [Enter], but that's a different issue.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't open "Page settings" after changing stub template

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53134

This has happened before on other articles.

I opened Fay Alexander, added some content, removed stub template, added specific stub template, but then couldn't click on "Page settings" to add a category. Had to save the edits so far, and then reopen to continue editing. It's happened before: do something, then try to open "Page settings" and it won't respond. Can't be more precise as to what series of edits is needed to produce the effect, sorry: I think I've replaced stub template and then successfully added categories and/or defaultsort in other articles. PamD 21:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Have just edited another couple of stubs, can't reproduce the problem. But it has definitely happened before. PamD 22:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Happened again on The Honey Trees: opened in VE; removed stub template by highlight + delete (or perhaps backspace); added new stub template; tried to click on "Page Settings" to fix the Defaultsort but although cursor turned from line to hand it wouldn't let me left-click. Right click offered unhelpful options. Tried positioning insert point variously around article, no effect. Had to save, reopen, and then do the edit I wanted to. Grrrrr. PamD 09:36, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Something odd is definitely happening here. I was unable to reproduce this on Diocese of Bristol - page settings opened fine, but wouldn't let me change the default sort so I closed and reopened page settings and it worked fine. At Bath bun however I got exactly the same as you. So I tried a few other pages randomly selected from Category:England stubs: Defence costs, Highgate Park and Jack of the North - no problems at all; Idle Toad and Andle Stone - wouldn't open page settings. In all cases I selected {{england-stub}}, deleted it using the delete key, and then added {{Wales-stub}} by clicking on the icon, tying the template name and selecting it from the suggested list and then applying it with no options or parameters set. I didn't save (for obvious reasons). I'm glad I'm not responsible for fixing this - devs just love intermittent errors ;) Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

As an afterthought I tried Diocese of Bristol and Idle Toad again, this time I reproduced the error on the first and the second worked fine! I'll put this in bugzilla and let the experts figure it out! Thryduulf (talk) 19:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Now at bugzilla:51134, but please do give any more information you have - especially if observe any patterns of when it is occurring or not occurring. Thryduulf (talk) 19:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing

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The new editing mode is crap crap and shit. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 22:34, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, don't use it then. Click "Edit source" instead. — This, that and the other (talk) 02:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

You're not alone... Currently, you can use edit source instead of edit, or hide VE using "Preferences/Gadgets/Editing/Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" (not perfect, an option to really remove VE has been requested by many users at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#"Opt out" of VE needed under preferences). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:23, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Formating

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T49780

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T40029

Maybe I did not see it but how do I insert subscript, superscipt and greek letters or even °? And I want to use this in Templates also.--Livermorium (talk) 02:17, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

There is presently no process that would allow one to add subscripts or superscripts in VE. There are also no tools for adding symbols or Greek letters, though you can copy and paste them from other pages or type them if your computer allows that. Personally, I regard both of these features as important missing functionality. Dragons flight (talk) 02:27, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Me too!!!--Livermorium (talk) 02:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added a bug tracker for the subscript part of this. Is there a bug for the handling of special characters? I wasn't able to find one while searching obvious descriptions. Dragons flight (talk) 04:35, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Added the link to #38029. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 14:51, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

External links to images show up as images in edit mode?

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53092

Check out this diff in my sandbox: [53]. The external link looks normal when in read mode, but shows the .jpg image as soon as I click "edit." Is this a bug or a feature? VQuakr (talk) 03:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

That's awesome! And also really bad. Dragons flight (talk) 03:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Horrendously bad and horribly misleading to any novice editor. On the bright side, I guess it will cut down on people uploading copyrighted images.—Kww(talk) 03:47, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Also note that there is now a second bug on this diff. It's an old diff and the warning that I'm not editing the latest version comes up (correctly) and splits the VE ribbon so that the buttons to the right are down-shifted. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

See also #Broken URLs to image files display only the filename in VE, cannot be edited in VE and bugzilla:51103 for a likely related bug. Thryduulf (talk) 09:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

A fix for this seems to be being actively worked on at present, so I'm marking this answered. Thryduulf (talk) 19:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Shrinking images

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T49804

For reasons I can't guess, several of the images in Leg before wicket appear to shrink when opened in the Visual Editor. Dragons flight (talk) 04:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's weird. I think the VE may be operating based on the system's default image size rather than the user's - pretty sure I saw a bug about this. I'll go a-questin' to hunt it down. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:51, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha! bugzilla:47804. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

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I find this set up rather difficult. I prefer the old way of editing a page.

SamSennett (talk) 05:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

You're not alone... Currently, you can use edit source instead of edit, or hide VE using "Preferences/Gadgets/Editing/Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" (not perfect, an option to really remove VE has been requested by many users at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#"Opt out" of VE needed under preferences). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Broken URLs to image files display only the filename in VE, cannot be edited in VE

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53103

Possibly related to #External links to images show up as images in edit mode? above, when a raw URL with no markup (e.g. http://www.sucs.org/~cmckenna/photos/quizes/tq2012/July/Jun03key.png ) ends in .png, .jpg, .svg or .gif but does not work (e.g. it gives a 404 error) then only the filename portion of the URL, Jun03key.png in this case, is displayed in the visual editor. Visual editor cannot then edit this URL to correct it.

