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::Hey Mahitgar, Elitre. As VE will not be usable on wikis where ULS isn't integrating properly, I'd be filing this as a VE bug, and as a "blocker" to Marathi deployment depending on severity. It is fine to file as a separate bug - if the devs discover it is linked to another reported issue already assigned, they can merge the reports. [[User:Mahitgar|Mahitgar]], can you give us a more detailed report about the specific issues you are noticing on mr.wiki, as well as the browser and operating system of your computer? With that, we can submit a actionable bug report, and work to get this fixed before any rollout to Marathi. Can't offer much insight to this particular script - I haven't been working with the Indic languages - Jan and his team are working on this. [[User:JEissfeldt (WMF)]] - tag, you're it! [[User:PEarley (WMF)|PEarley (WMF)]] ([[User talk:PEarley (WMF)|talk]]) 16:33, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
::Hey Mahitgar, Elitre. As VE will not be usable on wikis where ULS isn't integrating properly, I'd be filing this as a VE bug, and as a "blocker" to Marathi deployment depending on severity. It is fine to file as a separate bug - if the devs discover it is linked to another reported issue already assigned, they can merge the reports. [[User:Mahitgar|Mahitgar]], can you give us a more detailed report about the specific issues you are noticing on mr.wiki, as well as the browser and operating system of your computer? With that, we can submit a actionable bug report, and work to get this fixed before any rollout to Marathi. Can't offer much insight to this particular script - I haven't been working with the Indic languages - Jan and his team are working on this. [[User:JEissfeldt (WMF)]] - tag, you're it! [[User:PEarley (WMF)|PEarley (WMF)]] ([[User talk:PEarley (WMF)|talk]]) 16:33, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
:::Mahitgar, you might also want to know that [https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51477 the bug related to vowels] for that language has been fixed in the meantime. --[[User:Elitre (WMF)|Elitre (WMF)]] ([[User talk:Elitre (WMF)|talk]]) 18:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
:::Mahitgar, you might also want to know that [https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51477 the bug related to vowels] for that language has been fixed in the meantime. --[[User:Elitre (WMF)|Elitre (WMF)]] ([[User talk:Elitre (WMF)|talk]]) 18:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

:::Thanks, I have the CIS in Bangalore putting together a file on critical bugs for Indian language versions for this product since yesterday and will expand it as necessary. This looks like a solid candidate to me, regards --[[User:JEissfeldt (WMF)|Jan (WMF)]] ([[User talk:JEissfeldt (WMF)|talk]]) 18:00, 27 August 2013 (UTC)


== Fixing Badly Constructed Tables Messes Up Contents Below It ==
== Fixing Badly Constructed Tables Messes Up Contents Below It ==

Revision as of 18:00, 27 August 2013

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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.

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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.

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"Error: Unknown error" saving changes

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.
Status  New:
Description VE reports "Error: Unknown error" when trying to save content
To duplicate: I wanted to update List of Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray releases to make a wikilink. The edit worked but I got "Error: Unknown error" saving it. It's possible there was a timeout as the page is 177,293 bytes long.
Operating system Windows Vista
Web browser Firefox 23
Site En-WP
Workaround Source editor
Skin Vector
Resolution
Bugzilla

