Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback: Difference between revisions

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:This comment is about [[Miracle Mineral Supplement]], and has nothing to do with the Visual Editor. [[User:Looie496|Looie496]] ([[User talk:Looie496|talk]]) 17:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
:This comment is about [[Miracle Mineral Supplement]], and has nothing to do with the Visual Editor. [[User:Looie496|Looie496]] ([[User talk:Looie496|talk]]) 17:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
}}
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== Message popups ==

Some of the message popups get stuck (sometimes in the English wiki, mostly in the Hebrew wiki) and hide the text or controls. [[Special:Contributions/93.173.235.19|93.173.235.19]] ([[User talk:93.173.235.19|talk]]) 00:15, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Revision as of 00:15, 6 August 2013

Shortcut

Please participate in the VisualEditor Request for Comment
and also in the new Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC. 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
Share your feedback
Report bugs
Report bugs
Your feedback about the VisualEditor beta release

This page is a place for you to tell the Wikimedia developers what issues you encounter when using the VisualEditor here on 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 comment – View known bugs – Report a new bug in Bugzilla – Join the IRC channel: #mediawiki-visualeditor connect

Please click here to file a new bug report on this page
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VisualEditor accidentally deleting infoboxes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53043

This is actually not my own experience, but those that I have seen on articles on my watchlist. When someone edits an article, sometimes, for some reason it deletes the whole infobox (and strangely only that, any maintenance tags at the top of the page remain). Sometimes, it even adds a nowiki tag to the article (which is probably related to the long-running bug with nowiki tags), although I can't see any mention of the infobox deletion on any of the current discussions. How can this be solved? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 23:35, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could you link to some diffs please. I know that there has been at least one bug relating to VE removing templates, but I can't find it at the moment. Thryduulf (talk) 00:01, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Here here. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:29, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, this is not a VisualEditor bug. What happens is that the user backspaces one time too many, and since the entire infobox is "one character" in VisualEditor's mind, it gets deleted. If the user doesn't notice and undo the backspace, then it's gone. But while it's not a "bug", it's a problem, and it's already in Bugzilla so that some sort of fix can be devised. (Perhaps you should have to confirm deletion of a template? If you've got ideas, let me know, or add them to the bug report yourself if you've got an account there.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:56, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
One idea would be to somehow flag the templates where a confirmation step is appropriate, but it'd have to batch up the confirmation if multiple nodes are affected, and maybe have a "Don't show this again" checkbox. Feels unwieldy.--Eloquence* 01:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I personally think confirmation each time a person deletes a template with a "do not show this again" checkbox (which is remembered across edits) would be adequate. As you say, a single user action should trigger at most one warning. I don't find this unwieldly. Dcoetzee 02:13, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
An other way would be to do like Word do for images: the first backspace selects the image, a second one deletes the image. The same kind of behavior could be applied to templates: first select the template, then delete it on a second key stroke. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 06:19, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's gotten worse

I've just made an edit using VisualEditor. In my edit, I merely wikilinked to a person. I did not use backspace, but once again, the infobox was accidentally deleted. And now, it appears that most of the VisualEditor edits on pages on my watchlist are having the same problem (see this and this). Does this need a new Bugzilla entry or should it continue to be tracked under the old one? (I don't have a Bugzilla account). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 14:59, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add to that bug for you, don't worry about this. As for the "getting worst" part, I think this is also related to us having among our watched pages many pages that might suffer from that specific bug. As an example, in the previous days I had to fix some articles on the Italian WP where VE would struggle with an infobox about fictional characters. Each time someone else edited those articles, the "bug" would appear again. Now that we have found a workaround for that and those pages will be ok, I am not going to think "it's gotten better" ;) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Disabling option

Instead of "Temporarily disable VisualEditor while it is in beta" which sounds very lawyerish, why not simply "Disable VisualEditor"? How is it temporary if disabled, and what does its dev status have to do with my decision anyway? Will I not have the disable option after beta? Moondyne (talk) 14:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just happened to answer a similar question here. Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:17, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I read all that and you still have not answered my question - at least not in plain English. Simple question, why say "Temporarily disable VisualEditor while it is in beta" when you could say "Disable VisualEditor"? You said there that you can't be sure that such an option won't be offered in future. But your apparently loaded question implies that it wont (be offered). I'm still confused. Moondyne (talk) 02:11, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just how many times do I have to switch this damn thing off. Today, in darkest Europe on a poor connection- edit- had become edit source, and on the tabs edit beta- and the connection glacial. So, I find that I have been reconnected- but not only that, I have been reconnected on fr:wikipedia and no doubt others. The switch off option, we are promised is back in edit. All that is now offered is

Temporarily disable VisualEditor while it is in beta

which is hardly the point- the option I am looking for is

Permanently disable VisualEditor on all wikipedias.

