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Hi. I don't see an option to go back to normal editing mode. I just want to make a quick change and prefer not to deal with a visual/WYSIWYG-ish mode. An option to use the "bare-metal" original syntax would be nice. My original edit would take 30-45 seconds this way. That's a good thing. It is a wiki, after all. [[User:Wantnot|Wantnot]] ([[User talk:Wantnot|talk]]) 10:30, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi. I don't see an option to go back to normal editing mode. I just want to make a quick change and prefer not to deal with a visual/WYSIWYG-ish mode. An option to use the "bare-metal" original syntax would be nice. My original edit would take 30-45 seconds this way. That's a good thing. It is a wiki, after all. [[User:Wantnot|Wantnot]] ([[User talk:Wantnot|talk]]) 10:30, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
:You can always go back to the normal mode by clicking "edit source" instead of "edit", either at the top of the page tabs or in section edit links. You can also disable the visual editor in your preferences - see the FAQ at the top of this page for details. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 10:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
:You can always go back to the normal mode by clicking "edit source" instead of "edit", either at the top of the page tabs or in section edit links. You can also disable the visual editor in your preferences - see the FAQ at the top of this page for details. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 10:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
::Another option is to disable the software completely. In "Preferences->Gadgets" click "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" and save. '''Editors who make requests like this should be given the WHOLE information and not just a little bit.'''--[[User:Paulmcdonald|Paul McDonald]] ([[User talk:Paulmcdonald|talk]]) 00:24, 15 July 2013 (UTC)



==Lost comment==
==Lost comment==

Revision as of 00:24, 15 July 2013

Please participate in the VisualEditor Request for Comment. Thank you.

Attention Internet Explorer (IE) users: VisualEditor is temporarily disabled for IE9 and IE10 users, due to various issues that are being fixed. VisualEditor will not be made available for users of IE8 and earlier; such editors should switch to some other browser in order to use VisualEditor.

Share your feedback
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Your feedback about the VisualEditor beta release

This page is a place for you to tell the Wikimedia developers what issues you encounter when using the VisualEditor here on 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're making and the priorities for adding new functions. All comments are read, but personal replies are not guaranteed.

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

Add a new commentView known bugsReport a new bug in Bugzilla – Join the IRC channel: #mediawiki-visualeditor connect

Archives (generated by MiszaBot II):

"Happy to announce"?

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

"Wikipedia is happy to announce the live Beta of VisualEditor"? What announcement? Might I suggest an unambiguous notification in the new "edit this page" process that points out the new "edit source" tab for the old system? The first notice I got about VisualEditor (which I'd never heard of) was actually editing a page like always, only to find a visual editor (didn't see the name or a link to info) which wouldn't let me add and preview a citation, my most common WP work besides copyediting. I only found Wikipedia:VisualEditor by clicking on the mysterious "BETA" that appeared at the top of the page. ("BETA" what?) Yes, I eventually found "edit source", but given WP's recent proclivity for adding and moving around top-page tabs, I didn't notice it initially. Even without using VE yet, from my quick look, I suspect VisualEditor will be a tremendous help for all editors. But dropping it on everyone by default without warning is bad practice. (If there was a warning, I didn't notice it, which suggests it wasn't a very effective "notice".) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's been an opt-in beta since December 2012, and we sent out a centralnotice, but it looks like a cookie problem meant it didn't go to some users :(. The opt-out is pretty prominently displayed on the VE portal, which is both where the banner drops you and a single click away from where the current popup in the VE drops you; hopefully this will help. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I said the same thing, Jeff. --Paul McDonald (talk) 00:39, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the info, Okeyes, but an opt-out buried in a topic unknown to the entire affected audience is a catch-22 and isn't adequate. (Indeed, that's the kind of practice that gets companies excoriated, like putting a license agreement inside a box whose opening binds you to the license.) But I see that we've got a main-page banner now, so that addresses my concern. Shame it didn't show up a few days earlier. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:27, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This issue is not answered. It has been ignored.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To quote Douglas Adams:

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display ..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

Hairy Dude (talk) 00:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The issue was answered. Until 2-3 days ago we had a centralnotice up; clicking on it sent you directly to the page that contained the big notice. "unknown to the entire affected audience" is a misnomer. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not a very good answer. What's missing is why wasn't it handled correctly in the first place?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:18, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Because we thought the FAQ entry would, for an opt-out, suffice. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Let me get this straight: the reason that the rollout wasn't handled correctly in the first place was because you thought an FAQ entry would suffice?--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:34, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, Oliver did not say that a single FAQ entry was enough. Oliver presumably hoped that messages to forty or fifty high-traffic pages, three separate watchlist notices, two or three CentralNotices (that's a sitenotice with extra bells and whistles for scheduling), bi-weekly updates at VPT, face-to-face sessions at the Hackathon, stories in The Signpost, announcements at many of the help pages that need to be updated, and announcements at all of the new-user help forums, not to mention months of people casually mentioning it, might suffice.
If you've got ideas about what else to add to that list, then please do let us know. For example, if you think that people would have tolerated a bot spamming every single user talk page, which I've always assumed would be too disruptive, then please say so. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Notifying every individual registered user was clearly the right way to go from the beginning for a major site-wide change such as this. I've said that for some time now. It's not "spam" to inform the user base that the software has a major change coming up--it's the right thing to do. Further, it's not "spam" for the foundation to post anything on "my" user talk page because it isn't "my" talk page but theirs. Perhaps you should go read your user agreement and come back. Oh, and Okeyes did post "Because we thought the FAQ entry would, for an opt-out, suffice." I just cut-n-pasted it.--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:18, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One click disable

It's realy slow and annoying. Just like every new introduced feature, there should be an easy way to disable it, for example on click on the information box above the page that shows enabling this tool. Qtguy00 (talk) 14:17, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that one click disabling is in the plan at this point, although you can hide the feature. To quote a few points from the FAQ
Why does no standard user preference to disable VisualEditor exist?

VisualEditor is the new default experience for all users. We recognize that it still in beta and has issues, including lack of support for some aspects of wikitext. Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. Developing VisualEditor into a tool that can meet the needs of all our users will take time. Therefore, we encourage all users (including power users) to regularly check in VisualEditor's progress, and we're running VisualEditor in parallel to the traditional Wikitext editor.

Power users will find ways to disable VisualEditor completely, e.g. by means of user scripts and gadgets. However, to encourage continued testing of VisualEditor as it develops, completely hiding it from the user experience will remain a non-trivial task.

The current experience is designed to be minimally intrusive for users who want to continue to use wikitext indefinitely. Both at the page and section-level, editing as wikitext should require no additional action other than selecting the "edit source" option. We would rather make VisualEditor's availability through the UI interfere less with the experience of power users rather than introduce a new preference: For example, resolving bug 50542 could make the integration of VisualEditor less noticeable. Please let us know about similar issues.

We hope to hear from users who could never imagine using VisualEditor as their default editing environment. Fixing bugs aside, we want VisualEditor to be as efficient and powerful as wikitext while being discoverable and easy to use, and we highly appreciate your feedback on what improvements could make it so.

and
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.)

I hope that these will help you. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:25, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but I am not talking about myself only. I am talking about giving editors easy way to choose the way they want to edit wikipedia. What prevents Wikimedia from adding a simple shortcut on the info panel to disable visual editor at least temporarily? I should mention that creating better content is the main goal of wikipedia, and creating useful visual editor is not the main goal, so let's not compromise the main goal of having better articles for having a visualy compelling editor that is bloated, slow and counter productive. And yes, Linus' law works, but he is talking about volunteers, nobody is forced to edit, compile and debug Linux kernel by default when using an Android phone. --Qtguy00 (talk) 11:33, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is forced to assist with testing. The easy way to choose the way they want to edit is simply to pick which button to click (although labeling might be more clear on those - there's a feature request for that. :)) The goal is to have a VisualEditor that is not bloated, slow or counter productive, and having yesterday had the opportunity to talk to developers, I am very aware that they are reading bug reports and feature requests in order to refine VE into the tool that the community wants. This is the way our collaborative process works. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If nobody was forced to assist with testing, why were we forced by default to use the VE utility to test it? Why is it the default setting now?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:21, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The default is that both editing environments are equally available to all users. You are not being forced to use either of them. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Qtguy00 wrote: "I am talking about giving editors easy way to choose the way they want to edit wikipedia." This is a common request. This is one solution: bugzilla:50540: VisualEditor: Display both "edit" and "edit source" links for sections without hover. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:15, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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) 21:03, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We're working on a static 'edit source' link on sections. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reference error

I'm continuing to have problems with rendering references. I attempted to include five citations to an article I'm developing on my user page, involving four references and one split citation. For some reason, only the first reference rendered, the second, which I attempted to split, ended up with some rendering error, and the third and fourth never appeared at all. I have no idea what happened, but here is a link to that version of the page, and these are the references I attempted to cite: http://reachrecords.com/about, http://reachrecords.com/artists/show/Lecrae, http://www.allmusic.com/artist/sho-baraka-mn0001000605, http://allhiphop.com/2012/04/08/five-christian-hip-hop-acts-you-should-know/.--¿3family6 contribs 00:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@3family6:Hello, do you still need help? I've seen that you added many references since your comment TeamGale (talk) 09:20, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@TeamGale:I added them by editing the source code directly. I think the trouble I had with the references was splitting the second one (the Reach Lecrae biography link).--¿3family6 contribs 16:33, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@3family6:Oh! I see! The splitting is not difficult to do it if that was the problem. After you add the reference the first time, it's added on the list. So when you click to add a reference the next time, if you want to re-use a previous one you are just choosing it from the list and click "insert reference". You are not clicking on the "create new source" button. If the list is long and you can't find it easy, you are typing on the "use an existing source" box key words from the previous reference and it filters them for you. :) TeamGale (talk) 17:07, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@TeamGale:That's what I tried. For some reason, it added <ref name="0" /> to both the first and second instances of the source, instead of just the second. I wanted to open a bug report for this, but I don't know how to do that.--¿3family6 contribs 17:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@3family6:Hmm...that's weird. The last time I tried it it was working fine for me! :/ I'll try to test it on my sandbox. I don't know how to open bug report neither. When one of the WMF's members is back probably can do it. I know there are reports about the "nowikis" thing but I don't know if that is the same. I'll try that on my sandbox to see if it happens to me too now. TeamGale (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@3family6:Just did it here. It's working fine. I don't know what happened when you were doing it :/ Did you save the difference? TeamGale (talk) 17:33, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@TeamGale:Yes, I saved the difference. That's what I have linked above.--¿3family6 contribs 21:38, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@3family6:, I have no clue what the issue is, but I do know how to open a bug report. :) Are you able to replicate the problem so that it happens again? Can I ask what browser and operating system you are using? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Mdennis (WMF): I'm sorry, I don't know how to replicate what happened. I'm using Firefox on Windows 8.--¿3family6 contribs 17:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @3family6:. I can simply copy your initial report here to Bugzilla, unless you think by some miracle it was a one-off? (There's a term for that - somebody used it here a few days ago - but I can't remember what it is. :/) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Mdennis (WMF): It happened again, here. I attempted to split this reference: [1].--¿3family6 contribs 12:34, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Okeyes (WMF): (or anybody else), do you have any insight into what's happening there? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
None; I'll poke the James. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Okeyes (WMF): @Mdennis (WMF): If I understood, what 3family6 is trying to do is to reuse a reference. When she is trying to do it, then VE is replacing the "original" reference with the <ref name="test" /> too instead only the second reference and that destroys the source completely. I tried to do it on my sandbox, but it was not happening to me. If I am wrong, please @3family6: feel free to correct me TeamGale (talk) 19:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@TeamGale: That's exactly it.--¿3family6 contribs 21:14, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Different but somewhat related error: I'm finding when I split a reference (if it works), the citation appears not on the line where I want it, but at the beginning of that paragraph. Here's an example, fifth paragraph in the History section. This bug occurs much more consistently (like pretty much every time) than my above problem.--¿3family6 contribs 01:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@3family6: odd! What browser/operating system are you on? @Mdennis (WMF): where is this in bugzilla? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Okeyes (WMF): I'm running Firefox 22.0 on Windows 8.--¿3family6 contribs 13:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's very strange :(. Can you try to duplicate the problem? (also, can you give us diffs, rather than old revisions? It makes debugging easier :)). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:34, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Okeyes (WMF): Here we go: Original version, and diff. The citation at the beginning of the paragraph should be at the very end.--¿3family6 contribs 19:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's very strange; I inserted citations and it worked fine. Silly question, but: you are remembering to click where you want the citation to go? Sorry to sound like a dunce :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. At first I thought the same thing, but the last two instances of this glitch (the latest being the test edit), I'm positive that I clicked the correct place. It only happens when I split a ref.--¿3family6 contribs 23:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is, reuse an existing reference? Hmn. I've tried that too; no dice :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:08, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it did the same for me. Now I'm really confused.--¿3family6 contribs 13:22, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox post-modification rendering issue

