Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback

VisualEditor is available alongside the original wikitext editor if you opt-in, by changing your preferences. It is temporarily disabled for IE9, IE10 and IE11 users, due to various issues that are being fixed, and it will not be made available for users of IE8 and earlier; such editors should switch to some other browser in order to use VisualEditor. Please note that VisualEditor is currently not available to unregistered users.

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Your feedback about the VisualEditor beta release

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

A VisualEditor User Guide is at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User_guide.

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Archives: (generated by MiszaBot II)

• 2012: 1
• 2013: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Can't save a new page!!!

I tried to create a new article TWICE but I wasn't able to save it!! The first time I clicked "Preview your changes" to take a look of it (I always do that) but the page kept loading and loading with no result! When I took the decision that nothing was going to happen, I said to give it one more try and start all over again. The second time around I skipped the "preview your changes" and I went straight to the "save"! Again the same thing happened! I left it like that for 20min hoping that it will be saved but nothing! It kept loading and loading! I faced the same issue with the previous article I created but the second time that one was saved and I thought that I just spent to much time to finish it because I left it open for a while and then came back to finish! But this time it was not the case! I am not willing to spend another 1-2hours to try for a third time! If this is a bug please fix it! I lost my work twice and till this gets solved I am not willing to take any risks again to create a page with VE and that makes me really sad because even though I can use the source to create a page with VE is so much easier! I am using Firefox 25, Windows 8. TeamGale 09:05, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

As a stop-gap measure, You can C&P Your work to a word processor.Kdammers (talk) 09:29, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Believe me I did that...but it still needs a little editing when you copy/paste it back to WP! Because the references can't be copy/pasted. Neither the infoboxes etc! Only simple text can be copied! And re-find and add about 10 references takes time. Having said that, I don't believe C&P is the solution... TeamGale 09:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

TeamGale, VE isn't intended to really create new pages, use images, use references, use templates, use wikitext, use ... well, anything apparently. You can use it to make some cosmetic or minor changes, but for anything slightly more complicated, you just have to be very lucky to be able to proceed correctly with it. This is intended to welcome new editors, increase editor retention, and keep Bugzilla filled until eternity. The only people really happy with Ve seem to be the people that developed it, I guess that their technical end-of-year target has been met, doesn't matter if anyone uses it or is satisfied with it. It now has been live on enwiki for nearly half a year and we are still at the most basic errors stage, which isn't surprising since the software isn't being tested in any significant way before being deployed. Happy editing! Fram (talk) 08:20, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This is the kind of page you get with the new, intuitive, WYSIWYG editor. The big red error is corrected by the same editor using the wikitext editor[1], indicating how fast people move on from the new, better, editor to the old, much too complicated one. Don't you love irony and meta-irony? Fram (talk) 08:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Fram With all do the respect, I am sorry but, I created around 70 articles and since the day I found VE I was only using VE. I created 40 articles out of 70 (more than 50%) with VE without having any problems of saving the page and without getting any errors! (This was my first with VE in case you want to take a look and this the last one I was able to save just 3 days ago!) If you are careful, avoid existing known bugs and don't forget anything, you won't get errors. The pages I am interested in creating, believe me VE can create them perfectly fine. I don't think I am delusional asking for this to get fixed.

To come and tell me after 40 articles that VE is not suppose to create new articles seems kind of funny to me. I might be a minority but, I am one of the few users (and also new user) who are happy with VE and I am using it a lot! I am switching between the two editors very easily and when there is something I know I can't do with VE, I use wikitext. I am not in the category of "how fast people move on from the new, better, editor to the old, much too complicated one", I don't give up easily and yes, I spent time to learn VE like I spent time to learn wikitext. And there were moments I got frustrated but like I said, I don't give up easily and after a while I could work with VE without having any major problems till now.