I don't know if there is anyone in the dev team who has a degree in psychology- but you have already alienated 88% of your editors, and are starting to infuriate them too. In a further attempt to lose 88% of you volunteers- you post a patronising whitewash piece in Signpost. Look kids, your toy doesn't work, it damages the database, and can never work. How many engineers does it take to just say sorry?-- Clem Rutter (talk) 16:15, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure about the engineers part, but I already explained many times today that VE reappearing was certainly not done on purpose to annoy people - the unofficial gadget just happened to break. And each time I said I was sorry for that. Also, most of the changes only happened on en.wiki only - as a matter of fact, nobody until now reported seeing VE again on it.wp, for instance. I guess this only affected who used the unofficial gadget rather than the official option which has been available for a while. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There is no global preference setting for anything. VisualEditor preferences are stuck with the same single-wiki prefs system as everything else. This may change in a year or two, but for now, that's what we have to live with. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Safari on iPad editing - leading to a suggested revision of scope for VE development

I am trying to use the Visual Editor as my predominant editor while working on my personal computer (Chrome / Linux). However, I've found it quite difficult to use VE on Safari on the iPad and have decided not to try any longer, using the Wikitext Editor when on that device. This does seem counterintuitive as VE would seem to be a more touch-friendly interface than WE. One thing for further development to consider is a revision of scope for VE, focusing down on editing from a mobile device. I think this would be an area for major improvement over the Wikitext editor and would align reasonably well with the massive increase in use of mobile devices over deskbound PCs in general. There are some stats available somewhere related to what platform people are editing from, I think -- anyone know where these stats are? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What specific things are not working/could be done better? I don't recall seeing any stats about which platforms people are using to access VE, but I would be interested in them if anyone knows where they are? Thryduulf (talk) 06:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I should come with specifics, yes. One of the problems is the invariant size of the dialog boxes like those used to add a reference or a template. These should be better scaled for the mobile platform. Another item is mouseover behavior; as far as I can tell, on the iPad there is no equivalent of mouseover behavior, so clicking an element is always equivalent to doubleclicking and the mouseover event is not supported as a "fingerover" event. A third item is the edit/save bar which in a browser like Chrome under Linux floats and is present when you scroll down a page; on Safari on the iPad, it is necessary to scroll up to the top to get to this toolbar (i.e. in order to add a template or save the page), which is doable but quite inconvenient. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:48, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A separate version of VisualEditor is being worked on for iPads and mobile editing. When it's released (no reliable date announced, AFAIK) I think you'll find many fewer of these problems. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chrome on iPad 3

I started fiddling with VE in Chrome on my ladypal's iPad 3, and I've found some usability issues as well:

  • Broken spellcheck/undo is back with a vengeance
  • No way to resize images
  • Toolbar stuck at the top of the page
  • Loading VE on large pages causes the browser to freeze

I'll update this list whenever I get more fiddling time. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unable to move earlier than bullet at start of article

This article version starts with a bulleted list (i.e. there is a star as the first character). When I tried editing it in VE, I was unable to move the cursor earlier than the first bullet, to add something before all of the bullets. Neither mouse clicks nor arrow keys worked. OS X / Chrome / MonoBook. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:14, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was not able to find a related bug, I'd need a second search, but in the meanwhile, hope you can appreciate a workaround for this: after clicking Edit beta, click on the bullet list and then press Enter. You should now be able to add text, you just need to put the first item back in the bullet list. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:32, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Load time experiment

Hey all, I've spent the past few days collecting data on VE load times for large articles in different browsers. The main graph is at right. Full results can be found here. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:31, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's both very interesting and very useful data, thank you. Pinging @Jdforrester (WMF) and Eloquence: to make them aware of this. Thryduulf (talk) 06:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder what makes it exponential (lined up in semilog plot) instead of linear. Anyone know? 70.59.30.138 (talk) 08:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that's a valid conclusion. If you look at each browser individually, they look not far from linear up to 400KB, and there are only a few data points larger than that, which are probably unusual articles -- lots of references or lots of templates, maybe. Looie496 (talk) 22:52, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Are you serious? each browser individually is much closer to exponential on this graph than linear. 70.59.30.138 (talk) 01:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Looie496: The graph looks linear because the t-axis is displayed with a logarithmic scale. If you check out the full study results, you'll see every exponential regression has a significantly higher correlation coefficient than the corresponding linear regression. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 22:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I attempted to edit List of United States counties and county-equivalents in Firefox ESR on Linux. First I tried the traditional editor: the load time was around 5 seconds. On my first attempt with VE, Firefox informed me that

A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.