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

It seems that the issue with bug 49854 has resurfaced. Whenever I edit any parameter in an infobox (doesn't matter on which page), some (but not all) piped links and files are displayed as plain wikitext like "[[Capital city|capital]]" instead of "capital". If the infobox contains references, a cite error in red about a missing reflist also appears near the top of the page (as previously discussed at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_07#Table.2FTemplate and possibly related to bug 50423, but not entirely the same). Is this a known issue or have I missed it?  thayts t  16:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The reflist missing bug is supposed to be fixed within the next few minutes. Cross your fingers. :) I can't reproduce the issue with the infobox - are you still having the problem, @Thayts:? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:48, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Aww!! I just tried it after seeing your comment Maggie Dennis (WMF) It's working!!! The bug about the references is gone! :) Cross fingers it will be gone for good! Thanks to the people who fixed that! As for the other half "issue"...it's still there...When you make changes on the templates, the piped links appear as a whole and not as they will appear on the final save. TeamGale (talk) 00:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see. It's a question of displaying incorrectly before save. Thanks. :) I've added it to that bug (and reopened it), and I'm sure they'll help me if I've put it in the wrong place. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Mdennis (WMF): Yes, sorry I wasn't too clear about that, it doesn't affect the save indeed and is only a displaying issue. I found the pipe link bug still to be present though, but it's been only one and a half hour after associated bug 50801 was declared fixed and it probably needs some time to back-port. It also seems that the reference bug is not really fixed, but that the error message is simply being suppressed: if you hover over the infobox after editing it or if you click it, an empty bar as wide as the article body will be highlighted at the top of the infobox. Previously, this bar contained the error message. I'm using Firefox 22.0, perhaps you can reproduce it with that.  thayts t  17:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, I can see that. Throwing in bugzilla now :). Great catch! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! And just to confirm, the piped links bug seems to have been fixed indeed.  thayts t  14:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


unusable

The new editor is basically useless. I have been waiting for 10 minutes for it to accept an insertion point. Patrickwooldridge (talk) 04:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Most editors have just disabled it. I wouldn't even bother using it. Kumioko (talk) 04:15, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Kumioko, can you please provide a citation for your statement that most editors have disabled it? My data says otherwise, quite strongly.
@Patrickwooldridge: what do you mean by "insertion point"? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:22, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Disabled or not, Okeyes, I'm still only seeing about 10% of edits by logged on accounts using it in my watchlist, so uptake isn't particularly high. I turned it back on just so that I could test some of the bug reports. What percentage of editors that have edited since it was turned are using it?—Kww(talk) 04:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This I don't know. I'm actually building dashboards tomorrow to display the proportion of mainspace edits using the VE (I was hoping to work on it tonight, but it's dependent on me getting R's package constructor and git to play ball with each other). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well first the fact that it has been disabled by several hundred editors (about 700 I think I saw somewhere but at least 500). Most of which are among the most active editors. Second, I have seen multiple statistics that show its usage between 8 and 10% of edits. About half by people testing it and then a large percentage of those show up to complain about it. Yes people are using it to various degrees. But spend a few minutes and do some analysis of those edits to complaints here and in other venues and you'll see the vast majority of the edits are time wasted that could have been better spent building an encyclopedia instead of testing an app that didn't get properly tested before it was released. I know you don't care to hear anything other than how wonderful the tool is, but that just isn't the case. As I said before, I'm keeping my editing to a minimum until this thing gets worked out. I'm not going to invest my time in something that breaks 90% of everything it touches. Kumioko (talk) 04:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Where did you see about 700? And where did you see these statistics? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There all over the place, try looking over at the Village pump (technical) for starters. But just do the math. pull in the transactions for the day and then subtract out the ones tagged for visual editor (of course factoring out the non applicable namespaces). And you have access better access to the data than I do. Depending on how you cook the numbers its as low as 4% and as high as 10%. In any case, just look at the edits being done, then associate the discussions here to the edits. You'll see a lot of correlation and a lot of the same people using VE. Many of which are WMF staffers. How many people do you have on your list that disabled it? I'm guessing its well over 500. It may even be over 1000 by now. Kumioko (talk) 04:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This thread covers some of this. I don't know where the 500 (or 700) disabled is coming from. Dragons flight (talk) 04:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Huh! I'll work on the dashboards anyhoo, just so we have consistent (and consistently updated) data, and fling a link out when I'm done. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you are dashboarding, you should monitor what percentage of Visual Editor edits are tripping filter 550. That would be an indicator of how many people are struggling with it.—Kww(talk) 05:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yep; thought of that :). (anyone know where the 700 figure is coming from, still? ) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 06:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Okeyes (WMF): Wikipedia:Database reports/User preferences#Gadgets, entry "oldeditor", suggests that 607 users enabled the relevant gadget as of 4 July. Probably much higher now. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how that report is compiled; is it "count of the number of entries" or "count of the number of entries where the value is 1"? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The latter. Dragons flight (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The next scheduled update of that table should be around 23:00, 11 July UTC. Dragons flight (talk) 17:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Updated as scheduled: 1018 now. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 09:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the number of editors who have disabled VE as meaning much of anything, other than that editors familiar with wikitext editing can do most things much or quickly in the old editor than in VE, and, more importantly, can do everything in the old editor, while VE has limits (can't edit tables, other than contents; can't edit blockquoted material, etc.), and also is still producing quasi-random errors.

VE is a beta. It shouldn't matter, now, whether 2% or 20% of edits are done with VE - what should matter is whether the VE team is getting the feedback it needs to see where the bugs are, and how serious those bugs are. Eventually VE will be able to do everything that the wikitext editor can, and there will be minimal bugs; at that point - and only at that point - should we be concerned if VE isn't attractive to experienced editors.