--Marc Kupper|talk 23:04, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Marc Kupper, you said "the edit worked", but that edit is not tagged as made with VE (and there's only a VE edit in that article made in July). So VE gave you an error before saving, you chose the source editor and used that instead? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I did the edit in VE, clicked the save-page button, gave a reason, and clicked 'Save Page.' As I knew it was a large page I walked away. When I came back the error was there. I cancelled out of VE, and did the edit in source mode. I've copied the page content to User:Marc_Kupper/sandbox2 and will try the VE edit again there. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:39, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It took 74 seconds to load the page in VE, I made the change, save-page, give a reason (wikilink - testing VE), save-page again. After 1:45 (105 seconds) I got "Error: Unknown error" in the lower part of VE's edit-summary box. The save-page button is grayed out.
I don't think the actual edit I did matters. If someone wants to reproduce using my sandbox then the edit was in the last paragraph of the lead. Where it says "...Essential Art House, Eclipse, and Merchant Ivory Collection..." I changed "Eclipse" to [[Eclipse (DVD)|Eclipse]] by double-clicking on Eclipse to select, control-K to bring up the insert/edit link box, appending " (d" to the link-to value, click "Eclipse (DVD)" in the list of offerings, and then press <enter> a couple of times to close out the box. I suspect you can make any change you want. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:06, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
After documenting how I did the edit I tried the save again and again got the error. It happened 1:44 (104 seconds) after clicking save. I suspect the 105 seconds above is simply because I was a bit slow reacting as this time I was waiting for the error right around the 1:45 mark. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:06, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I then did the following tests
  • I replaced all non-alphabetic characters with the letter "x" and can edit the page with VE. It appears the issue is with something in the page content, possibly combined with the page size.
  • I removed all 'ref' tags. Saving from VE still fails after 1:44
  • I removed most of the templates transcluded on the page. Saving with VE worked and took 1:17. However, I had intended to just add "xxx" in the middle of a word. VE also stripped a table in another part of the article of wikitext. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have time to debug this further at present - particularly as we now have two VE issues. The next step is to revert back to 22:48, 19 August 2013 and to then see if I can narrow it down from there. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:11, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi user:Marc Kupper, I filed it all here, along with the results of my test - undoing my edit on your sandbox took a while as well. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:45, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Hello - I do believe there remains an issue with very long pages. I dared to try VE on 2009 flu pandemic timeline, which is ~227kb, and a) encountered a "your edit might have been corrupted" message, indicating that I should check my edit and b) the inability to bring up the edit diff (timed out). Now, this article is known to be long enough to warrant splitting, but it would be useful to know the current confidence limits around page length and the ability to edit same. Is it dependent upon local environment (i.e. PC configuration and memory allocated to browser)? Or is there a server side known performance limit? Thanks for considering this. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:28, 23 August 2013 (UTC) P.S. I did not try hard to implement my changes and did check to see if I had put an edit into the history which might have needed reversion; no edit in edit history was recorded after my truncation of the process, which was reassuring.[reply]

Status  Acknowledged
Description problems working with page of size ~227kb
To duplicate:
Operating system Ubuntu Linux
Web browser Chrome 28
Site en.wikipedia
Workaround edit source
Skin Vector
Resolution
Bugzilla 53093


Another instance

Just encountered the "Error: Unknown error" with a successful edit while editing Fairfield, Iowa; see diff. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:07, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ceyockey, I added your concerns to that bug as well. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:39, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why are we still using this?