Links to other image formats (e.g. tif), html pages, .txt files and pdf files, and all urls enclosed in single bracket markup work as expected and are editable in the Visual editor. See my sandbox testing. Thryduulf (talk) 09:48, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I've now put this in bugzilla as bugzilla:51103. Thryduulf (talk) 09:56, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Terrible

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Been using the old style for many years and not only is this not an improvement in functionality, but its slow and difficult to use. I would highly recommend against keeping this format. AStudent (talk) 10:37, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

You're not alone... Currently, you can use edit source instead of edit, or hide VE using "Preferences/Gadgets/Editing/Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" (not perfect, an option to really remove VE has been requested by many users at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#"Opt out" of VE needed under preferences). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Editting a table

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T41596

I am afraid editting a table is not possible. Or, is it? Saha.rj (talk) 11:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Currently, you can only edit the contents of existing table cells. You cannot presently change the structure of tables (adding or deleting cells or rows for example). Full table support will come with a future release. Thryduulf (talk) 12:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Gesture of appreciation

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This comment is just to say thank you to the hard working folks developing VE. As much as I have problems with this new editor, I appreciate the effort that is going into improving it.--¿3family6 _contribs 13:27, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! The community's continued patience is much appreciated :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

General editor for extension tags

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T45133

Hi, I looked in bugzilla but didn't find anything related. I think VE should include a basic editor for all extension tags that it doesn't recognize (<source>...</source>, <score>...</score>, <timeline>...</timeline>, <blockquote>...</blockquote>, ...). This basic editor would simply let editors edit the contents of the tag in a text edit box. It would also help for tags that are planned to be managed by VE but the feature is not yet available (<math>...</math> for example). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 14:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Created #51131. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 18:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Alterar username

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Boa tarde, como é que eu posso alterar o nome (user) da conta. Pretendia fazer a alteração de Iportaldoc para IPBRICK mas não estou a conseguir fazê-lo.

Obrigada. Melhores Cumprimentos, Joana Cruz IPBrick (talk) 16:16, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Note: this is in Portuguese and the question doesn't have any obvious relation to the Visual Editor. It looks like the editor is asking how to change her account name, which would be a policy violation as it represents a commercial entity. Looie496 (talk) 16:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to rename the template editing features in VE

See: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Replace the term .22transclusion.22 in the Visual_Editor. Dragons flight (talk) 16:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; commented :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

No gadget

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I wish to turn off VE (it's not working in my Win XP netbook, and I have no need of it). I have no applicable gadget in my preferences, even though I'm signed in. I'm using Chrome, and the Monobook skin. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Are you looking in the right place? The relevant option is in the editing section of the gadgets tab, not the editing tab (which would be logical). Thryduulf (talk) 17:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Doh! My bad; thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:52, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

No problem, you aren't the first to have this issue :) Thryduulf (talk) 17:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Transclusion editing

I don't seem to be able to edit transclusions. kees (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you give more details or an example ? Normally, you click on a template (for example an infobox), which makes a small puzzle icon appear on the top right of the template, you then have to click on that puzzle to display the transclusion window. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 18:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Would like to see the edit summary previewed as well

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T44139

I'm one of those editors who likes to include links to policies in my edit summaries. I do this mostly to help new editors, as I learned a lot about various policies via edit summaries when I first started editing. However, VE doesn't provide a way to preview the edit summary so I have to be extra-careful to get links right the first time in the edit summary. Could the preview function also render the edit summary if one has been provided at that point? Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a really good point; I'll throw it in Bugzilla now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually that looks to be covered already by Bugzilla:42139. Thryduulf (talk) 18:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit summary is not WYSIWYG

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The current "Save page" dialog permits entry of an edit summary with newlines, however, no newlines are preserved in the edit summary when it is saved to the Wiki. This is confusing, because I just used a WYSIWYG editor, but what I see in the edit summary is not what I get. Elizium23 (talk) 18:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• As I understand bugzilla:42139, the current save dialog is just temporary and it will be replaced by a "mini-VE surface". I suspect therefore that the devs wont want to spend time fixing this separately to that - but I am not a dev so don't take that as gospel. Thryduulf (talk) 19:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

VE messing up word which extends beyond the link

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52945

Spotting a VE edit on my watchlist today, I looked at it - and had to tidy it up. VE had created "[[Indonesia]]<nowiki/>n", so it appeared as Indonesian, with a black "n", rather than "[[Indonesia]]n", Indonesian, as it was intended. Messy. Probably already reported, but difficult to find in Bugzilla. (This problem was in an edit 13 hours ago - delighted apologies if it's been fixed already!) PamD 20:44, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, this will probably be caught by Bugzilla:50945, but see also #Changing link text often results in bad code, wrong links and unmatched </nowki>s which I'm still trying to get my head back around. Thryduulf (talk) 20:51, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

New WYSIWIG editor needs to have way to edit links

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52945

Just now I wanted to modify BuAer to the Bureau of Aeronautics, but couldn't figure out a way to do this, or revert to the old editor to do it there. Joconnor (talk) 20:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• See Bugzilla:50945. The only way currently is to delete the text that is there already, type the display text, select the display text, open the link dialog and set the link to what you want it to link to (it will default to whatever text is selected, but you can override this). It might still leave some junk in the code from the previous link, and if you make a mistake you have to start again, but it seems to work in my testing. Thryduulf (talk) 21:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
• To revert to the old editor you have two choices. On a per-edit basis just click "edit source" rather than edit; to opt-out for all your edits go to the gadgets tab of your preferences then click the first option in the editing section, scroll to the bottom of the page and save the changes. Thryduulf (talk) 21:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Copy References and Templates

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How can I copy References as whole from one article to the other what about Templates?--Livermorium (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

At the moment, you can't :(. It's something that is being worked on. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Problem with Persondata

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52120

I noticed that Persondata is now editable, so I had a go. There are two problems, as you can see from this diff:

• Both Persondata and the following DEFAULTSORT and cats have been duplicated
• The Persondata is written in its expanded wikitable form, not the template form. This would lead to exceedingly inconvenient and unidiomatic source, so I think this counts as a second bug.