In short, I think anyone at WMF who looks at "percent of edits using VE" as a measure of success is making a mistake. And I think anyone in the Wikipedia community who looks at "percent of edits using VE" as a measure of failure is also making a mistake. The goal as this point - the measure of success - should be to get to a stable, relatively bug-free, fully-featured WYSIWYG editing interface. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I generally agree that VE is not for the advanced editors or those who have been here for a while and know how to edit. I personally think VE is a great idea and will be agood tool. My problem is and has aleays been how the WMF did a half assed job of testing it and then threw it out for the every editor to use knowing it had multiple major problems, had virtually no support for references and only supported 2 namespaces. When they released a product that they knew caused unexplainable changes to articles and encouraged editors to not use references, that was a problem. As it is I have been tracking about 15 articles that have problems due to changes done by VE because I want to see if the WMF is really looking at the edits. I can confirm they are not. Kumioko (talk) 17:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We didn't "know" that it would encourage users to use references, and it doesn't encourage users not to use references. And we have never planned to support more than article-editing for the VE proper. We are tracking bugs, but unsurprisingly we don't have the resources to review every VE edit - we're prioritising reviewing this talkpage for issues. If you've identified bugs, bring them to my attention and I'm happy to triage them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's part of what irritates most experienced users who are complaining here: the VE team decided to widely roll out a version of VE knowing it was full of bugs, including some that were damaging articles, but don't even bother to deal with the damages that were done (and are still being done) on encyclopedic articles, rather relying on the good will of the same users that asked several times to postpone this roll out until VE was stable. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 18:26, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely, I was all too happy to help test and identify problems but when the WMF decided that mass problems and broken articles were no big deal because the community would fix them, then they lost my support. I am here to volunteer to help to build an encyclopedia but if the WMF only cares about releasing software on time to make themselves look good and pat each other on the back about the grand job they did, when the community is cleaning up the mess, they can count me out and in fact I probably won't be editing for the next couple weeks at least. Maybe I'll check back in August and see if the mess is fixed. Kumioko (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
NicoV has it right, and that's the reason that I think VE needs to be put back on a true trial basis: opt-in only, and certainly not rolled out on a widespread basis or made the default for new editors. Putting a broken tool in the hands of our least experienced contributors on the expectation that the rest of us will cheerfully monitor the problems it causes and correct them for you is irresponsible.—Kww(talk) 19:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"... we don't have the resources to review every VE edit ... - So why in world is VE going to being enabled as the default edit interface for IP editors, on the 15th!!?? That's going to generate lots more VE edits, and - apparently - the resulting increase in errors is going to be the problem of the Wikipedia community, not the VE team. Mind you, these won't be newly-identified types of errors, they'll be already-discovered errors, because IP editors don't come close to doing the varied things that experienced editors do. So there is absolutely no testing or feedback value from this expansion. Yet the VE team continues - with no clear justification other than meeting a looming deadline - to plan this expansion. This is just bizarre. Is someone afraid of losing their job - or their annual bonus - if the team does the right thing and just focuses on the problems that registered editors continue to bring to it, plus the huge list of already identified problems, deferring the IP rollout until VE is in much better shape? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone from WMF please answer this in their official capacity? There's been a number of messages along these lines in various places, from experienced editors, and ignoring or evading them as you have does you no credit - David Gerard (talk) 22:52, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We're not ignoring or evading them, David, we've got two staffers working EST and BST respectively, and it's midnight. John, to answer your question in reverse; to my knowledge staffers don't get annual bonuses. I appreciate things are a bit het up, but I'd appreciate if we could keep our concerns in good faith. I say our concerns because, yes, the impact that IP editing will have is something I'm worried about too. We've got quite a few dirty diff bugs, which we need to get fixed, and which I've surfaced as "things we need fixed, pronto". We've got smaller problems technically but bigger problems in practise, like the lack of a notification if a user uses wikimarkup - this, also, I hope will be addressed. But actually there is a lot of value from deploying to IPs: IPs might do less-varied things than experienced editors in wikimarkup mode, but we don't know that the same is true for the VisualEditor. When we release to registered editors, we largely get "the bugs people discover when they're familiar with wikimarkup". Quite a few newly registered users, I have no doubt, haven't experienced wikimarkup editing, but quite a few have, and all experienced users have. A logged-in deployment only gets us those bugs that occur when someone applies their experience to a new interface. What we haven't discovered - and what we desperately need to - is what happens if you apply a group of people who generally-speaking don't have an existing frame to compare the VE to. It's vital that we find this out, because the entire point of the VisualEditor is to make things easier for novices to markup. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You've already found more bugs than you can fix in the near future. Recall the deployment, fix it, and then redeploy once it's fixed. Don't go searching for another new pile of bugs when you haven't fixed the first pile yet.—Kww(talk) 23:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"What we haven't discovered - and what we desperately need to - is what happens if you apply a group of people who generally-speaking don't have an existing frame to compare the VE to." With all due respect, what you desperately need to do is to fix all the important, known bugs in VE.
"... the entire point of the VisualEditor is to make things easier for novices to markup." Okay, but you're contaminating the test by giving them a version of VE that (a) has significant bugs; (b) lacks documentation; and (c) can't do everything they might want to (copy a citation from one article to another, to name just one thing). There is absolutely no way that you can draw anything resembling defensible inferences if you provide IP editors with VE as it is now. In a month or two, quite possibly. In three to six months, when you've worked with more experienced editors to improve both functionality and the user interface, most definitely.
"A logged-in deployment only gets us those bugs that occur when someone applies their experience to a new interface." Really? Logged-in editors include those with essentially no editing experience (say, less than 25 edits) as well as those with more than 25,000. Moreover, IP editors just want their edits to survive. IP editors don't use complicated templates. IP editors don't do piped links. IP editors don't use "group" types in references. IP editors don't think about creating new tables. In short, experienced editors do everything that IP editors do, and more. And experienced editors understand what should happen; IP editors lacking wikitext editing experience don't have a clue as to whether what happens to them in VE is "normal" (and they just screwed up) or is a software bug. IP editors also lack the incentive to spend much time reporting errors - they don't have a commitment to Wikipedia, unlike experienced editors.
So here's a question for the VE team: If you turn on VE editing for IP editors, and you get essential no reports of new (undiscovered) bugs in, say, the first 48 hours, does than mean you'll turn off the expansion, since it won't have helped with identifying problems? Or will you just leave it on, forcing the Wikipedia community to clean up the additional messes that IP editors create every day as they use a bug-infested beta version of VE? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Refining David Gerard - Q: Could someone high up like User:Jdforrester, the VE lead, answer the community's questions?--Salix (talk): 01:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Jdforrester:, same request. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 07:09, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@John Broughton: (and everyone else),
Sorry if we have been unclear to date; the purpose of encouraging people to use VisualEditor is not primarily to find bugs - it is to make it easier for them to edit.
We are not rolling this code out as​ ​some scientific test of what happens when people use it, though data that we collect is valuable (and you can see some of that charted on the public dashboards). There is no concept of "contaminating" the test results here - this is far more important than some metricated experiment, this is about providing actually-useful editing tools for everyone.
Obviously there is tremendous value in experienced editors giving us feedback as to where we have fallen short of our aim to be the easiest, most obvious and natural way to edit. We know that we have not yet met this in many areas, and without the community's assistance, we could never hope to achieve that goal​; ​it would be ludicrous for me to pretend otherwise.​ ​ But we also know that VisualEditor provides a profoundly-better editing experience for new users in terms of their ability to understand how to edit, and I think it would be inappropriate of me to discount the many thousands of new users who struggle each week and turn away from our community for good because of the difficulties which Wikipedia's editing system provide (though note that the wikitext barrier is not the only one; VisualEditor is not, and never has been, a 'silver bullet').
As we have said a few times now, we will of course turn off VisualEditor, or delay its wider availability, if we are concerned that it is endangering the site - by technological demands, by wide-spread content corruption, or by placing a burden upon the community that it is unable to handle. As you know, I delayed the A/B test, and postponed the release to anonymous uses based on the second item. However, I do not think we are currently encountering significant issues on any of these three criteria. I would be keen to hear of evidence to the contrary - nothing is set in stone.
Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that every hit of Filter 550 is evidence to the contrary, Jdforrester.—Kww(talk) 18:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Kww: I disagree. I see a lot of users mistakenly using wikitext in an inappropriate context, and VisualEditor/Parsoid rescuing those users from themselves to avoid breaking their edits. I don't see any corruptions at all any more - we squashed a number of them over the past two weeks. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Rescuing those users"? Are you serious? Visual Editor is failing to notice that they have inserted markup, and, instead of following the markup, is corrupting the article by inserting spurious nowikis. Every article that filter trips on needs to be fixed, so no "rescue" is occuring, Jdforrester.—Kww(talk) 19:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Jdforrester, are you serious ???? I thought the principle of Visual Editor was that inexperienced users could contribute easily without damaging articles unintentionnaly. Filter 550 is just an example of Visual Editor clearly failing in that area, frequently and on many articles. If you just looked at the filter results, you would see that many users triggering this filter have no user page, so a good chance they are inexperienced users. And filter 550 is only a portion of the damages currently done by VE on articles. Many editors here are tired are saying the same thing over and over... --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 19:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While I remember, I will simply note the irony of the reason behind Filter 550 not blocking the faulty edit being that Visual Editor can't display errors generated by the abuse filter.—Kww(talk) 21:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is actually a fault of AbuseFilter not integrating with MediaWiki in the usual way. It's not really VE's fault at all. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:09, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Jdforrester: VisualEditor is triggering filter 550 every minute or two, per Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#What_shall_we_do_about_all_VE.27s_.22nowiki.22_tags.3F. This is due to usability failure in the VE, not the users being foolish or whatever. You may not consider it a problem, but I think it's clear that's actually a wrong opinion and the VE is causing damage to articles that wouldn't be happening without it - David Gerard (talk) 21:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think James meant to imply that the nowiking wasn't a problem - more that not nowikiing would cause bigger snarl-ups at the VisualEditor end. The unintentional damage it's allowing users to cause is certainly an issue, and it's assigned and noted here that we need to have a better way of fixing it (and assigned with a high-priority, I'd note). Hopefully it will be resolved soon. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Text at very bottom of the page

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This revision[2] contains some junk text "QuickiWiki Look Up QuickiWiki Look Up QuickiWiki Look Up" at the very bottom of the page after the authority control, person data and categories. When you try and edit with VE you cannot actually see the junk text. I've play about in my sandbox and the actual conditions for the text not to appear seem to be quite sensitive, at one point new line character appeared. The text remains after VE finishes the edit.--Salix (talk): 09:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Caused by a broken Firefox extension. Abusefilter 345 tries to detect it, but it won't block people from saving. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 09:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) VE displays the text for me in Firefox 22.0. The addition of the text is not related to VE. It's caused by the QuickiWiki option in the Firefox extension WikiTweak. See Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested#Adding QuickiWiki. Are you sure VE is editing the version with the text when you don't see the text? If you click "Edit" on a diff or in an edit source window of an old revision then VE edits the current page version and not the one you are viewing. By the way, is there a bug for the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs not editing the same version in such cases? PrimeHunter (talk) 09:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Checking again now and the text is visable. Maybe they rolled out a bug fix.--Salix (talk): 12:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully the extension will be fixed soon. I wish there was something we could do to compensate for it, but.. :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:29, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Icons are incomprehensible

I'm finding the icons on the little buttons to do various things (add wikilinks, add references, add a template) are not clear or intuitive, the only exception being perhaps the add-an-image icon. I think some of them simply have obscure design that could be improved, but that can only go so far to make things clearer. A mouseover of any of these buttons should display a brief text explanation for what that button does, and/or the VE should have an option to toggle the views of its tools between icon, icon w/text, or just text, just like browsers do. postdlf (talk) 17:27, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are not the first to say this. See for example Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive 2013 07#Mystery meat navigation, which was seemingly archived without resolution. Thryduulf (talk) 17:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I figured it was brought up at some point. Interesting that those other commenters found even mouseover text inadequate, but at least that would be more than what we have. I have no clue what the icon for inserting a reference is even supposed to look like (a bar graph? wtf?), nor do I know what a puzzle piece has to do with templates. And the three books icon between them doesn't even have a discernible function after you click on it. I also don't know why anyone would expect to find categories under "page settings". I could go on...

This whole VE venture is really the most perplexing and seemingly insane development in the nearly ten years I've been editing here. The insistence of the WMF that it be foisted on everyone when it is clearly not ready for prime time really makes me question their judgment and basic competence. postdlf (talk) 17:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The reference editing icon is pretty counterintuitive to me, too, and it's in bugzilla as a thing that needs to be worked on. I'm not sure how the linking icon is confusing, mind; it's a chain link, and matches the linking icon in the existing editing toolbar (and gmail, and wordpress, and...probably other services I'm not familiar with). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:02, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It was less obscure, in that I was able to figure out what it probably meant before actually experimenting on it. I've never seen that particular icon before (I don't use gmail or any of those other services), and I have to assume that a new user will find it even more confusing than me if they're faced with just that little picture. And if it's used in other services, it would have to be for web links, correct? So a user familiar with that icon would then presume it's for inserting external links, rather than wikilinks to other articles. postdlf (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The buttons do have mouse-over text. Or at least I see it, do you not? Or is the complaint that the existing mouse-over text isn't very good, which I more or less agree with. Dragons flight (talk) 18:24, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't see any mouse-over text. Firefox v. 22.0. postdlf (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just tried Firefox 22 and I did get the mouse-over text on the main icons. It seemed a little sluggish for some reason, but it did work. Does anyone else find that the mouse-over text isn't working? Dragons flight (talk) 02:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Firefox 22 here, mouseover works fine. Postdlf, what OS? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Windows 7. I even tried letting the mouse-over hover for awhile after Dragons flight's comment that it was "sluggish," but ten seconds and nothing for any of the buttons. postdlf (talk) 13:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is puzzling. :/ I have Firefox 22 on Windows 7, and the mouse-over text works for me. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Postdlf, do you see the mouse over text in other parts of the interface. For example, most (though not quite all) of the interface links at the left and top of the page have mouse over text. How about on pages that don't use VE? Also, are you using the Vector skin or something else? Dragons flight (talk) 16:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Monobook. And no, I don't see mouseover text in the other interface links (I assume you mean the links under "interaction" or "toolbox", for example, or the tabs like "history" or "edit this page" along the top). I have navigation popups enabled, if that might make a difference. postdlf (talk) 17:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well the good news is that it doesn't appear to be a VisualEditor problem, but rather some more general issue. I'd suggest you start by temporarily blanking User:Postdlf/monobook.js then clear your cache and see if you can see the mouse-over text then. If that works, then it is some issue specific to the scripts you have installed rather than a Mediawiki issue. Dragons flight (talk) 17:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a mockup of one idea, at File:VisualEditor - Toolbar - Reference-edit1.png - That image includes the original, and two adaptations that use a snippet of grey text and a blue superscripted number [1]. The grey text could be made into abstract letterforms (rather than the letters REF) in order to make it usable by all languages. Or could use a grey + sign and the blue number. (Only problem is RightToLeft languages. Not sure how to solve that.) Just a thought. –Quiddity (talk) 05:49, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Mdennis (WMF) and Okeyes (WMF): Is there an existing bugzilla entry for this (improving the icons)? I tried searching for a few keyword combinations, but could not find it. If there isn't one, I can add it. (I've got a list of the previous threads it was mentioned in.) Ta :) –Quiddity (talk) 18:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox problem?

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Hi - sorry if this is an FAQ or anything but is it normal behaviour in this VE-tagged edit that, afterwards, the infobox worked fine but its layout, if you wanted to see it in the source, was trashed (line feeds stripped, I think?) so you couldn't really read it, and you certainly couldn't compare it with the previous? As I say, apologies if it is covered elsewhere and please feel free to point me in the right direction if so. Cheers DBaK (talk) 21:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered: it's not; looks like bugzilla:51161 :(. Sorry about this. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Best wishes DBaK (talk) 07:58, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Problems editing templates

I have just edited my first template: {{cite web}} in a reference. I was able to edit the template successfully but have the following comments:

  • The dialog is not resizable and the parameter descriptions do not wrap, so I could not read the whole description
  • There is a long bold parameter heading (such as Translated title) but no indication of the parameter name trans_title in this case). Thus I cannot use the filter to select a parameter unless I already know what its name is, which rather defeats the object of a GUI
  • I miss a link for each parameter which will enable me to open its value dialog directly: that would be a significant improvement to the user interface
  • I notice that the template definition is replaced by a canonical form irrespective of the previous formatting of the source. That is I think inevitable, and I realise we are never all going to agree about the "right" source format if any, but I see real disadvantages with the current choice: ...value2|name3 = value3|name4 = ...:
    • a parameter value is tightly visually bound to the next parameter name and follows it if the line is wrapped (this might be browser-dependent: I am using Firefox 20.0 on Linux)
    • spaces either side of the equals sign mean it appears unpredictably at the beginning or end of a line when being wrapped
    • without implying that this is "right", I think a canonical format of ...value2 |name3=value3 |name4=... with spaces before each delimiting solidus and not around the equals would avoid these problems.