Anyway, what I am saying is that I was able to save a new page with VE before and now I can't. I don't know if this is a bug or not, but since it was something I could do in the past months and now I can't, I had to report it. Till this gets fixed, I will use wikitext to create any new pages the way I was doing it before VE, not because I prefer it but because right now I am forced to do it. Thanks again and thanks to all the WMF for their hard work these last months! Personally, I appreciate it a lot! TeamGale 10:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Good for you. Looking at your VE edits, I'm rather curious about what happened e.g. here Do you remember whether you mistyped somehow or whether VE mangled these? Fram (talk) 11:20, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That was a bug that was existing at the moment. When someone was trying to add categories with VE it was adding them like that. I missed it on my "review" before saving the edit. I only saw it after the save. I came here to report it but someone else had reported it already. It got fixed now :) TeamGale 16:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi TeamGale,

I'm sorry you're running into problems. Did you create the page you wanted in wikitext? I just created a simple page in my sandbox, so it's certainly possible right now. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) Yes, I created the page with wikitext. I don't know if it has to do with how long is the page. I'll give it a try again with my next page using VE and I'll let you know. TeamGale 23:01, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks TeamGale: I'm afraid this might be not completely gone. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 23:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC) PS: On a second thought the two things might be completely unrelated, but yes, if we could come up with more details, that would still be great.

Hi TeamGale, if you run into this again, please post the name of the page that you ended up creating in wikitext. It's possible (but not very likely, I'd guess) that there is something specific about the page you were trying to create. Mine was quite small and simple (two sentences and a {{db-author}} tag), so perhaps bigger or more complex pages aren't working, even though little ones are. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Elitre (WMF) Hmm...yeah, I am not sure if the two are related because I didn't get any "error" message. Only the load bar loading for about 20min without result.

Whatamidoing (WMF) If that helps to find the issue earlier because I don't when I'll create a new page, that was the page I was trying to save: link. I saved the first half with wikitext and then added the second half with VE without having any problems. TeamGale 23:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This turned out to be an issue with one of the Varnish caches in production. It ran out of backend connections, which caused some requests to fail. Since this was so rare it was fairly difficult to track down. Sorry for the inconvenience. -- Gabriel Wicke (talk) 01:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for clarifying and explaining. That means everything will be OK now? If it happens again I'll let you know. Thanks again :) TeamGale 23:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• I am sorry but this is STILL happening... Here is the page I tried to create with VE and I couldn't... TeamGale 11:25, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Did you get the same error message as before / did it mention Parsoid? This time the Varnish logs are looking clean, so this might be another issue. -- Gabriel Wicke (talk) 19:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

This could be related to the more general saving issue reported at Wikipedia:VPT#Error_message. -- Gabriel Wicke (talk) 20:34, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello. I am not really familiar with technical terms so I don't know :( What I am getting is a never ending loading bar when I click save. I don't get any error message...nothing...just the bar loading and loading but never saves. It also happens if I click on "review your changes". I tried that too to see if I'll get the same and I do. The bar also loads forever without showing my changes. In case you need it, I use Mozilla 25.0.1, Windows 8 TeamGale 00:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, TeamGale. Gabriel, do you have any idea what might be going on? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:10, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Any updates of what might be going on? TeamGale 12:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

TeamGale, dear, are you asking because this is still happening for you today? For which article? Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Elitre (WMF) I didn't attempt again since the last time I posted here till I would have any updates of what is might be going on. Losing a work of 4-5hours is not funny :( TeamGale 04:49, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Understood. Pinging User:Ssastry to see if he knows more about what happened then and possibly reassure you - it doesn't look like something easy to reproduce. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Search for '503' in Wikipedia:VPT for current discussion of the general issue. The situation is being monitored, but is not completely fixed yet. The issue is not specific to VE. -- Gabriel Wicke (talk) 17:40, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi TeamGale and Elitre (WMF), this was caused by general production issues unrelated to Parsoid or VE. Apparently, editors had problems saving wikitext as well. This was November 25th around the same time TeamGale ran into issues (See this thread on VPT if you are curious about those reports). Ops are monitoring the servers and doing what they can, but this is not Parsoid-specific. Hope that helps. Ssastry (talk) 17:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Gabriel Wicke Ssastry I read the threads you linked and that was the same answer I got the first time I reported it. The only thing is that in my case...I do NOT get any error mistake OR my edit saved! And it never happened to me on wiki text, only on VE. Sorry if I am getting repetitive but, what I get is a loading bar...loading forever (I left it up to 20min) and nothing happens!! NO error...NO save!!! If it would save it it would be great but it doesn't! And the whole work is lost! Is that the same thing as the problem you mentioned? It seems different to me... TeamGale 23:57, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

P.S. It happens when I try to create/save a NEW page! Not when I edit an already existent one...never met it while editing existent pages. TeamGale 00:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The missing error message actually sounds as if it could be a client-side (VE) issue, possibly browser-specific. Could you check the browser's JS error console for any clues? I have also alerted the VE folks. Thanks! -- Gabriel Wicke (talk) 03:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. My browser is still Mozilla Firefox 25.0.1 Any idea where and how I check the browser's JS error console? I tried to find it but no luck :/ And what exactly do I need to search for there? TeamGale 08:41, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