I corrected the article in the subsequent edit. --Mirokado (talk) 21:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting it! Looks like bugzilla:50120, which is high-priority. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Add a comma after a link, get a pawn

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53140

Editing Jabhala I found that when I tried to add punctuation (full stop or comma) immediately after a link, I got an icon of a chess pawn instead. I managed to fiddle it by adding the punctuation after the pawn, moving left, and deleting the pawn. Having done my edits I then tried the same in my sandbox and in a random article and couldn't reproduce the problem. But then reopened the first article and reproduced the problem. All I did was to type a comma after the Assandh link. Very weird. PamD 22:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I see the same thing; throwing in Bugzilla :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Aaand done. Thanks, as always, for finding these bugs. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

External link in text shows as blue wikilink when in VE edit screen

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T40726

I noted a typo at Campus of the University of Washington in the subheading "Military Memorials" and clicked the edit link to correct it. I noted that there was what appeared to be a regular blue wikilink for the words Interrupted Journey. There was a carriage return in the screen immediately before the words "A Medal of Honor.." so I elected to abort the edit. I then switched to edit source, corrected the typo, saw that there was no carriage return in the source, and was surprised to find that the link in the phrase Interrupted Journey was an external link to a youtube video. This appears to be reproducible within the history of the page, and I believe on other pages as well. Risker (talk) 03:51, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The issue, I gather, is that there is no difference in appearance between wikilinks and external links until you open the link editor. Looie496 (talk) 04:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Well that (why would I open a link editor for what looks like a wikilink?) and the fact that the appearance changes from the view mode (where it looks like an external link, with the appropriate icon) to the visual edit mode (where it looks like a wikilink). In fact, I wonder if that's why I got that stray carriage return, which is visually similar to the icon used to identify external links in the view mode. Risker (talk) 04:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

This is bug 38726, though there is a more general issue with links not being coloured based on not existing or being under your stub colour threshold (bug 37901) or being inter-project links (bug 33084). Adding this information to the system is a little complicated and we have not yet done this, though it's something I consider important and which we want to get to soon (once we've fixed more of the bugs). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 04:45, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Changing link text often results in bad code, wrong links and unmatched </nowki>s

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53173

Following from my report above I've done some more testing in my userspace [54]

That link contains details, but some "highlights" include:

• Changing a link from Egypt to Ecuador: [[Egypt|<nowiki/>]][[Ecuador|E]][[Ecuador|cuador]]
• Changing a link from Zachary Taylor to Zoe Ball: [[Zachary Taylor|<nowiki/>]][[Zoe Ball|Zoe]] Ball

and some links simply not being changed. Thryduulf (talk) 11:59, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I want to understand what you're doing here, @Thryduulf:. It looks like you were attempting to see what would happen if you changed some links by backspacing and retyping rather than using the link editor - is that correct? I can't find any other way to get the results you did at Afghanistan, for instance. :) Were you using the link editor at any point? I want to be sure to report this correctly. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Every time I added, set or changed a link I used ctrl+k. When I was deleting or backspacing the link it was to remove the existing link in order to replace it with a new one. Setting the link and then altering the text was to see what happens when someone does that, because the displayed text does not change when you change a link using the link editor. Does that explain things or should I try again? Thryduulf (talk) 14:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The Afghanistan test was very much a "what happens if". I remember now that I've seen a result like this in the wild [55]. I don't know what exactly Kinda Stolen was attempting to do with that edit but the effect was the same. Thryduulf (talk) 14:44, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

"What happens if" makes a sense to me. It seems like a natural thing for somebody to try to do. :) I can report the issue with backspacing and its outcome, certainly. The control+k issue seems like the one we've been talking about above, unless I'm missing some nuance, so I've essentially just reported that one. Just let me know, @Thryduulf:! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I was changing some of the old text on the page using the Visual Editor after I moved the page to reflect the moons new name. When I was changing the text from P5 to Kerberos, I had to relink it but for some reason the visual editor only made the "k" of "Kerberos" form the link. Not sure what went wrong there but it was noticed and fixed sometime afterwards. Kinda Stolen (talk) 19:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll come back to this in the morning (UK time) when I should be more awake, but I think there are several issues here. One is as above, one or two when you partially replace a link to modifiy it and one where you (attempt to) completely remove a link to modify it. Thryduulf (talk) 21:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've managed to utterly confuse myself with this, sorry. When I work it out again I'll get back to you about it if someone doesn't get there first! Thryduulf (talk) 09:00, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

A nice example of this was this pair of VE edits to Smile (The Beach Boys album). In the first[56] the user tries to link to The Elements: Fire but it gets mangled instead we get "[[The Elements: Fire|<nowiki/>]][[Fire]]" . In the second[57] it looks like VE tries to correct itself and changes "[[The Elements: Fire|<nowiki/>]][[Fire]]" into "<nowiki/>[[Fire]]". The end result is that VE has managed to not link to the intended page and link to an unintended page! There is a considerable time diference between the two edits, 3rd July and 9th July so VE might have been patched between the two.--Salix (talk): 06:29, 9 July 2013 (UTC)?