Script: https://bits.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=ext.visualEdito r.core%2Cicons-vector%7Cext.visualEditor.viewPageTarget.icons-vector%7Crangy&skin=vector&version=2013080

3T022159Z&*:131

and the browser became generally very slow to respond, and I noticed in top that it was consuming around 520 MB more RAM. I closed Firefox without letting the page load completely in VE.

I had had some other tabs open (as I had with the old editor). I made another attempt, with nothing else opened.

  • Firefox showing just a blank page consumed 549 MB
  • 612 MB for the page opened in the old editor [1] with JS turned off
  • while loading the page in VE [2], RAM use gradually increased, peaking at around 1518 MB
  • once the page was fully loaded, RAM use dropped to 1398 MB
  • load time with the old editor was around 7 seconds
  • load time with VE was around 10 minutes 44 seconds
  • loading was CPU-bound, with Firefox showing ~100% CPU usage
  • during my second test, the Firefox process was small enough that swapping was unnecessary
  • once the page loaded in VE, I clicked on "cancel"; cancelling took around 52 seconds

Figures for "RAM use" are from the "VIRT" column shown by top:

o: VIRT -- Virtual Image (kb) The total amount of virtual memory used by the task. It includes all code, data and shared

libraries plus pages that have been swapped out.

—rybec 22:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I love it!

As a new to Wikipedia editor, the VisualEditor function is invaluable. The first edit I tried to make I had to rely on someone who knew Wikicode to make for me. The edit has yet to be made, even though it was sourced by the US Code. The second attempt I was given a chance to use the VisualEditor. The edit went on the page as soon as I was done writing, no bugs at all, at least in this instance. Trueist (talk) 06:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: User's first edit could not be made because the page was semi-protected; not done due to lack of consensus. Ignatzmice•talk 13:43, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Detail

I'm keshav kumar mishra work is SEO & web developer Keshavtech (talk) 07:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm not sure why you've posted this here. This page is for feedback regarding the new VisualEditor interface. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:04, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

good idea, not mature enough for primetime

great idea,... work more before pushing this: by first experience was *****, lots of black boxed instead of images?! (chrome) Sorin Sbârnea (talk) 07:52, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find related bugs and it's the first time I hear this. Can you try with a different browser? Also, Wikipedia skin and OS? It sounds more like a browser-related thing than a VE one (maybe some plugin/extension interfering)? Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 08:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sorin Sbârnea,
Were these small boxes where you should have seen words? Which article did you attempt to edit? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox display of team kit is mangled

Open Roosters FC or Aalborg RK in VE, and the diagram illustrating the team kit is mangled. It's within the "pattern..." components of {{Infobox rugby team}} ... and also happens with {{Infobox football club}} as in Morecambe F.C. (so presumably for thousands of others). Probably a known bug, but didn't find it on a quick check for "infobox image". Vista, Firefox22, Vector. PamD 08:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I don't know of a specific bug it's something that Erik mentioned in his Signpost OpEd as being one of the most difficult uses of templates to get right so it's obviously known about. See Gospel Oak to Barking Line for another example of how template-positioned graphics doesn't work. Thryduulf (talk) 08:18, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A majority of editors want VE to support basic wikitext, alongside other keyboard shortcuts.

What now? Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:50, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that supporting wikitext in VE should be done as an addon rather than a native feature. In other words, default behavior would be to not support wikitext, and to support wikitext addition one needs to invoke a gadget. This would allow independent lifecycles for the VE and "legacy" (hmm, maybe shouldn't use that term in this case?) editing functionality. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:02, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that calling Wikitext "legacy" is a good way to start another crusade against VE at this point. Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:31, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also comment that decisions on features for VE need input from all wikis, not just en-wiki, as opposed to discussions of the rollout on en-wiki, which is clearly a local issue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:35, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also software development is not ruled by (English) Wikipedia consensus, but by developer consensus. Developers (paid and volunteer) are open to being convinced to the ideas of the community, they are however not under the control of the community. At most, the community might sway the WMF, which might influence the paid developers. However even then WMF does not have full control. (Basically the return of the preference option to disable the Visual editor, is to a large degree based on the insistence of volunteer and even some paid staff that the position of the WMF was un-realistic) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:29, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Very well to say that, but the developers want people to use VE, right? Listening to what the community wants is an important part of that. The arguments about other wikis' desires are meaningless without evidence the other wikis feel differently; the default assumption, one would think, is that the desire would be consistent. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder: if the developers weren't listening at all, do you think we would have had things like this, or the changes in the schedule? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:58, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reference naming