--Mirokado (talk) 22:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • So, in order:
    Is the wrapping problem still appearing? We pushed some patches last night that hopefully resolved it.
    Well, you can scroll; the point of the long bold parameter heading is that it's human-readable. You can filter by either the parameter name or the human-readable title. The greater problem here, I think, is bugzilla:50773.
  • What do you mean by "open its value dialog directly"? Surely that's doable from the left toolbar in the template inspector.
  • I would argue that actually the form should be ...value2 | name3 = value3 | name4 = ... if we're going to change it at all. So, to go mea culpa for a minute; I explicitly requested that normalisation should normalise with, rather than without, spaces. This is because ultimately normalisation is for the sake of markup-editors; name3=value3 is somewhat hard to read for long templates with lots of values. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There's going to be a serious conflict here between source editing and visual editing. When source-editing a long complex template such as an infobox, it becomes very difficult unless each parameter is placed on a separate line. But if that is done for every template, it becomes very awkward to work with templates that are inserted in text. One possibility might be to normalize "freestanding" templates (that is, templates that appear as the only element of a line) differently from "inline" templates. (Incidentally, the setup I usually use is ...value1 |name2=value2 |name3=value3 |name4=....) Looie496 (talk) 13:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not really; the situation I'm talking about is, say, efn or sfn, where putting it on one line is commonplace. The one-lining of big infoboxes is a bug, rather than a feature :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the responses. I have looked again, using shift-refresh in Firefox to get, I hope, the latest version. Please see File:VisualEditor template dialog 20130712-0245.png.

  • Wrapping, scrolling: The description of each unused parameter is still truncated. There is no horizontal scrolling.
  • Item names: I can though now see light grey buttons to the right of the entry for each unused parameter. They show the parameter name. Light grey is bad for accessibility, see below about active/inactive.
  • Filter: If I type "author" the list contains every entry with "author" in the long name, description or parameter name button, seems correct behaviour.
    • If I type "author name" I get an entry saying "unknown parameter". A bug.
    • If I now hit enter, the value box opens for this unknown parameter: presumably another bug.
    • There is no cancel function which will take me from the value dialog to the parameter list dialog. I can only close the whole template editor dialog with the "X" or "Apply changes" buttons. Missing functionality.
    • Opening the template dialog again, I now type "authorlink" into the filter. Three related items are displayed, "last name", "first name" and "author link": I can see why, but "author" is in this case already defined... However the highlighted entry is "last name" and even if I hit enter with the focus in the text entry box I am taken to the wrong parameter in the value dialog. Another bug.
  • "Open its value directly": These parameter name buttons are light grey which normally means inactive. I would expect them to be active and cause the value dialog to open. At present nothing I do activates them. Yes I can open the value dialog for an already-present parameter from the left-hand pane by clicking on it but the right-hand pane is not implemented in the same way. Inconsistent functionality.
    • If I click on one of the items, such as authorlink in the linked image, it is highlighted in blue as shown, but nothing further happens even if I click again or double click. I discovered today that if I click on an unused item and then hit enter, the value dialog opens. Thus there is a way to use the dialog but it is not obvious to someone who normally uses the mouse with a GUI. Missing functionality.

I can upload more screenshots if anything above is not sufficiently clear... --Mirokado (talk) 01:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's really helpful :). So is "author name" a recognised alias for a parameter, then? We have to have the 'unknown parameter' option until all of the templates have TemplateData, really; it's unfortunate, but necessary behaviour :(. I agree the interface, as it is, is pretty counterintuitive; there is a "remove parameter" button, that does it, or you can go back to the 'parameters' list by clicking on the cite web icon - but really you shouldn't have to. It shouldn't send you off to a parameter until you've included all of those you want to. Great minds think alike on double-clicking; bug 51143 :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:44, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
unknown parameter: author link is not a valid parameter in {{cite web}}, it gives a nice red error message: Unknown parameter |author link= ignored.
as long as direct human source input is possible, it will be necessary to handle templates without the necessary json definitions (or with incomplete definitions). Thus the handling of such parameters is not a short-term issue. The real problem here is:
  • Filtering on the full parameter title (as displayed in bold) does not correctly identify the corresponding parameter. That I think needs to be fixed.
I have to agree with bug 51143: I never did find that button! --Mirokado (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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I would like to suggest that all of the editing dialog boxes should have help page links (probably via an embedded icon) that open a new window with help information appropriate for that dialog. Dragons flight (talk) 02:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, certainly. A more standard approach would be to allow the user to activate context-help by pressing some "Help" key with the mouse over a UI element. F1 is commonly used in applications, but I don't know if that would be viable in a browser. Looie496 (talk) 03:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think this would work pretty well for enwiki, but I'm not sure how well it would work for other projects; we can translate blurbs easily, but not so much entire pages. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:13, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe just have a way to configure help page names in VE (or using MediaWiki:... messages to get the page names), so that each wiki can create its own help pages ? --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 07:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. Added to bugzilla :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:51, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Some templates are really rather complex. I'm trying to write the template data for {{Infobox World Heritage Site}} and parts are just too complex to explain in the short json format. Really a it would be good to have a link to the full template documentation. Maybe a "Documentation" field could be added to json and that interpreted as a clickable link in the dialogue.--Salix (talk): 10:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OH and the parset for template data has a rather uninformative error message. All you get is "Syntax error in JSON" lets guess where in the 100+ lines the error is!--Salix (talk): 11:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there's a bug for that. Drop the JSON on my talkpage? I'll try to debug. Can you give an example of something too complex to explain? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK some wierd buggy jason there. As to complicated documentation {{Infobox World Heritage Site}} as parameters which should take {{coord}} which is a lot to explain, it also has a "locmapin" map parameter which is passed to Template:Location map which has complex instructions as to the name of the map to use which involve looking at Template:Location map/List. Links to those pages would be nice.--Salix (talk): 12:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, linking would be good :). So, Krinkle's approach with TemplateData was to deliberately build something barebones. This was because he didn't know precisely how it would be used in practise, and thought it would be better to build a system that can be expanded in line with how people need it to work (for example - linking, a dropdown box or something) rather than building features and hoping people use them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've now made a enhancement request on bugzilla Template:Bug.--Salix (talk): 05:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Author parameter for web refs

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What happened to the "author" parameter for the cite-web template? Online journalists often use pseudonyms, and the author parameter works better in this case then first or last name.--¿3family6 contribs 14:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It just looks like aliases haven't been added to the templatedata for cite web. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, some "lazy" person only wrote TemplateData for 64 of the approximately 100 supported parameters and didn't include all of the additional 130 aliases. Have I mentioned lately that we might want a better way of handling references than the blinding wall of template options, most of which won't be used in most cases. Dragons flight (talk) 17:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, being able to include links in a TemplateData description, for example to a documentation page, could be quite helpful. Such links should probably be set to open in a new window by default. Dragons flight (talk) 17:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry if I came off as implying laziness; trust me, as probably the first person to look at fixing up cite web with templatedata, I boggled and went "....screw this". The source of that data has my admiration. I agree links would be useful; it's a requested enhancement. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oliver, that "lazy" was sarcasm. It certainly wasn't directed at you. I wrote large portions of the modern citation system, and probably understand it better than nearly anyone, and I still haven't been able to muster up the resolve to try working on the TemplateData for it. Dragons flight (talk) 19:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh :). If you know anyone who might be good for template-editing, please do drop me a list so I can get in touch with them; the more experienced template writers we have using TD, the better! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

save changes

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Your save changes popup is so tiny I have to blow up the page 5 times to see what I type. Then I have to do the reverse afterwards. I hate this. Please leave such things alone. It has worked for years. If it aint broke, dont fix it! Torturella (talk) 17:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When you edit this page, there is a big box at the top explaining how to avoid or disable the Visual Editor, if you want to. (The "save changes" popup is a temporary expedient, and will be replaced by something better.) Looie496 (talk) 17:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, actually the bigger problem is that I imagine Torturella is using Monobook. This is a known bug, and one that will be patched. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Save changes/review changes dialogs are not intuitive.

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The Save Page bubble/box/dialog thing is really annoying. I wanted to review my changes (as I'm not sure how the visual editor does things yet). I had no idea how to do this, so I clicked "Save page". And then I found the preview changes button...

Even so, this leaves me with an overlay of the diff with the darkened background of the page I was editing. In most content display styled like this, clicking in the darkened area closes what you were doing in the foreground and re-focuses on the main page. This is not the case with the visual editor. This then prompted me to look for "x"s in the top right corners of boxes. As no x's exist, I had to stop completely and look at the entire UI.

It's also not immediately clear that the arrows across the top of the changes preview dialog and save changes dialog exist, nor clear what they do. Commonly "exit dialog" is reflected with an "x" in the top right corner. This is instead, an up arrow.

I understand that this isn't at all confusing once you get used to it. It's a new thing and humans don't like new things. However, my brain is trained to look and act on specific cues on how computers tend to work. Clicking on an unfocused area should focus it. x's close things. Neither currently holds true for the visual editor. -- SnoFox(t|c) 17:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep; these are knowns :(. I'm sorry they're causing a problem - it should be fixed soon, re defocusing, and we're hopefully rearranging the save dialogue to some degree. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Drag-and-drop appears to work, sort of, but doesn't

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Drag-and-drop appears to work, but there are oddities about what seems to happen, and in the end the transfer doesn't actually happen.

Demonstration: start with this test page. We will attempt to drag and drop to the bottom of the page the line "L3 header" and the line below it. Strange things happen which I have called "Oddity" rather than "Bug", because I am not sure whether this is supposed to be working yet; if not, it is confusing that it appears to.

1. Select the first L3 header and the line below it by placing the cursor to the left of "L3 header" and dragging down to the left of "Another L3 header" (so as not to leave an unwanted blank line).

2. Place cursor on highlighted area and depress mouse button to "grab". (Oddity 1: cursor does not change shape until you start to drag)

3. Drag selection down to bottom of page. (Oddity 2: the "Another L3 header" line, which was not selected, ceases to be a header)

(Oddity 3: an image of the selection moves, but apart from the line the cursor is on, it is almost invisibly faint)

4. Release the mouse button: the selection appears at the bottom of the page, with formatting correct. (Oddity 4: but it is displaced one indent's worth to the right, and it is not possible to move it left. I think this one may be connected with Bugzilla:50353, inability to put the cursor below the last line of a page.)

5. Try to save the change. {Oddity 5: though it appears to have happened, it hasn't. The "Save page" button is greyed out and inoperative. If you make another change and then undo it, the "Save page" button becomes operative but "Review your changes" produces "Could not start the review because your revision matches the latest version of this page". If you actually make another change, that change happens but the drag-and-drop does not.)