A small update...for the first time this happened to me while editing a page and not while I was trying to create a new one. I am sorry if I am being annoying but, if someone can direct me of how I can check the browser's JS error console so I can see if that's the same problem as the one you've mentioned I would really appreciate it. This is something that I am sure all of us wants to get fixed and soon. Thanks TeamGale 06:45, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

So, TeamGale, here is what you need to know. Don't be afraid, the procedure looks fairly easy. You need to be on the page which doesn't allow you to save, after/while the error is happening. You can then launch the console as explained here. Look at the picture on that page; it will show you how everything is being recorded by default. We don't need this, so in you console just toggle off everything in that toolbar by clicking the corresponding button, *except* for the JS (Javascript) one. This should leave you with only messages and/or errors generated by the Javascript part. Select what you see (click on the first message, then hold Shift and reach the last one: you are now ready to copy. Otherwise you can right click to Select all and right click again to Copy). Just paste everything here. Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:46, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

It looks like the first step is pressing Control-Shift-K (Windows) or Command-Option-K (Mac). From there, you can use copy and paste to get a plain text copy of anything that appears or looks relevant. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the instructions. So, to be able to do that I'll have to encounter with the problem. I'll have it in mind if it happens again to do it and copy here the info. Thanks again! TeamGale 05:22, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Portals and books

VE now works for portal space (which was hardly a priority, but anyway...). Looking at e.g. Portal:Current events, you start with an edit notice that isn't valid in VE (you can't paste the code given there in VE and expect it to work). Apart from that, there is very little I can do here, as the page exists of other subpages. So I look at the subpages, e.g. Portal:Current events/News Browser. Hmm, not a lot I can do here... Oh, I can move the documentation above the globe bar, instead of below it. This is fun! Luckily I use preview and know some wikicode before I save this, because moving the documentation moves it from inside "noinclude" to outside "noinclude" tags, creating a totally different result. Useful!

Another subpage is Portal:Current events/2013 November 26. In wikitext editing, you start with a full screen of notes and warnings; none of these is visible in VE though. Then again, you can't do anything here either with VE, even though the contents are here, not on another subpage! So, while this technically seems to work, the actual usefulness of this (and need for it) seem to be absolutely minimal.

But it also works for Books! Why? No one knows... Looking at e.g. Book:American comic strips before 1918, in VE it starts with messing up the header, as it is unable to show the links in it correctly... Considering that this header is used in every single book, this again is a rather clear test fail, as usual. Apart from that, the basic features seem to work. Well, until you try them, that is. In VE editing mode, the new line I added as a test was properly indented with the other items, but on saving, it was left aligned, with no possibility to get it aligned with the rest of the items[2]. Seeing that this is the standard layout used by many books (e.g. Book:Adele or Book:Mathematics), this means that no, we can't use VE to create or properly maintain Books. So the point of the announcement in Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Updates/November 20, 2013 totally escapes me, unless the meaning is "we are wasting time on useless aspects of VE, instead of fixing the many truly necessary but buggy ones". Luckily, by not testing these changes properly, you are not wasting too much of your time. Small blessings. Fram (talk) 12:57, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor does not currently support HTML association lists. However, you can use VisualEditor on books for some things, such as updating existing links. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Justr tried in here, and changing a link turned what is now one link into two separate links (with the same target), because VE has trouble handling a partially italicized text in a link apparently. Technically speaking, some things work; practically speaking, it is hard to understand why anyone at WMF thought this was a priority or something to proudly announce, since you can't add items properly, you can't reorder things, the header is a mess... but indeed, you can in some circumstances edit the existing links. What are the odds that people who don't know enough about wikitext (and so need VE) will end up at a book, and not make a mess of it when editing it? Disable it for books and save us a lot of trouble and little benefit. Fram (talk) 08:11, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Works for me.

Please let me know if you see any actual, unintentional damage to a book using VisualEditor. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps I'll first let you know when there is some actual intentional VE edit to a book (or most of the other added namespaces), as these are almost completely absent anyway (hence my question of who thought that this was a priority...). But how did you do that? If I add a ":" or a ";", I get nowikis around it. And the "increase / decrease indentation" tab isn't active. Fram (talk) 07:53, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I copied and pasted a few lines from an existing section, and then I edited them to say what I wanted.