Please allow the naming of references, so the same one may be reused easily. Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 15:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. I figured it out. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 15:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I don't think I can't find it anymore in the user guide, while there's a related bug. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Release mouse click to activate button

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T54561

Procedure: Load VE on any page. Click and hold the left mouse button anywhere inside the browser window. Move the mouse on top of any button in the VE toolbar. Release the left mouse button. This activates the button. This behavior should not occur, as it is unlikely to be useful and will probably cause confusion among new editors. Some testing shows that this is universal (Firefox/Vector, Opera/Vector, Safari/Monobook). --Cryptic C62 · Talk 15:32, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, adding this to Bugzilla is not a problem, I was just wondering, do you expect this to happen a lot? I wouldn't, because doing as you say is basically dragging and it results in "selecting" a few lines (the title of the page and the Wikipedia subtitle under that), so I would definitely release the mouse before reaching the icons. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a fairly plausible example: A user quickly clicks on a template or image and attempts to drag it up to the top of the article. After an instinctive little wrist flick, the user releases the mouse button while hovering over the "numbered list" button. The element doesn't move, a numbered list suddenly appears without explanation, and now the user is totally confused. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:28, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should file this. Erica, I couldn't see one in Bugzilla, so it's bug 52561 now, and if you already filed it, then we can get mine marked as a duplicate. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:11, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've not been able to reproduce this in Firefox 22/Linux/Monobook. @Cryptic C62: am I correct in thinking you use Windows 7? Thryduulf (talk) 21:24, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Intro notice, etc.

So, I logged out a bit ago and tried to make an edit using the Visual Editor as an anon. Three things surprised me.

  1. The button to use the VE said "edit (beta)". It was to the right of the "edit source" button. I'm concerned that "edit (beta)" doesn't give any indication that it's a more new-editor-friendly (ideally) version. Not sure how to fix this or rephrase it to sound more appealing.
  2. The warning/introductory message that I got immediately after clicking that button didn't fit in the dialog; I couldn't scroll down to read it all. Not sure if anyone else has had that issue.
  3. The edit never showed up as saved; after about three minutes it said "Error: Unknown error" or something similar. Nevertheless, when I opened up the article in another tab, my edit HAD in fact been saved.

Anyway, after all this time, the editor seems to be working way better than before. Still got a long ways to go, but I am impressed and grateful to the development team which has poured so much time and effort into these improvements. Red Slash 15:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding #1, I think that having VE as secondary, marked as "beta", is what we want to do at this point, given the number of problems still existing. Now that this is the secondary link, the more adventuresome - or frustrated - editors will try it, while those who are happy with the wikitext editor won't necessarily bother.
In general, I think it's possible to underestimate the curiosity of Wikipedia editors - at least, of those likely to stick around. Given two different "edit" links, it seems to me that the curious will try them both, and if they like VE, they're more likely to be forgiving (at the moment) preciously because it's marked as beta, and because it isn't being thrust upon them as the preferred link. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:14, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

First-open warning box

I don't know when the first-open warning box was implemented, but I just saw it now. Seems pretty useful in terms of making sure people know what's up. I also notice it utilizes a cookie, so dynamic IP editors will still see it. Kudos! Ignatzmice•talk 15:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For you and the previous editor, this was announced here. Glad to hear from you. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sound files

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

It seems that sound files do not display correctly in VE. While VEditing Brazil, the anthem file in the infobox simply appears as "noicon". In Cuba, the anthem file does not appear at all.

One minor consequence: If you press "play" on a sound file while viewing an article, then activate VE, there is no way to pause the file after VE finishes loading.

Using Vector skin on Firefox 22.0

-- Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:19, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, this looks related to this bug and another one linked in it which has actually high priority. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Top bar not staying at top during VE article creation

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T54504
All looks OK at the top ...
...but when I scroll down to bottom I lose the top editing bar.