My example: [[diesel generator]]<nowiki>s Why would I want to nowiki the plural? Is this the default behavior or a random flaw? Rmhermen (talk) 14:54, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Rmhermen:, can you tell me what you did to get that result? I'm trying to figure out how best to report it, and I find the issue somewhat confusing. :) Did that just pop up when you used the wikilink editor? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe that I highlighted the words "diesel generators" and chose the first suggestion "diesel generator" which when saved showed as diesel generators. Rmhermen (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Reported. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Clicking on top-right corner of template opens template dialog

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53176

Clicking on top-right corner of a template (not selecting it beforehand) unexpectedly opens the template dialog despite the edit icon not being displayed there yet. --WS (talk) 12:29, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Confirmed with FF22. Not exactly the corner, but if you click in the place where the puzzle-piece icon would be, the editor opens immediately, as stated. Looie496 (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting. That works for me, too. @Wouterstomp:, @Looie496:, is that a problem? It seems to me almost like a shortcut. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes it's a problem. A user you merely want to select an element, for example to copy or move it, should not accidentally open it because they happen to click near the corner. (Of course we can't currently copy or move templates, but that is a separate issue.) Dragons flight (talk) 00:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not a terrible problem, but it's not desirable. I believe that a double-click on a template ought to open the editor, but a single-click at a particular point shouldn't. I would class this as low-priority, though. Looie496 (talk) 02:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Before reporting, I'll just ask if anybody disagrees that opening it with a double-click would actually be a good thing? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

A few days ago I already posted on this page saying that double clicking ought to open the appropriate editing dialog. So yes, I think that would be a good thing. Dragons flight (talk) 15:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree, would be good. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

So noted. :) Thanks. :D (Double-click bug T53143 was listed as "high" priority and assigned, so maybe this will be an easy implement!) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:13, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Feedback form

So, when using the visual editor, if you click on "Beta" there is a link to "Leave Feedback" If you click that link there is a Feedback dialog with settings for "subject" and "message". If one fills out this form, it posts a new message to this page. Posting a "Feedback" form while it is blank will result in a post being added here that consists solely of the posting user's signature. I've noticed such signature posts on this page several times now, but it only just dawned on me where they are coming from. It might be good to tag or otherwise identify posts generated via the Feedback form. Also, I suspect that people who use that form to post here will not necessarily be watching this page and so they won't necessarily see any replies. Dragons flight (talk) 16:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

That concerns me, too, Dragons flight- the empty signatures I tend to ignore, but I've been using {{ping}} (love that template) to try to attract the people I suspect aren't watching. I'll ask about the tagging issue. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The easiest way for a new editor to ask anything about wikipedia is this page

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I've noticed quite a few edits to this page which don't really seem to be VE feedback. If you follow through the new editor experience its quite obvious why they are being directed here.

1. New editor finds a page, they want to edit and clicks "Edit"
2. They have a question, they see the big ? in the top bar and click it
3. There are two options: "user guide" and "Leave feadback", the second is obviously the one for questions so click that
4. There is some complicate text which is tldr and a nice box to ask your question. The user types in that and
5. Bingo, a new section here

This senario probably explains why we are getting a few simple signature with no comments. As the ? is much more prominent than the Help in the left sidebar its grabbing the users attention so diverting users away from our main help system. This will likely be a continuing problem and a way needs to be found to direct users to the right place.--Salix (talk): 20:46, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I think there's an argument for, once the VE is fully live, repurposing it. But for now we get a lot of useful feedback through that box: I'd be loathe to tweak it to compensate for the occasional (good-faith) unrelated request. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Changes don't show up when page is saved, need to reload

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52737

I'm sure this is already in the system, but it's not easy to search Bugzilla for it!

I added two extra categories to Karl Parker (cursing, as usual, the fact that I can't see the article while adding a category), added an edit summary, saved the page. No sign of the two new categories. Once I reloaded the page, they were of course there. But VE needs to show the result of an edit correctly and immediately - or produce a flag saying "If the changes you've made are not visible, please reload the page." My heart sank, I thought "Have I managed to forget to click one of the buttons?", before I tried reloading: and I'm an experienced editor. What would a new editor do? PamD 21:03, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Pam! Tracked. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Fix it or lose copy editing of short sections of long articles

Put an "edit source" link on the help box, or lose copy editing of short sections of long articles from occasional users. These users expect to fix a comma or awkward wording in a short section by clicking on "edit" and finding an edit box right there after a page load. They don't expect to have to wait for "edit source" to appear after hover. They don't expect to find very sluggish scrolling and failure to reach the bottom of page in one try and failure of the "End" keyboard key and absence of an edit box at the bottom of page. They might keep trying long enough to find the help box. At least, the help box should mention the fact that "edit source" will appear after hover, and at least, that "edit source" should be linked to edit the section in an edit box. —Pifvyubjwm (talk) 21:08, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

On the help box, @Pifvyubjwm:? What do you mean? (There is ongoing discussion about making "edit source" in sections permanently display, rather than hover.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:42, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

null as first parameter for external links

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53132

I've just noticed a couple of edits in visualeditor-needcheck which make external links like [null http://example.org/] [58],[59]. I've been monitoring the needcheck and its the first time I've seen them so it might be a bug introduced in a new rollout.--Salix (talk): 21:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Strange! MzMcBride reported it, too - tracking number added. :) Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

General

I think that the visual editor is great for people who have never edited Wikipedia before, but if you have been on here for a while then it takes some time to get used to. Therefore I think that, once any bugs have been fixed, the defaults should be: VisualEditor on for IP users, and off for logged-in users. (If you approve this suggestion then IP editors would be able to override the default by clicking “edit source,” and registered users by going to their preferences and checking “Enable VisualEditor.”) Bwrs (talk) 21:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback, @Bwrs:. :) While approval isn't in my scope, I will make sure to pass along your feedback. At this point, the plan is to keep VisualEditor on for everyone for some of the reasons explained by the Wikimedia Foundation's Deputy Director in the FAQ under "Why does no standard user preference to disable VisualEditor exist?" Personally, I do understand the challenge in switching over - I've found myself accidentally pressing "edit" when I meant "edit source" more than once, and I look forward to the time VE can handle some of the more complex tasks I do when volunteering. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Need to be able to add "Multiple Issues" around existing or new templates

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52182

I think this is included in T52182 but have added a comment there to clarify: we need to be able to add {{Multiple issues}} around existing tags, or one existing and one newly-added tag. There doesn't seem a way to do so in VE at present - it's yet another reason causing me to do a cleanup edit after almost every VE edit. Not an efficient way of working! PamD 07:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for tracking this, Pam. :) Agree it's important. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Odd bug after blanking page

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53169

When trying to blank a page in my user sandbox to do a different test, I've found a very odd bug:

1. Load any page with more than 1 line of text in VE
2. Select all text (e.g. by ctrl+a)
3. Optionally delete everything selected (backspace or del) [this step makes no difference]
4. Type any one character and it appears correctly
5. Type a second character and you get the layout below (example characters are 1 and 2):

1121
12

The third and any subsequent characters appear as expected but with the cursor between the two "1"s on the first line.
When the page is saved, the wikitext is just the first line.