I don't think that it took much time to offer this, so why not? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:12, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Strange things in the "add parameter" box

When I edit Keith Murray (rapper) in VE, open the infobox, and look at the parameters on the right side, I notice strange boxes to the right of the parameter names, sometimes light gray, sometimes dark gray, without any possibility to select them, without any explanation, and without any apparent logic. Sometime sthe dark gray box is the same as the parameter name (Landscape), sometimes it is something different (Image caption), and sometimes it is missing completely (native name). Sometimes there are two of them (Website).

When I start typing parameter names, I get strange results (e.g. typing "Website" gives a different result from selecting Website, even though they look the same in the parameters list) I presume the boxes indicate acceptable parameter names, but this is not clear at all, and I am still struggling to see any difference between what's in the white and gray boxes. Fram (talk) 10:33, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The white ones are the parameter names and the gray ones are redirects (or whatever the template people call an alternate name for a parameter). Look at Template:Authority control for PND to see an example. GND is the "real" parameter name, but PND also works. I don't know why Template:Infobox musical artist has so many alternate parameters defined. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:23, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Phantom notice

I wanted to add the names of some articles I recently created to a list I keep, and hovering over the /!\ symbol near the top shows "1 notice." What notice is it talking about? 28bytes (talk) 01:46, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I've been getting empty notices on every page, with just the redlinks to create a page or group edit notice. I believe this is only shown to template editors and admins, so that they create edit notices. - Evad37 [talk] 03:30, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. 28bytes (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Please delay 2013-12-05 (MW 1.23wmf6)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T60089

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T60090

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T60091

Update 2013-12-05 (MW 1.23wmf6) (planned for implementation at enwiki and most other wikis), described at mw:VisualEditor/status#2013-12-05 (MW 1.23wmf6), should not be implemented here. Deployed at MediaWiki, I found two serious errors affecting many (all?) users. Furthermore, the most important new feature of it only works so-so as well. I have noted these things at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/status, but replies there tend to be erratic and unwelcoming. Fram (talk) 14:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Bug 58089

VE scrolls down to bottom of the page (confirmed for FF by other editor). This is the one that really confirms my fears about the crap that the WMF (or its VE Product Manager at least) hsa been trying to sell us for months now. The problem: if you open a page in VE, the cursos is nicely at the top, but the image, the thing you see, is the bottom of the page... Totally useless, and totally obvious for every human tester worth his salt. Please remind me, how many times has it been said that yes, everything gets tested by humans, but yes, we will do even better in the future? Bullshit. @Jdforrester (WMF):, are you trying to defend your team and testers out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, or are you simply incompetent, or worse? How many such failures will you need before you see the light? "Switching to Wikitext, oh, that doesn't work in Firefox" or "Who would have thought that other language wikis would use diacritics and accents?" are just a few weeks old, and now this. The updates can't be trusted, the status reports on them can't be trusted, and the WMF excuses can't be trusted. Do you really believe that this is the way to get enwiki (and nl-wiki and dewiki) to reembrace VE anytime soon? Never mind that, do you really believe that that is the way "agile programming" works and software should be deployed? I have to go and test at MediaWiki (where some WMF people made it very clear that I'm ot really to be trusted or welcome) to prevent these "improvements" to be deployed here. I don't think anyone else is doing this, perhaps because they still believe that the WMF handles this, or (more probably) because they can't be bothered with VE anymore at all. Congratulations! Fram (talk) 14:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Bug 58090

This may well be related to 58089 above (let's hope so). When you are editing the text, and you add a reference or a template, the cursor is not placed at (or better yet behind) the ref or template you inserted, but at the top of the article. The page hasn't scrolled up though, so this isn't really obvious. If you start typing after adding a ref or template, you are editing the start of the article, not the place where you were. How this hasn't been noticed isn't clear, but one rant per post is enough. Fram (talk) 14:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Rich content?

The new update introduces a long awaited improvement: "You can now paste rich content copied from external sources (not just as plain text), including other VisualEditor surfaces". And indeed, you can, but you shouldn't expect it to work very well... I've done two tests, described at MediaWiki, one from another MediaWiki page, and one from an enwiki page, and both contained immediately obvious errors. My third, more ambitious attempt (still one section only) can be seen at [3]. I think there is still some work to be done before this feature can really be considered to be ready for implementation.