While creating Liquorice (disambiguation) I found that the top bar of editing icons etc was scrolling away out of sight instead of staying fixed at the top of the screen. It was persistent enough for me to scroll up and down a few times and get screenshots. I've tried creating a couple more articles, and haven't been able to reproduce it. It's obviously very serious when it happens, as it's pretty much impossible to add templates etc to the end of the article if you can't see the bottom of the article and the editing bar at the same time (I was about to add {{In title}} to the "See also" section but had to give up.) PamD 18:07, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey PamD, I think that it is related to something included in that specific page. As a matter of fact, I pasted the content into my sandbox and voilà, toolbar gone for me as well. I am going to test now again removing each element to understand which one is causing this. After that, I will see whether it is known and will let you know. Thanks in the meanwhile :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's the first line which actually causes this! ?!? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 3 August 2013 (UTC) PS: Also, did you notice the little "arrow point" at the beginning of the article when editing? Not sure whether it has to do with recent changes to VE, I'll find out. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It also happens if you do this (which is, if you add something "on" a link). --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 3 August 2013 (UTC) PS: there you go, PamD.[reply]
Thanks for your work. Weird, because that first line looks quite respectable. I didn't notice any "arrow point" as far as I remember, and I don't see it if I open your 20:26 sandbox version in VE right now. (Vista, Firefox22, Vector). I still lose the top bar when I scroll the dab page, even after making a few minor edits today.
Ahah: unbolding unlinking the first word seems to make the difference. Given that most dab pages for topic which have a primary source start off with the main word linked and bolded, this is ... unfortunate. PamD 08:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's definitely the linked first word: compare problem and no problem. PamD 08:44, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So to reproduce the problem, try editing London (disambiguation) or almost any similarly-titled dab page! PamD 08:50, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder whether someone thought that no correctly formatted WP article would ever start with a link? PamD 08:51, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Even if no Wikipedia article should, there are lots of non-article userpages that begin with a link, or indeed contain nothing except a link. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Incredible

This is much easier, a really good innovation. JordanSchneider77 (talk) 22:38, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment. It's still pretty new software, so if you run into problems, then please let us know. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VE for Persian?

I can't use visual editor on Persian (Farsi) Pages. There is no Edit button for VE. Vsg24 (talk) 05:50, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, you need to enable it before as it is not the default there yet, there is an option in your Editing preferences, can you check? :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:16, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikilinks were going to Wikimedia

While editing Thottavaram I tried to follow the link to Attingal (either by right-click and "open in new tab" or by ctrl-click), and I got a 404 at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/Attingal . Consistent behaviour from other links. I'm sure this is new and I've been able to follow links from within articles (as long as they aren't in tables, templates, etc) in the past.

... It now seems to have gone away - can't reproduce in either that article or others - but it was disconcerting while it happened! PamD 09:19, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I remember that in earlier versions of VE, the links were indeed formatted like that. It might be that it just got fixed, or that perhaps some old stuff was still in a cache and that the old link is cleared now that an edit has been made. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:21, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That was Template:Bug but it has been marked as duplicate of Template:Bug which has been a "high priority major impact" bug open since May. Thryduulf (talk) 12:51, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

feedback

ITS a very nice and easy to use -- DragonSLAyernatsU (talk) 12:35, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Keep using it! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 21:38, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

< br > breaks section heading

Hi,

Please do see this edit diff on mr wikipedia article. It broke section heading with <br> getting automatically getting inserted between ==<br> section heading==


Only the section heading text portion was copy pasted since ULS does not work in VisualEditor.Browser was FireFox(updated) After adding the section heading I clicked enter button to write further text.

Sorry if the problem is already reported but I did not see the same in Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Known problems list,(may be I missed), so I am not sure whether to file a bug or not .Please do guide.

Mahitgar (talk) 13:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added it here. Thanks for stopping by! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:01, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous feedback

it is good 220.225.87.4 (talk) 16:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Opening links

Let's say I want to create a link. I find one with the correct name in the dropdown list, and click on it. There is currently no way to open the Wikipedia link inside the edit page. I have to create a new tab and manually check that the page is really what I want to link to. I think this should be implemented for ease of use. DeathOfBalance (talk) 20:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It should be covered here. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

wiki link to image - unintended removal of square bracket, not shown in "review your changes"

I wanted to edit the text of an article. VE damaged the markup in a different part of the article, where an image was linked [3]. I used "review your changes" but the unwanted change was not displayed. —rybec 20:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed your link. It is known that you can't remove a missing image as it does not show up. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you; that is the proper link. I wasn't trying to change the image: that change was made by VE. If you make the same edits to the paragraph above, this is repeatable. —rybec 00:13, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can't use Visual Editor when logged in

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T54563

I can't use the visual editor when I'm logged in. When I press the "Edit beta " tab, nothing happens, and when I press the "edit beta" link right next to a section (section editing can be enabled in the preferences), the page address changes and "&veaction=edit&section=1" is added to the end of it as well as "title=" before the title, but then nothing more happens. I still can't edit anything, and I haven't got any toolbox. Sometimes the page appears to start loading the toolbox since a progress bar appears, but it never finished loading the toolbox. When I'm logged out, however, editing pages with the visual editor works perfect. —Kri (talk) 21:01, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