JohnCD (talk) 17:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with you through the ghostly text, but it never appears to move to me. Either I'm not doing it 100% right or, obviously, there's something different in my setup. :) I'm using Chrome on Windows 7. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I should have said: FF22.0/Win7. If nothing moves, when do you see the ghostly text? What happens for me at step 2 when I depress the mouse button to "grab" is, nothing. Only when I start to drag the pointer does it change (to an arrow pointing up at 11 o'clock out of a box) and the ghostly text appears moving with it. JohnCD (talk) 20:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the "Cannot save page" is reported as Bugzilla:50643. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 20:53, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's right. I have updated the bug to say that it happens only with drag-drop, VE will allow saving text moves done with Ctr-X, CtrV or Right-click/Cut, Right-click/Paste. JohnCD (talk) 22:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(@JohnCD:, apologies for my unclear language. :) What I meant was that the ghostly image trails my cursor, but the original content remains in place, and when I release my mouse button the ghostly image disappears, leaving the original unmoved. I see this is tracked and updated, but I just wanted to clarify! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC))[reply]

@Mdennis (WMF): I understand. With Firefox, when the button is released the content appears to have moved. I gather from the response to the bug that it's only with Firefox, and the fix is to prevent that appearance until drag-and-drop is actually implemented. JohnCD (talk) 11:13, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User-unfriendly terms.

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I've been around Wikipedia. I make small edits -- correcting notes that should be a template, moving things to talk pages, fixing typos and stray characters. I know what a transclusion is as I sit and read things about Wikipedia. However, I have never once said "transclusion" in conversation when talking about Wikis. I use the word "template". Everyone I know uses the word "template". It's a simple word and everyone knows what it means.

When mousing over all of the new toolbar icons, the context menus told me what they are. I hovered over all of them and then thought, "Okay now where's the template button?" A few moments later, "Oh, derp. Transclusions."

A new editor or inexperienced editor will never make that association, and will likely (if ever) find out how to add a Citation Needed template by simple trial and error - clicking all the buttons until he get what he wants. -- SnoFox(t|c) 17:42, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That said, I still have yet successfully add a citation needed template, so I'm going to keep working in that.-- SnoFox(t|c) 17:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Replace the term .22transclusion.22 in the Visual_Editor for an ongoing discussion of the "transclusion" issue. Looie496 (talk) 17:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it's unfriendly :/. It's one of the tweaks requested at bugzilla:50354. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Syntax error in JSON

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Can someone help explain to me what I did wrong in this template data that I'm getting this error, "Syntax error in JSON"? I've gone over it 10 times and can't seem to find the problem. (I had to add nowiki tags or else it wouldn't let me save the page. Also, though this is in my sandbox, it gives me the same error when I try to copy and paste it into Template:Infobox attraction. Can someone help me please? Thanks!--Dom497 (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dom497: Sure. The problem are the double quotes that are present in several descriptions - either replace them with HTML entities or change them to single quotes. What might also be of use is the website jsonlint. Jsonlint can be used to validate JSON for syntactical errors - just remember to paste it without Wikipedia specific tags since those aren't valid in a "standard "JSON definition. It will report any errors it finds along with a short description of the error, and the line number where the error occurs. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 22:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot!--Dom497 (talk) 00:07, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Excirial: Wait, its still giving me an error.--Dom497 (talk) 00:19, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
JSON is a subset of JavaScript. In JavaScript it is fine to use single quotes to demarcate strings. However, this is not permitted in JSON. Only double quotes may be used for this in pure JSON. You will need to "escape" the double quotes within the string with backslashes (\") or just use single quotes within the string. — This, that and the other (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@This, that and the other: I don't really understand what that means. Can you go to my sandbox and fix one line as an example for me?--Dom497 (talk) 01:10, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I actually just fixed your sandbox, before looking at the latest messages here -- you can look at what I did. Looie496 (talk) 01:47, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Dom497: Sorry if I got a bit technical there - I assumed you were JavaScript-savvy. Excirial might like to read my reply as well. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Writing replies to technical questions right before dozing off again proves to be a bad idea. The above change was precisely what I meant to relay, but i should have emphasized that the "Quotes in the description" actually meant the quotes around words inside the descriptions text, and not the quotes around the description "object" itself. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 07:19, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank-you everyone!--Dom497 (talk) 12:12, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Inserting Infoboxs Is Way Too Slow

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I've been playing around with VE and when it comes to putting infoboxs in an article, it takes way too long. You have to click on the puzzle piece, search the template, click a parameter, fill in the parameter, go back, click another parameter, fill it in, repeat. It is way faster to just search for the template on wiki, copy and past the syntax (or code; whatever it is called) and fill in each parameter quickly. All in all, my point is that inserting infoboxs using VE is extremely inefficient and should be addressed.--Dom497 (talk) 00:12, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This problem has been extensively discussed. It's clear that major improvements are needed. Looie496 (talk) 02:05, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed; see bugzilla:50354. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


TemplateData problems

When editing a template:

  1. I want to add a parameter.
  2. I see a list of recommended parameters.
  3. I click on one that I want to use. Nothing happens.
  4. I double- and triple-click. Nothing happens.
  • I would expect either the parameter to be selected, or at least filled in for me.
  1. I enter the full parameter name and click enter. It is selected.
  2. I notice that the description for that parameter is not shown above the dialog box. It was shown when choosing the parameter.

Also, initial capitalization of the parameter names seems to act strangely. -- Ypnypn (talk) 02:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I find your first points confusing, too, User:Ypnypn. :) There's a request in to enable addition via double-clicking (Template:Bugzilla). It's been marked high priority and looks targeted to deploy late next week. It might be a good idea to enter your second point (2) in that bug, or in Template:Bugzilla, which is about general improvement of template workflow. (Happy to help with that, once I clarify the following. :)) Can you identify what the issue is that you're encountered with initial capitalization of the parameter names? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts about UI improvements

Modified screenshot of VE in action

I spent a little time tweaking a screenshot of VE using GIMP, to show some thoughts about the direction the UI might go in. I'm adding a picture at right. This is not a product of deep thought, more an attempt to provoke some sort of planned design process rather than the haphazard evolution that seems to be taking place. In particular, I expect there might be a need for additional "Edit" and "Tools" menus. Experienced editors will recognize that I've placed the CharInsert gadget on the second line. That gadget wouldn't be usable directly (even if gadgets could be used in VE), because it includes markup functionality, but its UI seems to me very similar to what is needed for inserting special characters. Looie496 (talk) 03:18, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I find your suggestion really useful. We need more tools on VisualEditor UI. Jacopo Werther iγ∂ψ=mψ 11:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Character insert is Template:Bug which may reuses the char insert from WikiEditor. You might need to venture into bugzilla for the developers to take note, as few read this page.--Salix (talk): 12:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but I think it's best to start a discussion here -- there are certainly members of the WMF team who watch this page. Anyway I've added a comment at that bug report -- not clear how much it will accomplish. Looie496 (talk) 14:23, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I do, at least :). I really like the idea of integrating the special characters tool, but it doesn't really scale; if you check out some of the more, ah, extensive, options in that menu, you'll find it would pretty much make the interface explode with buttons. I think we need a way of doing this, but a better way than the existing tool. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:29, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's certainly not exactly the right thing, but I think it's close enough to the right thing to be a good starting point. Looie496 (talk) 15:21, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a link to your image to the enhancement request at Template:Bug. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Add a preference option to opt out of nowiki tags

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For a new editor who, in theory, will never touch the "edit source" button it makes sense to wrap nowiki tags around double brackets, etc. But for editors used to typing in wikitext, the nowiki tags are unnecessary and a cause errors. Can there be a opt-in preference somewhere to suppress VE from "helping" by adding nowiki tags to text entries? VQuakr (talk) 03:30, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While this is a good idea, the related bugzilla:49686 to automatically convert wikitext into VE elements was closed as "wontfix" so I don't foresee this happening. Thryduulf (talk) 07:22, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Even for new editors, they seem to trigger the nowiki tags by inserting double brackets (as you can see in Filter 550, many users making edits resulting in nowiki tags don't have a user page). --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 13:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We are working on a partial solution to this problem - see bugzilla:49820. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A warning is really a different solution than a selectable preference. This interface is complex enough that is surely merits a dedicated preferences screen anyways, why force editors used to Wiki markup to slow down and click buttons if they wish to opt out of the nowiki tags? VQuakr (talk) 21:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Typing Control+K or ⌘ Command+K to enter VisualEditor's link tool shouldn't really be slower than typing double square brackets. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A simple table gets doubled after an unrelated edit of plain text

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I edited All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship 1992 to fix a simple typo, and VE duplicated a simple table way down the page. I saved it to demonstrate the bug, then undid the edit. Chris the speller yack 04:05, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the report. Part of the problem is that the table in question has content (the entire MATCH RULES and the list that follows) that is moved out of the table leaving the table empty (this is true for the existing output as well -- take a look at the source HTML for that page in your browser). So, when the page is saved, Parsoid sees that foster-parented content ("foster parenting" is a technical term) as new content and duplicates it. We implement lots of tricks to detect bad wikitext like this and gracefully recover from it without introducing dirty diffs while keeping it editable, but obviously that didn't quite work here. We'll use this as a test case for fixing this, but for now, a simple fix would be to simply remove the table around MATCH RULES and the list since it does nothing useful there (creates an invisible empty table in the browser). If you make that fix to the source and re-edit the page in VE, you shouldn't see the problem. Feel free to ask for any clarifications. Hope this helps. Ssastry (talk) 04:29, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Mr. McKittrick, after very careful consideration, sir, I've come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks." - General Beringer, WarGames. I think it's clear that Visual Editor is not ready.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Was Someone Simply Bored?

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What is the point of this "new" tool again? Or is there actually no real reason for it other than the fact that someone created a "tool" with the hope that it would be used because they had nothing else to do that day, and there was nothing on TV and the "new" video game they were awaiting had not been released yet. Otherwise, aren't "new" technology tools supposed to offer some advantage to their old counterparts - not reduce functionality or reduce the capacity for productivity. Why was this rolled out? Isn't there some means or process of Quality Assurance for application development on Wikipedia? Stevenmitchell (talk) 10:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is a collapsed-by-default "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" on top of this page which I think answers the questions you raised here. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 10:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


visual editor -- don't like it

Doesn't seem to have an obvious way to sign or leave a note about what you've changed. Celia Kozlowski (talk) 10:51, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Celiakozlowski: The visualeditor is and will only be enabled in the article namespace, and you wouldn't want to leave any signatures or comments inside these pages in any case. You can still add an edit summary detailing the edit when you save the page though. Talk pages use the old source editor that contains the sign button, though in the future the editor on talk pages will likely be replaced by WP:FLOW Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 11:02, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
VisualEditor is enabled in both articles and userspcace. I see you haven't saved an edit yet with VisualEditor. After clicking Save page you get an option to write an edit summary before clicking Save page a second time (this system has been criticised). PrimeHunter (talk) 11:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Make it say [edit | source] all the time?

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Is there a script or a setting to make it say [edit | source] instead of [edit | edit source], and show it all the time instead of only on hover? Sometimes I click "edit" by instinct, before the "edit source" button is displayed, so it would be nice if both buttons are displayed to avoid confusion. It would be even better if the order could be changed to [edit | visual], because sometimes I click "edit source" accidentally when I want to use the Visual Editor, and vice versa.

The placement of the edit summary box is not very intuitive. I looked for it for some time before checking the documentation and reading that I should click "Save page" to see the box, and click "Save page" again to actually save my changes. It would be nice if the edit summary box is always shown; if the purpose of hiding it under "Save page" is to make people write summaries more often, then maybe a red box could be added around an always-visible unfilled box, or a dialogue box could ask editors to confirm if they were sure about leaving a blank summary.

The time it takes to load the editor and save changes for long pages is way too long. Maybe this is because it loads the whole page for editing when I want to edit just a section. I hope that this will also be fixed.