The text is not always possible to delete, other than by selection, and trying to do that results in various things:

• A repeat of the above
• A random number of instances of the first or second character you attempt to overwrite it with appearing on 4 lines
• A ♙ (apparently U+2659 WHITE CHESS PAWN) on the first line and one or two characters on the second and third lines (or on the third and fifth lines with blank lines between)
• A string of some (~5-20) of the characters you were trying to type but which cannot be navigated with the cursor keys. These can be selected and overwritten but not deleted any other way, after a few attempts the editor locks up and you can only proceed by leaving or reloading the page.

I have not been able to figure out how to reliably reproduce any one of the above though. Thryduulf (talk) 16:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Another occurrence [60]--Salix (talk): 03:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I can see it; reported. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Messed up infobox image

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53166

Mohammad Azharuddin shows a different person in the infobox during Vedit that during view. This is apparently a consequence of {{Css Image Crop}} failing under VE. Not sure what exactly the underlying error is, but the gender bending result is definitely noticeable. Dragons flight (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe the technical term is "I don't even what". Throwing in bugzilla now; good (and bizarre) catch :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference Issues: Omnibus Edition

Before I explain the variety of bug reports and feature enhancements involved, I'll be presenting a typical example of what many editors do here on ENWIKI, day after day. Understanding the bug reports and feature requests will require following along with the steps of the example. So, before I proceed with the number of bug reports and feature requests that will follow below, please reproduce all the following steps in order.

I know some of these are covered by existing bugs, but I really do think that the scope of my concerns can only be fully understood in the context of a complete example

1. Open test case at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ben_Barres&oldid=563699414
2. Select "Edit", invoking Visual Editor.
3. Place the cursor in the Awards section, following the comma after "McKnight Investigator Award"
4. Press "insert reference", which is a button two to the left of the puzzle piece.
5. Select "Create New Source". Blue indicator line is good, very usable.
6. "Reference content" window appears.
7. Press the transclusion button
8. "New template" window appears
9. Enter "Cite book"
10. Select the matching entry from the pulldown
11. Press "Add template"
12. "Cite book" page comes up.
13. Select URL
14. Type "URL" into the search bar
15. Select the URL item (the second one if two appear)
16. Enter this URL : http://books.google.com/books?id=v0Sn0jB9QwIC&pg=PA77&dq=%22Ben+Barres%22+glia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9KDdUcmFPM_higL-j4FQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Ben%20Barres%22%20glia&f=false
17. Click "Apply changes"
18. Oh, I'm at "Reference Content", how weird
19. Click on the puzzle piece
20. Click on "Source title"
21. "Add parameter"
22. Enter: Research Funding in Neuroscience: A Profile of the McKnight Endowment Fund
23. "Apply changes"
24. Select text to get puzzle piece to appear
25. Click puzzle piece
26. Select "last name"
27. Scroll to "add parameter"
28. Click "add parameter"
29. Enter Strobel
30. "Apply changes"
31. Click puzzle piece
32. Select "first name"
33. Scroll to "add parameter"
34. Click "add parameter"
35. Enter Gabrielle
36. "Apply changes"
37. Click puzzle piece
38. Select publisher
39. Scroll to "add parameter"
40. Click "add parameter"
41. Open another window in your browser
42. In window 2, open http://books.google.com/books?id=v0Sn0jB9QwIC&pg=PA77&dq=%22Ben+Barres%22+glia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9KDdUcmFPM_higL-j4FQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Ben%20Barres%22%20glia&f=false
43. In window 2, Click on "About this book"
44. In window 2, Scroll to the bottom of the page
45. Note that the publisher of this book is Academic Press
46. Back at window 1, Enter Academic Press
47. "Apply changes"
48. Click puzzle piece
49. Scrolll to pages
50. Select pages
51. Scroll to "add parameter"
52. Press "add parameter"
53. Enter 77, followed by a dash or hyphen, as you prefer
54. "Apply changes"
55. Click puzzle piece
56. Scroll to "Year of publication" (not source date)
57. Press "year of publication"
58. Scroll to "Add parameter"
59. Press "add parameter"
60. Enter 2010 (you remembered this from step 46, I'm sure, I won't make you go back and look.)
61. "Apply changes"
62. Click puzzle piece
63. Enter ISBN
64. click Add parameter
65. Enter 9780080466538
66. Apply changes
67. Click puzzle piece
68. Enter access date and select it
69. click Add parameter
70. Enter the current date
71. Apply changes
72. Apply changes [sic]
73. (At this point you'd do the rest of the steps to save this, but don't, I've already added it.)