As a final test of this bug, I thought, let's play fair, let's just copy the announcement of this change from the status page to my mediawiki sandbox. Nothng fancy, no cross-wiki copy, just the most basic thing this faeture is supposed to do. [4] is the result. I wonder what kind of "rich content" we are supposed to copy-paste with this, I haven't seen much beyond plain text that works. This was important enough to be put first in the status report, and bolded, and even this sucks big time. Fram (talk) 14:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that you will find that the word external in the phrase "copied from external source" is important. This statement is exclusive to material "copied from an external source", such as a newspaper website. It does not apply to anything copied from an internal source, i.e., any page produced by Mediawiki. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:33, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Then what does " including other VisualEditor surfaces" in that same sentence mean? Which VE surfaces are not produced by MediaWiki? And why would it supposedly work with non-MediaWiki VE text, if it doesn't even work with MediaWiki VE text? Perhaps some examples of what is supposed to work, and what isn't, can be provided? Fram (talk) 11:34, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Apart from that: whose idea was it that straight copying from an external source like a newspaper website would be a good idea anyway? And comparing what can be done in the current VE to what the new feature is supposed to do indicates that in the new version, you get more layout, and more unwanted layout. I don't see it saving any work at all. Anyway, I'ld still like an answer to whatr "including other VisualEditor surfaces" means, if it doesn't apply to anything produced by MediaWiki... Fram (talk) 08:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Looking more closely, I think you are wrong here @Whatamidoing (WMF):. The first of the four bugs this is supposed to have solved is 41193, which is the one I tested and posted here. This one, which seems to me to be the most important one, is clearly not solved, or not in a workable fashion. Fram (talk) 08:18, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

A page in "view" mode is not "a VisualEditor surface". If, however, you

1. open the source page in VisualEditor
2. select some text
3. copy that text
4. open the target page in VisualEditor
5. paste that text

then you will see that rich copying and pasting works, just like I did it here.

Many people have requested rich copying from sources so that, for example, book titles remain italicized. If you personally don't see a purpose for that feature, then you don't have to use it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

How is it user friendly that you have to open the other page in VE as well? Anyway, this is what I did originally, and have tested here again, and here again on a blank page. And here a simple copy from a VE-open page in enwiki to my MediaWiki sandbox. With a more complex one like a copy from part of Staldenried to here, I even get a new symbol; now that we may be finally rid of the pawns and snowmen, we get clouds! So, no, it doesn't work for me, and probably for many other people. Can you test it with the same text I did (all of it preferably), and indicate which browser and OS you use?

As for "if you personally don't see a purpose for that feature", please don't put words in my mouth. I see a purpose for that feature "if it would work most of the time", not as it is now. A bit like VE in general, one could say. Fram (talk) 09:41, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Side-by-side comparison of the same short text, copied from wikitext to wikitext, and from VE to VE: [5]. Note that in preview, this gives two times the exact same result. Apparently the VE preview mode is more lenient than the VE save mode, which is a Bad Thing™ Fram (talk) 09:55, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm still trying to see what works, but the results are not encouraging at all. Copying one simple template from a MediaWiki page[6] to my MediaWiki sandbox gives rather unexpected results. Again, the preview is clearly better than the actual result, e.g. the flower image is visible in the preview, but not in the saved page.[7]

If I take a complex page, like here, you can see a whole array of problems, like links not working, images disappearing, first words of piped links with multiple words messing up things, and so on. The things that should have been tested before announcing that it is ready and closing the bug as resolved-fixed. Note that many of these have now become impossible to easily resolve in VE, e.g. the file definitions are now links which return "undefined" when you click on them, and the language links at the bottom are now no longer accessible. Basically, in all my tests, the only conclusion I can draw is that this works when you use text without any markup (so not "rich text"), and gets progressivley worse the more wikimarkup is present.