First thing to do is to disable in custom Javascript you may have enabled. If you have none, please list out the gadgets you have turned on: there may be an incompatibility.—Kww(talk) 21:07, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that the only thing he has installed is a copy of User:EpochFail/HAPPI.js. Aaron, is there anything in there that might be conflicting with VisualEditor? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I tried adding the HAPPI.js code to my Monobook and found that I too couldn't use VE - it just never finished loading. However neither did the HAPPI gadget load for me in the source editor either. The gadget tries to connect to http://wikiepdia.grouplens.org which gives a "server is taking too long to respond" error when I try to view it in my browser and an "Unknown host" error when I try to ping it.
It seems therefore that the fault is with the gadget not with VE, but VE should handle this situation better than indefinitely waiting for a server that is not responding, which I've reported as Template:Bug. Thryduulf (talk) 21:54, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This definitely wasn't VE's fault. It was the poor behavior of my script that caused the problem. I've removed the offending, included library in HAPPI. It looks like HAPPI still has some issues with the wikitext editor, but this merely prevents it from changing the UI. The changes I've made have solved the issue with the VisualEditor. You'll need to refresh your cache in order to make sure that the new code is loaded. If there's interest in getting HAPPI up and running again, let me know. I'd be happy to do so. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 22:47, 5 August 2013 (UTC) (forgot to ping Kww, Thryduulf and Whatamidoing)[reply]

VE removing content when it encounters incorrect/non-standard markup

In this change by another editor [4] some incorrect or non-standard markup, and associated text, was removed by VE (replaced by nowiki tags, natch). I was able to reproduce the damage by copy-pasting the previous revision to a sandbox and editing just the lead paragraph in the same way in VE. The unwanted changes are displayed in the review window. —rybec 21:17, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Missing feature: Cannot set background colour for table cells.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T54180
Status  New:
Description Cannot set background colour for table cells. K7L (talk) 22:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To duplicate: For example, highway rest stop table listings "Barrie km 92" in Ontario_Highway_400#Services and "Cambridge km 286/295" in Ontario_Highway_401#Services are greyed as "temporarily closed for renovation until July 2013". Try updating this to un-grey the cells (as the rest stops have reopened)... there's no way with the Visual Editor to remove this table attribute.
Operating system I'm running a 1337 pir8 copy of Linux, although presumably all platforms are affected.
Web browser Firefox/Ubuntu
Site en-wp
Workaround
Skin Vector
Resolution
Bugzilla

@K7L:, this is indeed not yet supported in VE, but more importantly, can I make the note that you should not communicate information solely with color ? Not all people have the benefit of vision when reading an article. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the example I mentioned (and presumably all of our freeway road articles), colour is not the sole means of conveying the information. The text says "closed for renovation" and the background colour is dark grey. When the rest stop has been demolished, rebuilt and reopened both the "closed" text and the greyed background need to be removed. VE won't do that. K7L (talk) 12:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed VE can't currently do that because the code for editing table cells (other than their text content) has not yet been written. Template:Bug notes this, although it is currently unprioritised. Thryduulf (talk) 12:45, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New articles

Of the 50+ articles created since 10AM until now, only 1, Populin, was created using VE, and the editor creating it with VE then made 8 further edits to the article, 1 with VE and 7 with the "old" tool. It's anecdotical evidence, but it does give the impression that VE is not used to create articles, and that it isn't sufficient to create decent stubs either.

Is there any research in the percentage of new articles created with VE, and has there been any research in the findings of the authors of these articles? It may give a different perspective as to what is lacking and what is working well in VE. Fram (talk) 11:29, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure about research into this but I've created a couple of articles recently with VE and found it a much easier experience than I would have done had I created them with just wikitext. VE is more than sufficient for article and stub creation. WaggersTALK 11:48, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure whether there's a way to show up only VE-created articles, but it is definitely being used (see TeamGale works on Defiance episodes). At it.wp I maintain a short list of such articles, it needs to be updated by hand but is certainly useful for those wondering not just if it is used, but also if it can be used effectively. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:18, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
One reason might be that if you click a red link you are thrown straight into the wikitext editor instead of having to make a conscious choice which one to use. --WS (talk) 14:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for suggesting this, it's very useful info. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Non-WYSIWIYG elements

If you want a true WYSIWYG, then you have to change

  1. How to edit template parameter values
  2. The preview changes as it is now
  3. Page settings: languages
  4. Page history: compare versions
  5. Elements that are not shown in the VE mode the same way they are in the view mode (e.g. in The Adventures of Tintin, near the bottom, there is an audio file; in VE, there is a "no icon" text and some other changes compared to the actual result)