A couple months have gone by since the release of Visual editor and eventhough a large number of problems have been fixed, there are still hundreds of bugs nad enhancements needed. With all the problems that have been identified, and as fast as that list is growing, along with all the limitations and exceptions to using this app, why are still forcing it to be used? We need to stop forcing this out. This application needs to be opt in only for now. Once the major bugs are worked out and we can trust the application to make an edit without screwing it up, then we can make it opt out. The RFC to make this opt in has overwhelming support so its time for the WMF to do the right thing. We need to take a step back, make the app opt in only and not encourage new editors to try and use it yet. We need to fix the bugs and increase the functionality. We need to do these things because its the right thing to do. Hate me if you want for continuing to call attention to this but the bottom line is this application is largely a failure and it needs to be fixed. Kumioko (talk) 14:38, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree if this was an AFD, the whole thing would have been closed DELETE a long time ago. Time to Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:42, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Definitely not a fan of "hating" people. As I did before, I'd just remark this is not the right place for similar discussions. For example I can see a similar one ongoing here, which you edited as well, and this specific page has a very different purpose. This said I'd be really glad to help you with specific issues, if you have any. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yeah it seems like there is no good place for this type of discussion. Thanks for the offer but I stopped using the application or submitting feedback about problems after the problems we were identifying and the feedback we were providing were being ignored. But it still annoys me how many problems are allowed to litter the articles without being fixed. VE continues to have problems with adding templates and I have a list of more than a dozen articles that have yet to be fixed. I have 5 that have a broken table, several more that have image problems, etc. I fixed a lot of others but I am sort of using these as a control group to see if the WMF is going to fix the mess they created or rely on the community to do it. I also stopped fixing the problems since the WMF seems intent on using Wikipedia as a petri dish to test and doesn't seem to mind that the application is breaking articles. When the WMF starts to act like they care more about the project than about testing broken software, then I will fix the problems and continue to support the process. I think a lot of others would too. We realize that creating this software is not a trivial thing and problems are going to occur, but we shouldn't be moving full speed ahead knowing that we are leaving a wake of destruction in our rear view mirror. Kumioko (talk) 16:17, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • 100% agreed. And on frwiki, it's even worse: even difficult to have an answer on the feedback page, and when you report having to fix problems like that you get an answer saying that nothing proves it was VE's fault. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 18:18, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think in the case of the French wiki the problems go beyond VE. IMO, that shows that not only is Visual editor problematic but the underlying Parsoid and Universal translator apps need serious refinements as well. All three of these work closely (but apparently not closely enough) but they all tie to VE. Again and as I inferred above. Its perfectly fine if we want to keep testing and developing this and we should. But this should absolutely not be available to IP's and new users yet and it should only apply to users who want to opt in to using it. Kumioko (talk) 18:26, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In some defense, work is in progress to fix the bugs, but it is unreasonable to expect a bug to be fixed immediately. To give an indication of the scale of the task the developers have for Visual Editor there are 319 new bugs, 411 bugs which have been assigned to someone, 9 with a patch to be implemented so should soon be fixed, and 721 have been fixed. Its going to take a lot of time to fix all those, even going through the new bug to work out if they are real bugs or duplicates of others takes a significant amount of time.--Salix (talk): 21:46, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Kumioko, what is this "Universal translator app"? If you mean the Universal Language Selector, it has nothing at all to do with VisualEditor. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Whatamidoing, Yeah that's it sorry and I was under the impression that was what helped translate from one language to another for things like Visual Editor so that the WMF wouldn't have to make a separate VE app for every single language. Maybe I am wrong. That is very possible.
@Salix, your right and no one, not even me is saying that we expect these bugs to be fixed immediately and no one is saying there shouldn't be any bugs, because that is inevitable with any software application no matter how mature it is. There have been a lot of improvements but the volume o bugs identified in the last couple months alone show it wasn't ready for release. Let alone to new users and IP's. What I am saying is that it should not be pushed to the new users and IP when it has a lot of major problems. Like deleting content, adding things it shouldn't add, breaking tables, etc. These are the kinds of problems that should have caused the WMF to unrelease it and keep it in a beta, opt in status until they were fixed. What's worse, the WMF has absolutely no plan to clean up the hundreds of articles broken by the app. They expect the community of volunteers to do it while disregarding any of our comments other than pats on the back telling them what a wonderful job they are doing and identifying problems with the application that anyone can see was not even close to being release worthy. That isn't even taking into account that several of the most widely used internet browsers isn't even supported. They can't even get it to work. Kumioko (talk) 23:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They don't make separate software for each language. They just make a separate file for each label. If the label is "vector-view-view", then whatever you put in the file "vector-view-view" will show up in that spot. (Have a look at the label names: [1].) It's the same system that allowed us to switch between "Talk" and "Discussion" tabs a few years ago, and to change "Edit" to "Edit beta" three weeks ago. What the ULS does is—if you've set some other language—show you the labels from the same kinds of files, but using a different group of files. ULS needs some performance work, but the actual process of showing "Página" instead of "Article" requires no extra work. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:37, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Salix: I do understand that it will take time to fix the bugs, and I also find that normal and expected. The only thing I don't understand is why VE hasn't been rolled back to opt-in by WMF when it's obvious that it will take time to fix the bugs and have an editor that is not damaging hundreds of articles every day. Especially since WMF has decided that it's not their task to fix the articles damaged by VE, but volunteers who are repeatedly asking to go back to opt-in mode... --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 05:13, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@User:NicoV, not sure you saw that Ssastry took care of the problem you linked here, it's here now, and it's a Parsoid bug - it appeared on it.wp as well, and it's useful for others to know it is duplicating parts of the article. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but not sure this bug has anything to do with the problem I linked, and the problem I linked was in fact 3 problems: nowiki at the beginning of a line, nowiki inside internal links with no text ([[Alésia|<nowiki/>]][[Alésia|<nowiki/>]][[Siège d'Alesia |<nowiki/>]][[Siège d'Alésia|Alésia]]), strange internal links ([[Commentaires sur la Guerre des Gaules|Commentaires]] [[de]] [[César]] [[sur]] [[la]] [[guerre]] [[des]] [[gaules]]). And the only answer I got on frwiki is still that "nothing proves it has anything to do with VE". --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 18:47, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The nowiki tags at the start of the line (<nowiki> </nowiki>Il prit la voie directe allant de Langres à Lausanne...) are a known bug that was fixed in the most recent release (reached frwiki late on Tuesday).