--Joshua Issac (talk) 10:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is no gadget that I am aware of to show both edit and edit source links without hovering, but there is a bugzilla request - see bugzilla:50540. I think there is a bug about the edit summary box issue as well, but I can't immediately find it, bugzilla:42138 is related though. Section editing is something that is apparently complex, it will happen but not soon (I think the team are prioritising getting whole-page editing working first). Load times are a well-known issue that is being worked on - but it is still very slow. Thryduulf (talk) 14:19, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This page explains how you can remove the animation on the section links. Dragons flight (talk) 15:53, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's very useful, thanks. Thryduulf (talk) 16:28, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Feedback

Just used it for the first time today, on Apixaban. It seems intuitive enough but I had a problem when I tried to fix a wiki-link that I thought I inserted wrongly after looking at my edit. When I tried to remove the wiki link, it deleted a whole section. I tried it a couple of times, cancelling to avoid saving changes each time it went wrong. After about the fifth attempt, it seemed to reload and show my original wiki-link was okay. I'm assuming it's just a small bug that will be fixed in time, but it's a bit confusing. Red Fiona (talk) 13:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit to add Fram has removed a no-wiki mark up which might have been the root cause of the problem.
Thank you, Redfiona99. I've put a note at your talk page with a more complete explanation, but basically this is a known issue that occurs when people use wiki markup in edits. I believe they're working out a way to make this work smoothly to avoid confusing people. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Templates not aligned

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Visual editor, Firefox 22

Editing Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907#Criminal proceedings I added two cleanup templates, {{update}} and {{prose}}. In the visual editor the two templates were differently left-aligned and different lengths, despite saving and displaying correctly. Reopening the page in the visual editor, the templates appear at their correct size and alignment, but do appear with an apparent blank line between them. Thryduulf (talk) 14:04, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Seems to be Firefox specific - I could replicate it on that but not Chrome. Glad you specified your browser. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Not as many things to do

This new version is really confusing and it has barely half the functions of the old editing capability. I'm not able to make a table, and many other things. J. A. Zwierzcowski (talk) 14:11, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, J.A., for your feedback. It really can be difficult to transition between the two, and it certainly can't do everything the other system can yet. It's functions are being expanded and issues corrected by developers, based in part on feedback we receive here. You may have noticed that you can use the old editor at any point, by choosing "edit source." You can also hide the VisualEditor, using a gadget that is not supported by the Wikimedia Foundation in the gadgets tab of your preferences. You can access it in the section marked "Editing" and enable it by ticking the box labeled "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface", then scroll to the bottom and click "Save". You can reactivate VE access at any time by unticking that box. (Please note that this gadget can break and has broken in the past, but it will probably be reenabled swiftly if it does.) I hope you will not disable it, though, but keep helping us figure out how to make it better. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:44, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Terrible

This is just terrible. Way to complicate things and make me never want to edit. FogDevil 16:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's certainly not its intention. :/ I assume you didn't save your change, because I don't see that you've actually used it on any edits, so I don't know what specific issues you've encountered, but it can be challenging especially for people who are familiar with wikimarkup, when so much of what we're used to doesn't function the way we expect. There are also some things that it just can't do yet, or can't do as well as the existing process, but work is underway to improve it. I hope that it will serve you better going forward. In the meantime, you can always use "edit source" to edit the way you're accustomed to and can follow the directions in the FAQ at the top of this page for hiding the VisualEditor altogether if you need. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure that wasn't its intention, but that is what it is doing. And this is why it needs to be reversed immediately.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:38, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All the older VisualEditor tags have vanished

Please read: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#VisualEditor tag not working correctly

It appears that that "Tag: VisualEditor" label on revisions made with Visual Editor has been (accidentally?) deleted from all older edits. As a result, we presently have no way of tracking most of the VisualEditor edits made during the first week of deployment. Dragons flight (talk) 17:23, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Further discussion is at WP:VPT#Revision tags not working correctly. This seems to be a quite technical problem that affects non-VE tags as well, so I suggest that further discussion continue at that other page. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:49, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fucking hate it

I think this is the first goddamn time I've said fuck on Wikipedia. It's a great idea for quick ce edits and like a goddamn fucking idiot I just keep trying to make it work only ending up, as often as not, spending twice or more time on an edit. One time I reviewed an entire article with ce edits and more complicated reorganization of material only to find, when I was all done, that nothing had actually been processed. I never did that again, but I still, like an idiot, keep using it--that's how it goes when one is the eternal optimist. If you can't fix this goddamned thing please admit it and throw it out. Please accept my profanity in the same lighthearted spirit in which it was used, but for christ's sake, this is just plain nuts. Gandydancer (talk) 18:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example: At the BP article I used VE to change " sustained cellular damage resulting organ damage" to read "sustained cellular changes resulting in organ damage" and it did not work. So I instead used the regular method and to my great surprise I found that the "fix" appeared then when I went to do my edit even though it had not yet appeared in the article. Gandydancer (talk) 20:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Don't feel bad. I had my first "R-Rated" entry myself at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive 2013 07#Beta for new edits because of this. It is infuriating, and what's worse the people behind it don't seem to care one bit.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:42, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Gandydancer,
Thanks for your note. I'm sorry you lost that complicated edit. I lost a rather minor one yesterday (I think VisualEditor objected to a couple of hours elapsing between when I started the edit and when I finished it), and just dealing with a couple of sentences was irritating enough.
Your example in the second paragraph is about this edit. I just wanted to make sure that I understood correctly: as far as you could tell, did it not seem to close VisualEditor, or did it apparently save just fine, but when you were reading the page, it was the previous, un-edited version of the article? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
About the "complicated edit", yes I was going through an article to get it ready for a GA so I was being very fussy. I had done 2 edits and was about 2/3 done and was just amazed to find that without any sort of warning none of them had registered. I was also having some sort of other problem--I don't remember what--and I came here and found that another editor was having the same problem and was advised to change something in "preferences", which I did and that seemed to clear it up. But then I started to get an 'error' sign of some sort at times and one time, to my amazement, when I when to do it the "old" way, my changes appeared on their own--though looking at it now I see that it is tagged VE, so I guess it worked even though I got an 'error' signal. I do know that once after getting an 'error' I hit it again and that time it worked. I don't know if I'm making this very clear... The next time I have a problem I will be more careful to note what happened so that I can report it correctly. Gandydancer (talk) 00:20, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with italics and Apostrophe

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I wrote the phrase In 1962 the ''[[Elizabethan Express|Elizabethan]]'''s six-hour schedule between London and Edinburgh.... If you open this in Visual editor then everything from the 's is in bold.

I experimented further and tried writing the sentence in VE. Changing to italics and then linking gave

  • In 1962 the [[Elizabethan Express|''Elizabethan'']]'s six-hour schedule between London and Edinburgh...

Linking before changing to italics gave

  • In 1962 the ''[[Elizabethan Express|Elizabethan]]''<nowiki>'s six-hour schedule between London and Edinburgh...</nowiki>

(See User:Edgepedia/VE/Bold for sandbox) Edgepedia (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a known problem that appears to be being worked on, see Bugzilla:49926. Thanks for reporting it. Thryduulf (talk) 20:41, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Issues with images

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I was playing around with adding an image to an article in my sandbox. I note seven issues:

  • When selecting an image to be inserted, the selected thumbnail has a black box around it. The lines of the box are so fine as to make them almost invisible. A much better feedback would be if, when a thumbnail is selected, it turns blue in exactly the same way as when an image in an article is selected. (A blue coloring behavior - not the same as within an article, though - does happen for some images, though not most. For example, if one searches for "Sandbox", four of the first twelve thumbnails do add some blue if selected, though in one case just a sliver.)
  • The "Insert media" button, in the pop-up box, is not in a good place, from UX perspective. It should be in the top right of the box, not the bottom right. It would be even more clear to editors what the button did if (a) it was greyed out until a thumbnail is selected; (b) it had a "Cancel" button to its left; and (maybe) (c) it was labeled "Save image". [The cancel button duplicates the "X" for closing the box, of course, but this is actually good UX design - giving users multiple choices for performing the same action, as long as that doesn't clutter things up.)
  • It's not a high priority, but still, a suggestion: the default search text, for an image search, is the complete page name. So, for example, if someone is editing a draft article, at User:WhateverEditorName/Article name, the default search text is "WhateverEditorName/Article name". It would be better if the default ignored the final slash and all text to the left of it; in this case, it would mean the default search would be "Article name".
  • For search boxes, the magnifying glass icon (to initiate the search) is normally at the far right of the search box, not (as is now the case) to the left, in the image selection dialog/popup box. For example, see the search boxes in the Vector skin, and with the Chrome browser.
  • VE allows the image to be dropped into the middle of a word. I moved the test image perhaps a dozen times, and this happened twice - that shouldn't be possible, yes? [The words that were split were "addition" and "Israel"; when I moved the image again, the words remained split (with an end-of-line inserted).]
  • Inserted images are formatted as right-aligned, and they can't be move to the left side of the page. Similarly, existing images that are left-aligned can't be moved to the right side of the page. I think a bug to fix this already exists, I mention it for only the sake of completeness.
  • Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide states "To add a caption, click on the 'Media' icon that appears on the image, or the one in the toolbar." But that isn't true - after the image is selected, clicking on the Media icon in the toolbar pops up a new dialog box for selecting an image, not for adding a caption. I can see good arguments for why the existing functionality is preferable, so I'm not saying this is necessarily a bug - just that the User Guide and how VE actually works do not match.

-- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, John. I'll look and see if I can find an existing bug to put your thoughts into. If not, I'll open one. Either way, I'll track it once I have. Regarding the User Guide, please feel free to change anything you see that is wrong or outdated. The community change team has largely been putting together the User Guide, and I at least have based my parts on simply using the software and writing how it worked. If you don't want to change it, just let me know, and I'll see what I can figure out. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Tracked as Template:Bugzilla, Template:Bugzilla, Template:Bugzilla, Template:Bugzilla, Template:Bugzilla and Template:Bugzilla. The last one may be a duplicate of something, but I couldn't find it, if so. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maggie - thanks. I've changed the User Guide to match how the software actually works. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Slow to scroll, even on a pretty good computer with a fast internet connection.

I'm on a relatively good computer (the one I use for all my Feature Pictures work) with a good internet connection (BT Broadband).

I thought I'd see if VisualEditor had improved at all. Just scrolling down a largish page was jumpy, awkward, and laggy, even now, after supposed improvements.