I also have the impression that the speed of VE has considerably decreased again with the latest release at MediaWiki, e.g. when opening [8] I get a script error. When choosing "continue", the page opens but (as with other pages at MediaWiki) it renders incorrectly in VE (from "Alter the database" on). Fram (talk) 13:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Just a thought, copying between en.wp and mediawiki.org is probably not the most reliable testcase, since they use different versions of VE. That might be influencing your results. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:49, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

You may have noticed that I also tried to copy from within MediaWiki, i.e. with the same version of VE, which failed as well. Plus, we are supposed to believe that this handles all kinds of rich content (the happy announcement has no restrictions whatsoever), but a previous version of VE is enough to disrupt this? Anyway, it may not be the best testcase, but at least it is a testcase. That's more than what all the WMF devs together had done for this VE version, apparently, considering the major bugs that were not noticed (in general and for this specific feature). Fram (talk) 08:04, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Snowflakes and clouds

While apparently the pawns and snowmen errors have been fixed (at first glance) we now get clouds and snowflakes instead. Very seasony, that last one, but unwanted behaviour nevertheless. Here I put in VE a square bracket and then an URL, and I get a snowflake on the next line. Do things in a different order, e.g. first put the URL, and then put the end and front squer brackets, and it works allright. Very strange, and doesn't seem to happen before this new version... Fram (talk) 10:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion

The major new feature doesn't work as it should do, and at least two major new bugs are introduced: please, please do the sensible thing for once, and do not implement this update anywhere. Fram (talk) 14:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Categories don't appear to be added upon saving page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T50560

When adding a category to a page using the VisualEditor it doesn't show the new category at the bottom of the article after pressing "Save page". The category is added, but you have to refresh the page to see the change. Nicereddy (talk) 01:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I ran across this one the other day, too. Apparently it's not been an easy one to fix and may be with us for a while. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:35, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Old bug still didn't get fixed

I reported this bug a while ago that its status says "RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug". The duplicated bug says "resolved fixed" but that's not true. I still encounter with the specific problem about the usage of existing references. TeamGale 06:42, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

TeamGale, that should have been fixed on the 5th, meaning this error shouldn't be happening anymore on Mediawiki.org, and next week the "patch" should be live on en.wp as well. I'll check this and other issues reported on this page ASAP. As for how to retrieve the data the Parsoid team asked, I'll try to find instructions (I'll have to Google this as well, I don't remember how this is done). Thanks for your patience! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:54, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I was just wondering if there was a mistake on the bug report since I needed to use an existing reference and I found the problem again. Thanks for the clarification. TeamGale 05:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this still happens on MediaWiki as well, i.e. when I ask "use an existing reference", it only gives numbers between square brackets, but nothing more. So, Teamgale, I wouldn't hold my breath that this is actually resolved-fixed (the number of regressions, reopened bugs, and so on, is getting impressive, and it seems that for every solved one, three new ones pop up.) Fram (talk) 10:12, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Looking further into this, the problem was that @Jdforrester (WMF): incorrectly merged this bug with another one, and the other one was fixed (or reported as such, I haven't tested that one, we should leave something for the QA team). The two bugs were unrelated, and I have reopened it accordingly. Very annoying. Is there anything being reported here or at Bugzilla that we can actually trust to be true? It doesn't seem like it, and it only seems to be getting worse. Fram (talk) 10:22, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Fram When I read the answer I didn't have time to check the two bugs and I just answered here. Later I forgot to come back and check them. Thanks again for noticing it and for reopening the bug. TeamGale 02:11, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

add nts tag to make numbers sortable is tricky

I was updating cost/kg LEO values in the table on this page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_orbital_launch_systems

I got it to work but it required quite a bit of trial and error. In order to add one number you need to add a transclusion tag, enter nts, add a parameter with the name "1", then enter the number into the text box. Could this be made easier. What does "nts" stand for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertbaertsch (talk • contribs) 22:53, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Robertbaertsch,

nts stands for {{Number table sorting}}. It looks like no one has created the WP:VisualEditor/TemplateData for it, which means that—well, I'm impressed that you figured it out, because if I'd encountered it in my early days, I probably wouldn't have. So congratulations, and I'll ask someone to add TemplateData, which will (I hope) make it slightly less confusing next time. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Watch this page defaults as checked, even though my Preferences is set to do the opposite

Bug report	VisualEditor
Mito.money	Please app{}
Intention:	Edit a page without adding it to my watchlist
Steps to Reproduce:	#Clicked "edit - beta" Made my changes Clicked Save page Added an edit summary and clicked Save page without noticing that the "Watch this page" box is checked This is reproduceable
Results:	I accidentally added many pages to my watchlist.
Expectations:	Since the "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist" checkbox in my Preferences is unchecked, I expect the "Watch this page" box to also be unchecked for pages not already on my watchlist, like the regular editor does.
Page where the issue occurs	en.wikipedia.org
Web browser	Firefox 25.0.1
Operating system	Windows 7
Skin	Vector
Notes:
Workaround or suggested solution	Notice that the "Watch this page" box is checked and uncheck it, or go back to the regular editor