Now, for reference, here's the previous workflow:

• B1 Go back to [61]
• B2 Press "Edid source"
• B3 Scroll to awards section
• B4 Place cursor after the McKnight ... comma
• B5 Press cite
• B6 Press book
• B7 Scroll to the URL field
• B8. Enter http://books.google.com/books?id=v0Sn0jB9QwIC&pg=PA77&dq=%22Ben+Barres%22+glia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9KDdUcmFPM_higL-j4FQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Ben%20Barres%22%20glia&f=false
• B9. Press green button
• B10. Press "add citation"
• B11. (At this point you'd do the rest of the steps to save this, but don't)

Bugs, feature requests, suggestions

• Bug: At step 4: I have no idea what the logo for "insert reference" is supposed to mean. — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • @Joe Decker:, I agree that this is opaque. I asked about that for another contributor and received an answer yesterday that included the statement that this particular icon can certainly be changed, if somebody comes up with a better idea. The icon needs to be universal, so that it works in any language. Any ideas? I can open this in a new section, if you'd like, or feel free to copy it to a new section yourself for greater visibility. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
    • @Mdennis (WMF):. That's a tough question, you're right. The version of RefTools that I use simply uses "cite" in small ugly letters, but that doesn't give me a lot of joy either. I tend to be pretty reference focused, if there were more pixels I could imagine trying to split it up into separate icons by media type (at least for news/book/web)... heh, my news icon suggestion would probably betray my age, though. --j⚛e decker^talk 03:08, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
      • @Joe Decker:, there is now a bug on this one with a suggestion or two. :) T53372, if you want to pitch in! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:21, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
• Suggestion: After step 4, before step 5: "Create new source" and "Use an existing source" -- it's a little confusing that the latter is in bold. I wonder if the real choice here (new source, or a specific existing source) would be better communicated by having the bold be on "Create new source" rather than the other way around? — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • T53183. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Feature request: At step 5, would it be better to include options to "create new source from news", "from book", "from journal", "from web" at this point? this would bypass a few problems that I will outline below
• Feature request: Short of this, one could make a similar shortcut at step 6.
• Suggestion: At step 6, there's a heck of a lot of white space here doing nothing. I'd think it'd be reasonable to expend a few cm² of it on a little assistance for new users.
• Bug: At step 6/7, the use of "transclusion" is accurate but useless to new editors. Even template would be clearer, although not much, note that the window which opens at step 8 is called "New template"
• Bug: At step 6, the featuring of "group" at this level is distracting and confusing to new editors, I've already seen a couple cases where this is mistaken for reference name to bad effect
• Suggestion: At step 6, explain the group option and/or make it less prominent to increase usability.
• Bug: At step 6, It's pretty non-sensical, I think, to insert media within a reference. Certainly rare, and almost certainly never what a new user intended. I'd suggest removing that option. — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • T53184. Except the "transclusion" question. This is under discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Replace_the_term_.22transclusion.22_in_the_Visual_Editor. I'd recommend joining in that and, once consensus is found on terminology, bringing that one up. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Feature request: At step 8, the design has lost the context that we're editing a reference, and this creates an enormous amount of pain. If you haven't accepted some of the previous suggestions for how to streamline usage of reference templates, at least, at very least, make them clear one-click options here.
• Suggestion: At step 8, there's a heck of a lot of white space here doing nothing. I'd think it'd be reasonable to expend a few cm² of it on a little assistance for new users.
• Bug: At step 8, The most reasonable thing for a new user to type at this point for a book reference is book. Doing this pulls up a template which isn't what the user wants. Fix this. — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • T53185. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Feature request: At step 12, indicate which parameters are required. In most web environments, this is done with red text or an asterisk — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • T53186. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:32, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Bug: At step 13, the most natural way to "select" URL is to double-click, and, failing that, hit "Apply changes". Neither is correct. "Add parameter" is invisible off-screen--make it visible. — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • T53143 includes a request for double-clicking on parameter values. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Bug: At step 14, there are two URL parameters listed, the first marked "unknown parameter". Remove that. — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • I do not really understand why this is happening - anybody have any clue? It would assist in requesting repair. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

• Bug: At step 17, I seem to have left the place where I'm adding parameters to the template. I have many to add, this is the wrong default.
• Bug: At step 20, the description for "Source title" is incorrect. It's a book, it's not the title of the web page we want, but the title of the book. Right? — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • I think this is part of the TemplateData added to the template itself, isn't it? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Suggestion: At step 56: it's confusing that the year of publication/month of publication are so well separated from source date, this will cause confusion, maybe some re-org would help a bit here — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • There is an older bug in to permit reordering these parameters. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Feature request: At step 53, it is my memory that hyphens here are always turned into the appropriate flavor of dashes automagically as an easy cleanup, even if the automatic of steps B8, B9 isn't invoked.
• Bug: Steps 18-66 are unnecessary as demonstrated by steps B8, B9 — Joe Decker 19:41, 10 July 2013 — continues after insertion below
  • T53188
• Bug: Steps 67-71 are unnecessary, accessdate is almost always "right now", and can be sensibly defaulted
• Suggestion: The similarity of the generic words in steps 71 and 72 might make it worth considering giving one or the other a slightly different label, so as to provide the editor more navigational context.

I consider several of these bugs to be serious, blocking issues. I hope this demonstration, which is work I actually went and did, much like work that I've done thousands of times at Wikipedia in the past, conveys the magnitude of the issues with the current implementation of references.

We need to make references, which are a core object of Wikipedia articles, five times easier, not seven times more difficult.