Anything else? As long as these exist, the VE can't be claimed to be a true WYSIWYG in the mainspace, and editors can't be "blamed" for using wiki-markup in it (never mind those aspects that you simply can't do yet in VE, liking editing galleries and creating or modifying redirects). Fram (talk) 13:15, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, VE uses some WYSIWYG techniques in some of its work to serve the "principle of least surprise" (which I'd re-dub "principle of least fear", because sometimes the code can be pretty scary!). But as you can see from more or less official descriptions of VE, it is never called as such: this is very much a secondary objective, because actually the project aims to create a reliable rich-text editor. As also stated here, the result might be very similar, but it really ain't the same thing. While working on VE, developers sometimes break this model to make it easier for us to do tasks we want to do. :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
More (I changed your list to a numbered one):
  1. - A duplicate of this bug was closed with James saying this is going to be supported soon;
  2. - looks related to this;
  3. - the settings are available from the Language settings on the left, did you mean something different?
  4. - might be added to #2 bug?
  5. - it is a known, [5]. Thanks! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:14, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quote box

In The Adventures of Tintin, there is a quote box. It seems as if I'm unable to open or edit this with VE (but I don't get the green diagonal lines either). Fram (talk) 13:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: apparently this only happens with the first quote box in that article, I can edit the second one like any other template. Strange... Fram (talk) 13:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The transclusion icon is there, it's to the right of the "History" header (in the middle of the infobox). On my monitor i can barely see it on top, when i scroll the quotebox to the botton of my screen. The problem is, that the infobox pushes the quote box down, far away from its intended original placement. Apparently the icon placement depends on the element's location in the source - and should be recalculated after moving the quote box. GermanJoe (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A related issue is the missing table of content, which causes misplaced article elements near the lead section, but that's a known bug afaik (?). GermanJoe (talk) 13:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks. Fram (talk) 13:56, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Tracked Template:Bug. --Salix (talk): 14:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Bug for the missing ToC is Template:Bug, but with no news lately. GermanJoe (talk) 14:39, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Changing file names

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53033

How can I change a filename? I can change the caption, but replacing one file for another seems to require the deletion of the old file and the addition of a new one, which is more cumbersome. Fram (talk) 13:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At the minute you can't, but this is requested at Template:Bug. Thryduulf (talk) 13:32, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Fram and Thryduulf: This is from the User guide:
"To replace an image or media file, click on it to select it (as mentioned, it will then have a blue background), and then click on the media icon on the toolbar. You'll then be able to select the replacement image or file." [emphasis added)
I realize that's not exactly intuitive, and you do lose the caption (that's a bug, I think), plus the existing size is replaced by VE's default (that's probably a bug, too). Still, perhaps this option will be helpful until VE is improved. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:03, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign language versions featured article icons

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53420

At the bottom of The Adventures of Tintin, in VE mode, there is one FA star and three "return" symbols (very WYSIWYG again...). Removing these return signs (with backspace), the result is that some of the "Link FA" templates have been deleted. (I haven't saved an example, previewing it was sufficient). Fram (talk) 13:33, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is known. See Template:Bugzilla
That is the issue for topicons yes. I created a new ticket for Link FA issue, bugzilla:51322, which is slightly different in terms on cause and effect. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:34, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Add A picture

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

I would like to add a photo to my profile> Zak willis (talk) 13:39, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a page for giving specific feedback regarding the new VisualEditor. For help with adding pictures see Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. If that doesn't answer your question you can ask at the Wikipedia:Help desk. Thryduulf (talk) 13:45, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Problems with wide elements

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T53867

See this page for some tests on wide elements. As Template:Bugzilla indicates, VE does not correctly render any table wider than the screen, nor does it allow horizontal scrolling. This effect seems to extend to any wide element, including math formulas, images, transclusions, and text with non-breaking spaces. Some other findings:

  • A horizontal scroll bar does appear when hovering over some elements with a mouseover effect, specifically images and uneditables (Strangely, the scroll bar does not appear when hovering over the {{Details}} template in this example). Scrolling can then occur if you have a clickable mousewheel.
  • By placing the text cursor near the visible end of wide text, and pressing the right arrow key, it is possible to sneak the text cursor off of the page.

--Cryptic C62 · Talk 14:43, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I have added your comments to that bug. Thryduulf (talk) 15:02, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from a content editor

Someone above (I can't recall who -- perhaps Thryduulf?) wondered what the feedback on VE would be from editors primarily using it to edit content, as opposed to performing Wikignomish tasks. I've been using it on radiocarbon dating for a couple of weeks, and here are my main impressions. For context, I have about 25,000 edits, have been here since 2006, am an IT professional with decades of computer background, and spend a lot of my time here writing featured articles.