  • The Alésia mess (...une citadelle religieuse celtique, [[Alésia|<nowiki/>]][[Alésia|<nowiki/>]][[Siège d'Alesia |<nowiki/>]][[Siège d'Alésia|Alésia]]. is Template:Bug.
  • The multiple link mess ([[Commentaires sur la Guerre des Gaules|Commentaires]] [[de]] [[César]] [[sur]] [[la]] [[guerre]] [[des]] [[gaules]] is probably a consequence of fixing the bug that made anything you typed after a link become part of the link. I'm not sure what do with it. It would be very helpful to know exactly how this series of links was created. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, to know exactly how the problem was created would require to ask the user and that he knows how he did it, but he probably won't because I don't think he ever signed up to be a beta tester. But you can ask him.
Can I also ask why no WMF liaison is answering on the frwiki feedback page now that VE has been forced on every user ? Users are reporting problems there, but their reports seem to be simply ignored. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 10:59, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
NicoV, sorry for the confusion about the bug :) I just assumed Ssastry and I were talking about the same thing. For the user thing, that's exactly the way to tell it was really VE to cause the mess - and is what I often do, even with experienced users (your user joined just recently). As for the liaisons, both here and on it.wp i.e. you can see that now mostly users help each other because this is how it should work in the long term. It should be also worth noticing that here and elsewhere it's written All comments are read, but personal replies are not guaranteed. As most of the liaisons are increasingly working now on preparing new wikis for deployment, please feel free to ping any of us in case of bugs which are not already known and reported on Bugzilla. Thanks! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:30, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Elitre. Your answer worries me... In the long term users will help each other, yes sure, but VE has been deployed recently and it's still full of bugs, some of them still damaging articles. So, honestly, when I read that liaisons are preparing new wikis for deployment, instead of managing the feedback on the already deployed wiki, when everything clearly shows that VE is still not ready: I can only think that VE team is still not listening to users and still doesn't care about damages made by VE on wikipedia. What is the point in deploying more when you know that many damaging bugs are still present, and that you don't even manage to handle the current flow of feedback ? --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 13:33, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
NicoV, there is no need to worry. We can definitely keep supporting and keep deploying. If both staffers and volunteers did not care, bugs would not be reported to Bugzilla anymore, which is definitely not the case... No need to overreact, especially since the flow of feedback is actually quite low now when compared to the first deployment days (and I can see some volunteers at work on fr.wp as well, as a matter of fact), and no direct answers, wherever they happen, should definitely not imply "the flow" isn't being handled. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Nico and there is absolutely a need to worry. The RFC shows almost 500 editors are worried. The ongoing cavalier attitude from the WMF and its staff about the damage done to the project are worrisome and irritating to those of us that volunteer our time to help build it. VE still causes too many problems, there are still problems lying around that haven't been fixed and it doesn't work with IE which is one of the most widely used browsers. Once they do get it to work with IE I think we can all assume there will be more errors with it that will need to be addressed. At this point, not pulling the software back and stopping deployment is just negligent and shows the WMF doesn't care about the community or the project. We are just number to the WMF. Kumioko (talk) 14:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
By not handling the flow, I meant not handling fixing the flow of feedback: there are currently 777 open bugs for VE in bugzilla (for 735 fixed from the beginning of VE), this number is still increasing. Yes, the flow of feedback is quite low: still people on holidays, and many people are still waiting to see bugs reported a month or two fixed. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 14:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would also add that the flow of feedback has also decreased because most of us know that the WMF isn't listening, so why bother. The flow of discussion has decreased because people aren't even trying to use the application and have given up on it, because its crap. Kumioko (talk) 15:55, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't appear to be the case that people have given up on using the application; the hourly edits tracking shows that levels of usage have not changed much over the last month. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:06, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The people who are using it are not the ones who are leaving comments. These are new and casual users who are editing with the assumption that the application works and are generally unaware that the application causes errors. They assume, and rightly so that the application should work. And the number of usage are down from when it was first released. Kumioko (talk) 16:17, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the drop in usage about a month ago coincides with a change in labelling the link for VE, from "Edit" to "Edit beta"; perhaps someone else can confirm that. Other than that I don't see a significant change in usage. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:26, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it does. Rearranging the tabs ("Edit source" is first and therefore most convenient) probably had a bigger effect on reducing use. I believe that the changes resulted in an immediate drop of something like 25%. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that was probably part of it but I believe that a significant reason is because we let them know it was a beta release of the app and not ready for prime time. In my experience a lot of people won't use something that says beta. Kumioko (talk) 23:46, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nico, you do have a WMF staffer at the frwiki feedback page. He's just one of the many staffers who prefers to use an account name without "(WMF)" at the end. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, check the history of the page, you will see that he's not participating much. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 05:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Check better? ;) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What's the point in the stats ? I don't deny that there was many posts from WMF on the entire lifetime of the feedback, I was just saying that we had almost no more answers now that VE has been turned to opt-out on frwiki. If you look at the history, you will see that, except for the batch of answers that happened today (only after I have reported here several times), there was no real answer in the last 3 weeks... That's what I was reporting: the official reason for deploying on more wikis was to get more feedback, but on frwiki I felt that our feedback was simply ignored. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 16:52, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Be assured, it wasn't. As a matter of fact, since our dear Guillaume is not "technically" a liaison for VE, I'll guess that I will be soon helping him actively there. There, this is what you get when you complain too much! ;) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VE + ULS unicode Devnagari Script input issues