Thanks for your attention. --j⚛e decker^talk 19:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• I can't answer to the bugs thing, but just a hint to help you next time you attempt to add a cite ref with VE. You don't have to click "apply changes" everytime you add a new parameter and then "edit template" again to add a new one. When you are done with one parameter, just click on the title of the template on the left up corner of the dialogue and it will take you immediately to the "add new parameter". No need to "get out" of the dialogue and "come back" everytime. I am sure that will save you lots of time! TeamGale (talk) 19:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
  • TeamGale: Thanks! I did not know that! It won't save me much time, though, since I can't imagine using VE to add references when using the existing tools is several times faster, even with your improvements. Where this is going to cost *me* time is in writing out instructions to new editors creating articles, and in marking unsourced articles for deletion. --j⚛e decker^talk 20:00, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

You are welcome. The truth is that many couldn't find it. I was just clicking everywhere because I knew there should be a way to go back to "add new parameter" without getting out of the dialogue. Sure there has to be a more obvious button for that. You sure can choose the way it fits you best. Especially since you are using wikitext for a long time, that way would be easier for you. But in case you will use VE again, this will save some time for sure :) Writting instructions, you mean as a guide how to use VE or while reviewing new articles? TeamGale (talk) 20:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I'll use VE again, I just won't use it for references until it actually works for references. Right now, largely by coincidence, I expect, the most common tasks I do are all things that don't work for VE for one reason or another--adding references is just much more painful, a lot of gnomish space/punctuation fixes (it's amazing how often I do WP:PAIC fixes) don't work because of a bug, and a lot of my AfC work is blocked by AfC drafts being in the WT namespace--so I have to go out of my way to find some useful way to use VE, but it is getting better. And I expect it will continue to do so--it's just going to take some pushback. That's the only reason I went to the trouble to write all of this out.

As far as writing instructions, I'm thinking about my reviewing of AfC drafts. We get a ton of new editors (who can't use VisualEditor yet because of the namespace problem, but I'm sure that will be fixed one way or another going forward.) They get horribly confused by our referencing requirements, that, copyright, and notability (which comes down to references, too) tend to be the big, hard things that I find myself explaining over and over again. I've got some TextExpander boilerplate that helps--and as instruction manuals and help pages fill in the gaps for Visual Editor, that will help too, but there's always that point where you have to address someone's confusion in the context of where they're stuck right now, and if it takes 3-5x as many steps to answer a question, that's just more work for me. The good news is that, with some sensible automation and redesign, VE can turn into something that does a better job for new users and references, and I look forward to that day. --j⚛e decker^talk 20:18, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I understand! I agree that VE needs a lot of work but it was improved a lot the last few days. I am new editor here (less than a month) and for what I want to contribute VE is helping me a lot. I had the honor to use the wikitext for a week before find VE so I somehow can work on both for the things I need. And if there is something I can't do on VE yet, I use the "edit source" button. I am sure when things are finished, VE will be a really nice tool for everyone. TeamGale (talk) 20:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

TeamGale: That's my feeling as well, absolutely. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

• Joe Decker, thank you very much for taking the time to document this so thoroughly. At least it's right here in black and white why experienced users are registering concerns and complaints about the referencing process (and that assumes all goes well). It is really illustrative to see this step-by-step description of the process under optimal conditions. Risker (talk) 20:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

  You're quite welcome. It seemed more constructive than my first response. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

@Risker and Joe Decker: Completely agreed, and improving references is among the highest priorities right now. There are some pretty low hanging fruit improvements that will make the dialog a lot more efficient for the common case. Two important ones are described in T52747 (patch in progress; this one will help filling in the cite templates more quickly) and T53152 (this'll just reduce the clunkiness of the dialog a bit). We'd like to get these two done before the IP release, ideally, since adding citations is such an important aspect of authoring content. After that release, we'll do further UX work in this area. Ideally I'd like to get some RefToolbar-like functionality (but nicer) for auto-populating citation data from ISBN numbers, and such.

It's important to note that RefToolbar on en.wp was a community-developed innovation -- we hope that over time, we'll also see similar community improvements to VisualEditor.

Joe, thanks for the detailed breakdown! I encourage you to participate in Bugzilla as well, since that's where a lot of the detailed discussions with the devs will take place.

Please do remember, a lot of us WMF folks are long-time Wikipedians, even those who are not very active on the content side anymore. We know that this stuff matters and we'll get it right. We made tradeoffs for the beta release and you can legitimately be angry with us for compromising too much and shipping too early. I for one think we needed to get from our protected alpha existence into the real world, so I'm not apologetic for that. But we'll get there -- making this thing awesome for everyone is our number 1 goal. :-) Eloquence* 06:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

two done before the IP release ... After that release, we'll do further UX work in this area ...

Why on earth WMF folks seem to simply ignore what many experienced editors are saying ? Why is that IP release so vital that it needs to be done before VE is fixed of many of its bugs, and the UX is redesigned to be usable ? This question has been asked several times and no answer, you (VE team, WMF) simply seem to want to roll out VE to as many people as possible even if it's currently damaging encyclopedic articles, and you don't even bother to fix that damages. you can legitimately be angry with us for compromising too much and shipping too early : why continuing in this path then ? --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 07:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Eloquence, with respect, I'm afraid I must disagree on one point. Whether the existing RefTools was developed by WMF or the volunteers, it is a living, breathing part of the ENWIKI environment, there are videos (I think produced by the WMF) on how to use them, and it is very much a part of the bar the previous editing environment sets. I see the goal of the Visual Editor as being "improving user experience for new users", not "improving user experience for new users over what they'd have if they never used any volunteer-developed gadgets." New users don't care where their tools from, they just care if they actually get the job done. That's my view as well.

Your comment about long-time Wikipedians is from what I've seen probably true, but I have terrible visibility into anything outside of the editing community. It's been clear in previous discussions that I'm highly misinformed about the relationship of the various groups of people outside the editing community.