Jumpy, awkward, and laggy are just going to put users off. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are you in "edit" mode? The size of the VE stuff loaded on all articles has decreased substantially, so it shouldn't affect normal reading. If you get this without clicking "edit", I'd guess it's ULS (Universal Language Selector). πr2 (tc) 03:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template display error: Template:Discogs master

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When I edit the External links section of Bossalinis & Fooliyones, the {{Discogs master|523614}} template vanishes from view. It's still there and I could even get VE to edit that template, but it's not displayed. Huon (talk) 00:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed in Firefox 22 on Linux - but oddly only on this one article. I've looked at all of the first 20 in the template's whatlinkshere list that use it outside references and it displays in every single one of them. Often when a problem exists on only one article the cause is broken wikisyntax somewhere on that article, I've had a look but nothing is leaping out at me.
A couple of questions though, have you seen this on other articles/with other templates? Which browser are you using? This should help the devs figure out what's causing the problem. Thryduulf (talk) 01:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This edit fixed the local problem. The underlying bug is apparently somehow related to having an ampersand (&) in the page name. Dragons flight (talk) 01:21, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reported the problem —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 07:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


"wikitable sortable"

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How can an editor insert a sortable wikitable in the new VisualEditor format? Bullmoosebell (talk) 01:14, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At present, you can't. While one can edit the contents of tables, adding new tables or changing their layout is not yet supported. You'll have to use the "edit source" button for that right now. Dragons flight (talk) 01:35, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Table editting

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I am unable to edit tables and the background colors used in it. Saha.rj (talk) 05:24, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • That's correct, the Visual Editor does not have full support for tables yet so you can only change the contents of existing cells. Full table support will come in a future release. Thryduulf (talk) 07:43, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


I seem to be having difficult in addin a web link so going back to normal editor Glh54 (talk) 08:40, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry to hear that it wasn't intuitive for you. I think it's probably a little more difficult for those of us who know the old way to adjust to than those who've never edited before. :/ If you decide to try it again, the user guide might help. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:25, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The user guide for VisualEditor doesn't include external links (last I looked). However, it works the same as adding a wikilink: Type the label you want to display (e.g., "Official website"). Select that, then use the link tool (click the chain-link icon, or use the shortcuts Control+K or ⌘ Command+K) to add a link. Instead of typing the name of some Wikipedia article into the box, paste in the URL. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reference numbering

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When the first reference is in an Infobox it is correctly numbered and shown as 1. However, the first reference in the text is also shown as 1 in the text but numbered as 2 in the reflist. See East Toowoomba, Queensland for an example. Downsize43 (talk) 10:24, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a known issue with referencing inside of templates. :/ Thanks for reporting your experience, and I hope they'll be able to fix that one soon. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Classic "marked as answered" means "hope they'll be able to fix that one soon" -- really? That's what we have now for the "default editor" that is "so great" ?--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is nothing more that Maggie or anyone else here can do. The devs know the problem exists and it's in their queue of things to fix, so the report here has been answered, even if the response isn't ideal.
      As for whether the VE is "so great", not yet it isn't but many of these bugs would not have been found without the wide testing being employed currently (e.g. the one lower down this page which requires leaving a page open for many hours before editing it), so this is a necessary step. Personally, I would have waited until it was more feature complete and all the critical bugs found during opt-in testing had been fixed, but that doesn't change that this report has been answered. Thryduulf (talk) 07:31, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Follifoot

The village of Follifoot is approximately 4 miles from Harrogate not 2 miles as stated in the article. My attempts to edit and save the alteration have been unsuccessful. Perhaps someone with more knowledge could correct the article for me. Janebly (talk) 11:44, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have made the change for you. As the distance is included as part of the conversion template (that automatically calculates the distance in km) the change needs to be made in the template editor. Where you able to figure this out and get to the template editor, or was your problem in understanding the editor itself? (this is one of the most complicated templates on the encyclopaedia and so human-readable descriptions for the editor interface have not been written yet, so don't feel bad about it!). If you can let us know what you did and didn't manage to do then it will help improve it for the future. Thryduulf (talk) 13:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Showing a nutshell overview of template parameters: In general, trying to remind users of the various parameters, and their basic options, can be a challenge to display in a nutshell overview, as a condensed box of parameters and their format. Currently, for the Wikitext editor ("Edit source"), a person can insert a {Convert} unit-code parameter as "help" and the template will display the condensed parameter nutshell help-box, as formatted by Template:Convert/help. Perhaps the VisualEditor could display that nutshell help-box in a pop-up window or such. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:57, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Template:Bug, which asks for links to the full documentation, is another suggestion to address the difficulty of providing detailed documentation in a nutshell. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:47, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How do I preview adding [dead link]?

FlashSheridan (talk) 16:30, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not completely sure what you are asking here, but all edits can be previewed by clicking on "Save this page" and then "Review changes" (this is not a great design I know, but there are open requests for improvement). Thryduulf (talk) 07:51, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you're using VisualEditor, then it ought to be displaying automatically and instantly. If you're adding it into the main part of the page, then you should see it as soon as you add it (with the puzzle icon/template tool). If you're adding it inside a <ref> tag, then it should display in the "Reference content" part of the reference tool. It should also be visible immediately in the <references /> at the end of the page. I just did it, and that's what happened. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quotes in template data

For the template data for Infobox species Template:Taxobox/doc I want to indicate in a parameter description that two single quotes should be used around an argument e.g. ''H. sapiens'' however I can't distinguish this from double quotes e.g. "H. sapiens" when looking at the produced template data.

An infobox for plants, animals and other biological taxa

Template parameters

ParameterDescriptionTypeStatus
Speciesspecies

Species taxonomic rank. Should be given in abbreviated forms and in italics, e.g. ''H. sapiens''.

Stringoptional
Bad Speciesbadspecies

Species taxonomic rank. Should be given in abbreviated forms and in italics, e.g. "H. sapiens".

Stringoptional

When displayed its impossible to distinguish this from a double quote in the wiki doc page. In the VE dialogue box its also impossible to distinguish the two.--Salix (talk): 16:47, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My gut feeling is that this is most likely to be a font issue. On my screen I use the DejaVu Sans font and there is a small, but noticeable, distinction between '' and ". Looking at it in Links, which uses DejaVu Sans Mono (as that's what I use in my terminals), the difference between the two is immediately clear. I'm not sure there is any way around this? Thryduulf (talk) 18:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Use <code> font to show multiple apostrophes: The typical style for showing users the use of multiple apostrophes is to display the text in monospaced font by using code-tags, as in: "<code>''italic''</code>". With the switch to HTML5, the code-tag is still being supported ("forever") in wikitext, but I am unsure how the VisualEditor could recommend the use of code-tag font in these cases. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:12, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    At present, TemplateData does not allow for the inclusion of any markup. In addition, the dialog boxes live in their own iframe beyond the reach of community controlled CSS, so there is essentially nothing we can do without developer intervention. My personal recommendation would be to allow wikimarkup in TemplateData descriptions so we can have more control of the content displayed. Dragons flight (talk) 20:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I've added this request to the related bugzilla:51311 requesting links in TD documentation. See #Add a link to template documentation page further up this page. Thryduulf (talk) 07:47, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing and erratic

This is all very confusing and counter-intuitive, and it doesn't even seem to work the same way twice. I can't help but think that something isn't working correctly! There doesn't seem to be a way to add new references, for example. Yes, there's a "create new reference" tab, but all it does is create a blank reference that can't be edited - presumably it isn't meant to do this!

Templates sometimes let you add new parameters, and sometimes don't, and the ones I've tried to use (convert and cite journal, so far) either output gooblidigook or nothing at all. It doesn't even behave the same way with the same template on repeated attempts. Obviously, I haven't saved any of the edits I've produced so far with VisEd, because nothing I've tried to write with it was functional.

Something is clearly screwy (and possibly at my end, not yours), but I can't figure out what. I get that wikimarkup isn't intuitive for new users, but I can't help thinking that neither is this.

At the very least, the instructions on the Help page need to be greatly improved. Half the time, I can't figure out what they mean. "Add parameters", for instance, isn't really sufficient as the entire description of a particular step. Add parameters how, exactly? Anaxial (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does the 'create new reference' tab not pop up a window in which to type text? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Clicking on the "Insert reference" icon and then "create new source", and finally "insert reference", does get to a dialog/pop-up box where a new source can be added, but the UX is poor. The shadow text in the search box should be "Search for an existing source"; "Create a new source for the reference" [the "a" should be added, as well as "for the reference"] and "Use an existing source for the reference:" [the colon should be added] are parallel options and should be in the same font (the second is now bolded, the first is not); the list of existing sources should be indented, so it's clear that they fall under the second option, rather than being options in their own right. The "insert reference" button should be on the upper right, not the lower right
Anyway, after those three steps, sometimes the "Reference" dialog box does not come up to specify what the new source should be. I didn't see that behavior initially. But after opening and closing it a number of times (without action; I was working on understanding the process), and similarly with the "Insert Reference" dialog box, I do indeed see the same thing as Anaxial - the clicking "Insert reference" no longer produces the "Reference" dialog box; the software simply inserts a reference that has no content. And then it gives errors after the save occurs: "Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page)." That's because it inserted <ref/> (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:John_Broughton/sandbox&diff=564179205&oldid=564134153 this edit).
And no, I can't get figure out how to get VE to do that again. But I'll add two another problems that appear to be related:
During the edit session, at the place where VE had inserted two adjacent blank citations, the text looked like this "[1][2]". But looking at the diff, there was only a single instance of actual wikitext that had been added: <ref/>. And when I went back to to edit the page in VE, it now only displayed this "[1]".
In that edit session, and in a following edit session for the same article, if I (a) make a change to the article - say, just a bit of text, right after the problem footnote; (b) go to the edit summary box, put in some text there; (c) return to the article [and maybe add some text - not sure if that is needed], and (d) return to the edit summary box - then I can't backspace over existing text - I can only go forward (continue to type text).
I really didn't think that VE was unstable, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. Also, for Anaxial's question, "Add parameters how, exactly?", I had the same puzzlement, and I'll comment separately about that. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:51, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
John has pretty much covered it there. In short, yes, sometimes it brings up a pop-up box, and sometimes it doesn't. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to this that I can discern. Anaxial (talk) 07:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit session expired though the editing was done quickly

I was reading an article yesterday, saw errors in it, but it was late, so I waited until today to fix them. Today I hit 'Edit', made the changes quickly, but when I tried to save, got a message that the edit session had expired. I suspect that what expired was not whatever got set up when I clicked 'Edit', but something that got saved yesterday when I loaded the article for viewing. It struck me as user-hostile behavior. This appears to be different from bug 50424, but what do I know? This should be easy to recreate, if you don't mind waiting about 15 hours before you begin editing. Chris the speller yack 20:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Without TemplateData

Hello, dear colleagues!

Add the parameters form template to see all the options. For example, you can add a button to "All parameters", then he is not with regards to TemplateData, or not come to all the template parameters (in brackets {{{}}}). I still need to add the ability to edit the template TemplateData, once in this form with the words: "This parameter has no description ',' This template has no description ',' This parameter is not specified "required", "Please, add them", ... . --Xusinboy Bekchanov (talk) 04:38, 14 July 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Which template? The code to specify/document all the parameter needs to be added to the individual template documentation page. Work is in progress to document the most important template Wikipedia:VisualEditor/TemplateData. If there is a specific template you need it might be possible to speed thing up. However there is about a day delay before the documentation can be used in the visual editor.--Salix (talk): 11:07, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New edit mode too slow. How to disable?

I want to go back to the old way, please. I don't see this option in my account settings (under "editing"). Startswithj (talk) 05:32, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Startswithj: See the FAQ box at the top of this page, just above the table of contents. Ignatzmicetalk 05:42, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maggie and the WMF crew have just spent half of their working week politely explaining to the world and his neighbour how you disable this beta test. I think that is proof enough that this is a priority bug- disabling needs to prominent and obvious. There are two places that are intuitive and impossible to miss.
  • On the top-bar of the visual editor next to the help icon, just add a further icon in red with the word 'Disable', Hover would display the message 'Thank you for taking part in this beta-test, to disabling the visual Editor will take you back to the Classic Editor' or just 'get me out of here!"
  • Change the Edit|Edit source into Edit|Classic editor|Remove visual editor. I don't think anyone would need further help on that one
I have posted this not because I need a recursive reply- but so you can pass the comment directly to the dev team for immediate implementation.
If you are not at the London or Oxford Wikimeet- you are all most welcome to come and share a bottle of wine with me beyond wifi range in the garden. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 08:29, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is actually a proper off switch for VE. It was chosen to disable the off switch for en:wp, and instead have a half-hidden option that the VE breaks every now and then. Enabling the off switch is apparently an "enhancement". The patch is awaiting deployment. Anyone from WMF have an idea if/when this change will go through? - David Gerard (talk) 08:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Wikipedians:

  • I wasn't aware I was consenting to a public post on this page when I clicked the "leave feedback" button, thus I was not aware of the FAQ at the top of this page (@Ignatzmice:). If the nature of this feedback method could be made more transparent, I think that would be more appropriate.
  • Thank you for your responses. I eventually discovered after searching the web that the beta editor can be disabled in the "gadgets" section of my user settings. I would suggest moving this setting to the "editing" section, or else turn it off by default (it seems gadgets would be things I would opt into).
  • I also have come to realize that the "edit source" button is sometime available as a hover option, however when the system is unresponsive, hover-reveals don't always work (@David Gerard:). I would suggest showing two links without hovers, more clearly titled as "beta editor" and "classic editor" or "visual editor" and "code editor." That, or having the choice of editing methods appear after clicking "edit," rather than defaulting to the choice of beta (@ClemRutter:).
  • My tech specs (if helpful): Downstream 20 Mb/s; Safari 6.0.5; Mac OS 10.8.4; 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7 (64-bit); 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3; Flash 11.8.800.94; Java 1.6.0_51. Very occasional WP contributor.