GoingBatty (talk) 03:54, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Sorry about this; this is bug 56206, which we've already fixed in the code and will be deployed here on Thursday. My apologies for the disruption. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 04:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

@Jdforrester (WMF): - Should this be listed on Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Known problems (which I checked before submitting the bug report)? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:05, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Probably not worth it for just a couple of days – sorry you had all the bother of filling out the report, though. :-( Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 04:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

In any normal work environment, you and the rest of the WMF devs working on VE would have been canned a long time ago... Ya know I'm right (talk) 06:44, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

For once, this seems to be indeed solved at MediaWiki. Fram (talk) 10:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Why bother with testing or Bugzilla? Your complaints will be dealt with by incapable hands anyway

Why bother? Testing isn't done by the WMF devs, reports of failures and errors get no, evasive, or wrong answers, bugzilla reports get closed prematurely and incorrectly all the time. Do the people at WMF really want help? They really need help, that has been shown over and over again, but the only ones that don't seem to have gotten the message seem to be working at (or at least being payed by) WMF.

I have described at length what I tested and encountered wrt the supposedly fixed bug 41193, the major aspect of the upcoming untested VE release, in Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Rich content?. Replies?

• "[...] It does not apply to anything copied from an internal source, i.e., any page produced by Mediawiki. Whatamidoing (WMF)" Completely wrong
• "If, however, you open the source page in VisualEditor [...] then you will see that rich copying and pasting works. Whatamidoing (WMF)" Again wrong!
• "Just a thought, copying between en.wp and mediawiki.org is probably not the most reliable testcase, since they use different versions of VE. That might be influencing your results. TheDJ" Wrong, but written to be helpful, not as an "I know better", so no problem there.

Bugzilla:

• Closed by JDForrester (WMF) 2013-11-26 as Resolved-Fixed
  • Reopened by me, with reference to my tests here, 2013-12-09 08:20:51 UTC
• Closed again by Jdforrester (WMF) 2013-12-10 17:06:29 UTC as Resolved-Fixed without any comment there or anywhere
  • Reopened by me 2013-12-11 08:16:38 UTC
• Closed again by Andre Klapper 2013-12-11 12:39:57 UTC , this time with an unsatosfactory comment, basically stating that the WMF doesn't care if a fix has many known bugs, and that apparently bugs are not a problem preventing deployment as long as the literal, technical minimal requirements are met. Furthermore, Bugzilla is too lazy too follow a link to enwiki discussions and expects that the discussion gets repeated there, in new bugs I have to submit.

With my apologies to the few WMF people involved in this who try their hardest to be user friendly (Elitre comes to mind), but in general, you are not worth the money the WMF (i.e. the Wikipedia readers) spends on you, nor the time lost on you. That the initial release of VE was a catastrophe was bad; but that the repeated fiasco's since then have not learned you anything, and that all your promises to the contrary have been shown to be pure bluster, is much worse. Fram (talk) 13:06, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that as the fundamental architecture of the product is wrong they have no option but to bluster. Eric Corbett 13:59, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

The saga continues:

• TheDJ (volunteer) opened a new ticket, 58318, confirming one of my testcases, but this time in Safari (so it fails in Safari and in Firefox at least). He indicated that this ticket blocked ticket 41193 (" Derk-Jan Hartman 2013-12-11 13:19:08 UTC Depends on: 58318")
• But who cares about this? Not the WMF devs in the form of User:AKlapper (WMF), who again closed the ticket, without adressing theDJs issue. ( Andre Klapper 2013-12-11 13:49:39 UTC )

I supppose that, since the deployment is dependent on this bug being fixed (it was the first and most important of the bugs listed in the status report), it has to be closed at all costs. Deadlines being more important than getting it right, not for the first time. Fram (talk) 14:51, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Chess pawns after references

Sometimes, if I add a space after a reference, a chess pawn will show up. It usually happens if there is a line of text after a reference that I am working with.--¿3family6 _contribs 16:08, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

This (and the related reverse typing bug) should be solved after the next update of VE here (planned for tomorrow, despite the other problems this update creates or contains). I haven't checked thoroughly whether it will really be solved or not though, I have noticed that the new version inserts clouds and snowflakes sometimes, so at least we won't have a shortage of funny unwanted characters yet. Fram (talk) 19:39, 11 December 2013 (UTC)