Looking at the bug numbers you listed, I'm delighted to see those two issues in-progress. When I have more time I'll see what else is poking around Bugzilla. But the work I just put into this section was very real for me, and I hope that at least someone reads through it all. If it's considered tl;dr, well, at least I'll have gotten my minimum daily dose of irony. ;-) Have a great week. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

@Eloquence:, I agree with Joe Decker. I have a lot of respect for you but between this VE mess and the ongoing recent protectionism of abusive admins that the WMF refuses to do anything about, I have better things to do. With that said I care about the project very much. I believe in it and want to see it succeed. So when I see decisions like the one that was done with VE it really causes my irritation level to increase. Especially from the organization who is being paid to keep the project going, not break the backs of the volunteers. It would be one thing if the problems were unexpected, but they weren't, the WMF knew it was going to bottom out and released it anyway. Letting the volunteer community deal with the mess and then ignoring them when they say don't release it and it doesn't work. I for one have a major problem with that, even if others are happy to clogg along. It feels like this VE project is being done at the expense of the current community in an attempt to get new users...but at the sacrifice of the existing ones who have continued to stay with the project through the hard times. That isn't acceptable. So I would say don't release it to IP's or the rest of the Wiki's but your not going to listen anyway so you may as well just go ahead and do it all at once. Don't bother soliciting comments from the community, don't bother with a phased rollout. The bugs will still be identified and logged, the problems will continue to be added to articles and creating problems that will sit there on the articles for months to come. Its no big deal really...unless you are actually doing the work!. With that said I think most editors will be glad I'm not editing. Because I have no problems telling the WMF or admins that they are screwing up, and no one likes it when people tell them they screwed up. Especially when its just some dumb editor with 400, 000+ edits! Kumioko (talk) 16:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference Templates

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There are none or I cannot find reference templates. Swimmermroe (talk) 00:37, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

This is impossible to understand. What task were you trying to do? Looie496 (talk) 03:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Presumably add a citation. @Swimmermroe: if you open the reference editor and hit the puzzle-box icon, you can insert templates - efn, for example, or sfn, or cite web, or... Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Notice on top of edit box in old edit interface

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53160

The old edit interface carries the notice Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions. (with some wikilinks) We should probably have something similar in the VE too?OrangesRyellow (talk) 08:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a good point. That message comes from MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn and doesn't appear anywhere on the VE page. The save page dialog does include MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning (which appears by the save button in the source editor) but in tiny letters. See bugzilla:51160 Thryduulf (talk) 08:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

In practice that message is probably totally pointless, like most of our messages. It's been shown that people don't read those things, so basically they are just there for the comfort of the 'regulars'. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

But because it's there people can't claim they weren't told what would happen when we remove all their copyvios. Thryduulf (talk) 09:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, frankly it's in the TOS, too, so really they can't make that claim anyway. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

A large amount of references vanished.

I added about 4 or 5 more references than is shown. They just disappeared after saving the page. Now I need to go through them all over again to re-add. Not good. Cowicide (talk) 09:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The article in question seems to be Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Thryduulf (talk) 09:30, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmn. @Cowicide: how did you add the references? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

With the beta thing that has the add reference button. I found that I could only add one reference at a time and had to slowly stop and save each time. Instead, I stopped using the beta button and edited the source and did it manually instead. Cowicide (talk) 12:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

More specifically, how did you handle it with the VisualEditor? Did you insert the 4-5 more references, and if so, how? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox edit

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53161

I edited an infobox earlier, but after editing, the line breaks were gone (meaning it was no longer one line per parameter). I'm not sure if I did it wrong, or if it's a bug. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

An example of this is [62]. I would class this as a bug as the result make it harder for editors not using VE to edit the infobox.--Salix (talk): 12:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is bugzilla:51161. I've added your example to that bug. Thryduulf (talk) 12:34, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Need for written specifications

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It's apparent to me that there is a need for prototyping of the UI elements of the editor. Without at least a sketch of a specification, the developers are in many areas hacking around, and the final product is likely to be an unmaintainable mass of kludges. As an example of the sort of thing that is needed, I have written a draft specification for a reference-insertion-tool at user:Looie496/VE Reference editor. I won't assert that the design there is exactly what is needed, but what is needed is explicit planning at this level. Looie496 (talk) 16:34, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

While prototyping UI elements is beyond me, I have put your reference-insertion-tool draft specification in T53188 in case it helps. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

A new (old?) bug

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53191

I was trying to edit a template in a table after the bug of the references inside template was fixed, but the edit broke the whole table. This was also happening before with the references bug. I don't know if the two bugs were reported together...maybe not. Here is what happened.
When I edited the template with the 12th episode, the cite error didn't appear. But when I clicked to save it, the 12th episode moved at the top of the table when it should be at the bottom. I reverted the edit and re-made it using "edit source". Can this be reported? Thank you TeamGale (talk) 16:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I've seen this before, but can't find it. Poking around, and I'll risk duplicating it if I don't. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I can't find it. :) Anyway, I've reported it now. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I know...it was mentioned before. I was just with the impression that it was included in the bug with the refs but it seems it was not. I don't think it was reported seperately so, thanks for reporting it :) Hope it will get fixed too. TeamGale (talk) 20:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

new editor

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This new editor sucks. I just want to edit the old way. Please make an option to do this. Sometimes newer is not better. Torturella (talk) 17:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

@Torturella: That option already exists. Below is a copy of the FAQ that details using the old editor / disabling the visual editor completely:

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.)

I hope this helps. besides this, is there anything specific you didn't like about the editor? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 18:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Won't save changes

It doesn't seem to let me save. It says: Error: Unrecognized value for parameter 'paction': save Light Peak (talk) 23:51, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

That's pretty odd. What article were you trying to edit? Anything unusual in the changes you made? Looie496 (talk) 01:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

@Light Peak: In fact, any further information you can give about the circumstances might be useful. Looie496 (talk) 02:18, 12 July 2013 (UTC)