Cheers, Startswithj (talk) 17:47, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Page won't save

I've spent 3 hours editing a page and adding citations but now it wont save saying: Error: invalid error code. So disheartening. Makes me not want to bother spending so much time trying to improving things... Fieldstones (talk) 07:11, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is a known problem, unfortunately - see Bugzilla:50424. The good news is that James (the VE program manager) commented "happily, we have code fixing this mostly done and we hope to have it deployed on Monday." when marking a related bug I reported as a duplicate. Thryduulf (talk) 07:39, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VE deletes syntax from an incomplete table

At User:Thryduulf/Hierarchy of content decisions I have an incomplete table (it's part of an unfinished user essay) with the table opened, some headers and rows defined but no closing syntax.

When making an unrelated edit, VE deleted all the table syntax apart from the the opening line [3] e.g. changing !Level!!Process!!Appeal process!!Notes to LevelProcessAppeal processNotes.

I know VE doesn't deal with tables properly yet, and this is an unusual use case, but there is no reason for it to be deleting syntax. As in the example above deleting the exclamation marks (and pipes on other rows) doesn't even result in cleaned up plain text (replacing them with space instead might do). Thryduulf (talk) 08:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dealing with malformatted tables seems to be a nightmare for the devs, but my suggestion is that you file the bug report, just so they know that it happens. In theory, this shouldn't be a problem for the mainspace, and equally in theory, it should become even less likely to happen once VE provides decent support for creating and editing tables, but... Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:04, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Error: Invalid error code

Attempted to make this fairly simple edit, the VE spent ages trying to save and came back with "Error: Invalid error code". I pressed the second "save" button again, it came back with the same. Gave up and did it in wikitext - David Gerard (talk) 09:06, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is known that this error is generated when your session times out (see bugzilla:50424), with the session starting when you open the page for reading. Is it possible this happened here? Thryduulf (talk) 09:30, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty plausible, it's a cite-heavy and hence complex page. Wonder if there's room for optimisation there - David Gerard (talk) 10:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
James commented that they hope to have the fix for that bug finished and deployed tomorrow, so hopefully that will at least help. There probably is scope for optimisation when dealing with cite templates given the plethora of bugs surrounding citations and the UI for adding them. Bugzilla:50475 seems potentially relevant as well. Thryduulf (talk) 10:37, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have had the same experience several times. The last time it happened my edit was saved when I again hit the edit button. Gandydancer (talk) 11:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I don't know if this is related, but I've just opened brand new bug Template:Bugzilla. I got that message when trying to test the bug reported in the section immediately below this one and realized that even though VE hung up at the save stage, it actually did save. Since yours did not save, David, perhaps these are not the same issue? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly this is related to the server issues I've just discovered we're currently having. I understand they aren't related to VE, but will certainly impact it. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:30, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How did it go to Vedit mode?

After saving an V-edit on Shiva, I saved the page. From contents, I clicked on a section. Instead of going to the section, it went in Vedit mode. --Redtigerxyz Talk 09:48, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Although I found another bug when testing this, @Redtigerxyz:, I could not replicate it. :) Can you edit something and see if it happens again? If so, can you let me know what browser and operating system you are working on? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:18, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
using Chrome. I could not replicate it either by simple testing. I removed and reorganized/copy-paste sections in the previous edits. May be it led to the behaviour? Didn't test that again. --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:53, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Mdes nni(WMF): Replicated on Narayana Gosain Temple, copy-paste and reorg of sections caused same effect. --Redtigerxyz Talk 18:27, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Option to use normal editing

Hi. I don't see an option to go back to normal editing mode. I just want to make a quick change and prefer not to deal with a visual/WYSIWYG-ish mode. An option to use the "bare-metal" original syntax would be nice. My original edit would take 30-45 seconds this way. That's a good thing. It is a wiki, after all. Wantnot (talk) 10:30, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can always go back to the normal mode by clicking "edit source" instead of "edit", either at the top of the page tabs or in section edit links. You can also disable the visual editor in your preferences - see the FAQ at the top of this page for details. Thryduulf (talk) 10:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Another option is to disable the software completely. In "Preferences->Gadgets" click "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" and save. Editors who make requests like this should be given the WHOLE information and not just a little bit.--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:24, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lost comment

Anish7 (talk) 11:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Did this get lost? — LlywelynII 11:40, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely it's the issue noted at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive 2013 07#The easiest way for a new editor to ask anything about wikipedia is this page. Thryduulf (talk) 12:08, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your java is buggy

You already know this, but I'll repeat this every few days until you fix it: get the opt-out out of "gadgets" and make turning on VE involve javascript. Being off should involve nothing. Right now, your code is repeatedly turning on VE despite very very very clear instructions in my preferences for it to go bugger off. — LlywelynII 11:43, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's volunteer-written JS, not staff-written JS. I'm investigating the problem with it now, having just noticed myself. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:25, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Problem identified. It's nothing to do with the javascript being buggy; parsoid is DoSing the API cluster, which has implications for gadgets functioning. Mark Bergsma is looking into it now. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:30, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Damn, it is still coming up. Please remove it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:49, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hawkeye, the developers are working fast but technical bugs are not fixed automatically. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, we are having problems with the servers right now that are being worked on. These may affect the performance of any and all gadgets (and non-gadgets) and is not directly related to VisualEditor. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:29, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor back.

Despite having hid VE, I've just discovered that it's back. The whole "Edit" and "Edit source" nonsense is back. When I was editing the Iván Hindy article it even automatically chose VE for me. Why? Is the opt-out malfunctioning? Manxruler (talk) 12:52, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; see the section above this one. Sorry about this :(. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:53, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How glorious. I've (I hope, at least) gotten rid of it again now. Why on earth did this thing include the "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" box on my gadget list somehow being unchecked? Manxruler (talk) 19:36, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't have unchecked itself. It's just that none of the gadgets were working properly for a while today due an external denial of service attack on Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Visual Editor exhumes itself and forces itself on me

Moments ago, while I was editing an article using the editing tool that works properly, the properly-disabled mess misnamed Visual Editor restored itself as my default editing tool. It seems to have been returned to its well-deserved grave after I resaved my "gadget" preferences, but why should any editor have to watch out for this dysfunction to recur? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 12:59, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This also happened to me this morning. I do not like the Visual Editor for adding or changing categories but prefer to use "HotCat". I used HotCat to update several articles and then that option disappeared and VE was back. I have changed my preferences in the Gadgets tab several times (which I would never have found except for a mention in a previous feedback talk), but VE keeps coming back and HotCat is still not available. VE takes MUCH longer to edit categories compared to HotCat. Jllm06 (talk) 13:10, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See two sections above this one. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It just did it again. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 13:19, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, we are having problems with the servers right now that are being worked on. These may affect the performance of any and all gadgets (and non-gadgets) and is not directly related to VisualEditor. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And when "Gadgets" came back, "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" had been unchecked"! That's certainly a VE-specific error. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 13:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a VE-specific error unless VE is causing the problem. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So if the lousy kludge that supposedly turns off VE doesn't work, that's not a VE-specific error? What next,will you argue about what the meaning of "is" is? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 15:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The argument is about the meaning of "specific". If all gadgets are affected by the same error then the error isn't specific to one of the gadgets. An analogy: If your city loses power and your toaster stops running then the power loss isn't a toaster-specific problem. It can still be annoying if you wanted toast. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:45, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And when the only one of my "gadgets" whose marking is changed is the one that relates to VE, that isn't VE-specific? You folks are really in denial. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If its needed again the following css can hide the visual editor.

div#p-views > ul  > li#ca-edit:not(.istalk):nth-last-child(4) { display: none; }
.mw-editsection-link-primary { display: none; }
.mw-editsection-link-secondary { visibility: visible !important; content: "source"; }
.mw-editsection-bracket { visibility: hidden !important; }

It's supplied with no warranty, expect it to mess up on some namespaces and hide normal edit links as well, kill section 0 edit links. It may also break if you have any custom css js or gadgets or if any software changes.--Salix (talk): 17:23, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Won't let me copy

This new system won't let me copy from one edit to another Jørgen88 (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Worst thing I've ever seen

Why would you change Wikipedia like this? Do you think that users are going to bother trying to learn a whole new system of editing. This is clunky and I don't understand it. I will stop editing this site if this is not changed. Kuzwa (talk) 14:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Kuzwa: You can still use the old editor by pressing "Edit Source" instead of "Edit this page" on an article page - the same applies to section links. Additionally you can disable the visual editor under your user preferences, first item in the editing section though that option is a tad bugged at the time id the post above your still apply. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 17:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Kuzwa, it's really awful. Luckily you can turn it off. --Pajicz (talk) 18:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citation system unclear

There are now two sets of apparent endnotes in this article, created by different forms in the WYSIWYG editor. Please update the help to make it clear whether to use Transclusion for citations. Thank you. Mragsdale (talk) 16:04, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Mragsdale: What is the name of the article with two sets of apparent endnotes? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:42, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
His only edit in the 30 days prior to this message was here, and there is no problem with the endnote formatting, so it must be an article that he didn't edit. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate parameters in a template

I don't believe there is any situation where it's acceptable to have two identically-named parameters within a template ("url=", "url=", for example). But VE doesn't prevent that from happening. It should. -- John Broughton (♫♫)

There does not seem to be any checking of parameter. Setting the "required" field to true in the templatedata means the parameter is is automatically added to the list in the lhs of the dialog box, but it does not force any checks than the value is actually set. This might be desirable behaviour as many templates have some default if no parameters are set. Required could be taken to mean "should" rather than "must".--Salix (talk): 20:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Doubleclick

In case of Doubleclick on the template, should show a Transluction dialog. Rezonansowy (talk) 20:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit transluction button

The Edit transluction button should follow with window frame. For example: if I showing a second half of any infobox, the popup button should appear on the current visible place of the infobox, not stay on the header. Rezonansowy (talk) 20:51, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interaction with Flow

I just wanted to point this discussion on MediaWiki which would indicate that we will, once again, be unable to disable VisualEditor once Flow arrives to replace our current talk pages.—Kww(talk) 21:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sad :-( Good way to make some active editors find something else to do. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 22:04, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This message needs straightening out without delay. @Jdforrester:, is Brandon's statement there accurate? The claim all along has been that the visual editor will not be made mandatory - if this has changed, when and why was it changed? - David Gerard (talk) 22:24, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We'll (always, I believe) be able to use regular markup on articles. They're going to be forcing us to use Flow (i.e. VisEd) on talk pages—user talk pages for a while, but eventually all talk pages, I believe. Which sucks. Just for the record. Ignatzmicetalk 22:48, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What the hell

I go away for a month and I no longer know how to edit!? J04n(talk page) 00:11, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back, J04n. If you want to use the old editing environment, then just click "Edit source" instead of "Edit". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]