The main positives:

  • It's much easier to make simple copyedits in VE. (Not quicker, but simpler.) There are times when I have made an edit, spotted something in another section, and fixed that too; couldn't do that before. It also avoids the need to do a preview, which is a reflex for many editors, myself included; that saves a page refresh. If it became faster I would love it; as it is I already find myself preferring VE for these edits.
  • References were not intuitive for me in VE initially, but now that I've learned how they work, and what the capabilities and limitations are, I really like the interface. I find it much easier to add a new ref to the references section with wikitext, by copying and editing another reference. Once that's done, though, it's easy to add citations. This is a big deal for me because heavily cited text is a pain to read in wikitext, and leads to lots of page previews.
  • Adding a template isn't quite as easy as adding a citation but I still find it preferable to using the wikitext approach, simply because it guides me through the params.

Things that would benefit my editing (in other words, this is not a list of what bugs I think should be fixed next, just a list of what I ran into that I'd personally benefit from):

  • Symbol inserts -- em dashes, en dashes, and non-breaking spaces, particularly inside citations; Greek letters and odd symbols such as ‰.
  • Superscript and subscript -- not a huge deal since the {{chem}} template handles most of what I need, but it seems like a natural thing to put next to the bold and italic buttons.
  • Reliability -- once in about every ten or twenty edits I get a token error. This rarely causes lost work since I just copy the text and try again, but it's annoying. If I can reliably reproduce this I will report it here.
  • Better drag and drop, or at least copy and paste, for templates; currently it only works if they are within a text string. There are about a million {{chem}} templates in radiocarbon dating, so perhaps this is one of those things most people wouldn't care about.

Things VE can't do that aren't a big deal for my editing patterns:

  • Math markup -- there's math in the article but I can handle that separately; it's not an impediment to 90% of my edits.
  • Section editing -- I don't care about this except for the speed issue

This is all just one editor's opinion from working with VE for a while; I make no claims to general validity for any of my comments above, but I thought it might be useful feedback. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It definitely is, Mike, thanks for posting this. From what I recall (can't retrieve relevant bugs now, sorry for that.) these are all common requests (I think it is practically what I also heard until now from Italian users) and I do hope that at least some of these can be satisfied in the near future. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, it was me that was wondering about this and it is very useful. As for your comments: Superscript is covered by Template:Bug, subscript by Template:Bug, symbol insertion by Template:Bug and dragging and dropping of various things is Template:Bug. There have been several issues about tokens, but they are marked as fixed, so if you can figure out what causes this it would be really useful. Thryduulf (talk) 15:35, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Expand section" template parameters not recognized

In the Transclusion dialog, the parameters for the {{Expand section}} template are not recognized, listing "No unused parameters" instead. —DragonLordtalk/contribs 16:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not all templates have had the required TemplateData specified yet. I've now added the data for {{Expand section}} so it should work better now.--Salix (talk): 17:09, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)The transclusion dialog gets he parameter information from the TemplateData defined on the template documentation page. The TemplateData for {{expand section}} was only written today, and it takes a while for VE to see it. If it hasn't appeared after 24 hours try a null edit on the template page and it should work. Thryduulf (talk) 17:15, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jim Humble's Miracle Mineral Supplement

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

This whole page is nothing but lies. The whole Wikipedia scam is nothing but lies. I know this, because I am a cancer researcher. Naive people look to you, because they think Wikipedia is a legitimate source of information. It's nothing more than bits and pieces of propaganda perpetrated by the liars and greedy gluttons who have no conscience. I cured my own cancer with MMS. Are you nuts? No clinical trials? Is this the Inquisition? Of course there are no clinicl trials, because that would cost millions of dollars - which Big Pharma would never conduct. Hundreds of thousands of people are alive today because of MMS, but the big drug companies will never legitimize this fact, because they are nothing more than a bunch of thugs and naive bureaucrats who want to sell big money drugs. If there is really someone who can make Wikipedia into a legitimate source of information, I advise you to do so. I would hate to imagine the kind of karma you must be accumulating. Ugly thought. But, that is entirely up to the ignorant, thick skulled people who continue to change the correct information about MMS into talking points for Big Pharma. If you cared about human lives, you would see that this is stopped. Dark time in history! Hey Jude 12345 (talk) 17:07, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This comment is about Miracle Mineral Supplement, and has nothing to do with the Visual Editor. Looie496 (talk) 17:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Message popups

Some of the message popups get stuck (sometimes in the English wiki, mostly in the Hebrew wiki) and hide the text or controls. 93.173.235.19 (talk) 00:15, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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