Hi,

With reference to bug no 49569. From my todays test edits at mr wiki, it seems some efforts have taken place to initiate/enable ULS unicode Devnagari Script input in VE edits.But for practical usage,even for primary begining, it seems to have too many issues yet.Before informing the issues do we wait untill we are officially informed from your side or do we start reporting issues ?

I suppose till now there is no separate bug to track "VE+ULS unicode Marathi language Devnagari script issues". Would you prefer to start a separate bug for tracking or you expect us to join with some existing bug reports for related issues.


Thanks and regards

Mahitgar (talk) 05:31, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @User:PEarley (WMF) about the best way to handle this, which I suspect should be splitting the two kind of issues since different teams would take care of them. Regards, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:20, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Mahitgar, Elitre. As VE will not be usable on wikis where ULS isn't integrating properly, I'd be filing this as a VE bug, and as a "blocker" to Marathi deployment depending on severity. It is fine to file as a separate bug - if the devs discover it is linked to another reported issue already assigned, they can merge the reports. Mahitgar, can you give us a more detailed report about the specific issues you are noticing on mr.wiki, as well as the browser and operating system of your computer? With that, we can submit a actionable bug report, and work to get this fixed before any rollout to Marathi. Can't offer much insight to this particular script - I haven't been working with the Indic languages - Jan and his team are working on this. User:JEissfeldt (WMF) - tag, you're it! PEarley (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Mahitgar, you might also want to know that the bug related to vowels for that language has been fixed in the meantime. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I have the CIS in Bangalore putting together a file on critical bugs for Indian language versions for this product since yesterday and will expand it as necessary. This looks like a solid candidate to me, regards --Jan (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing Badly Constructed Tables Messes Up Contents Below It

Editing (in order to fix) badly constructed tables like in this page (Android_version_history, there were two rows with one left column at the end of the Android 4.3 table) shows the content below the badly constructed table within the table. PhistucK (talk) 08:14, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It took me a while to understand this, but viewing the end of [2] shows the error. I'm not sure this is actually a VisualEditor bug, as VE is correctly displaying what the source is telling it to as |-} is not a tag to close a table. The issue is that the php parser treats the specific malformed markup in [3] as a correctly closed nested table i.e. at the end of an otherwise correctly formed table
 |-}
 {|
 |}

Is treated as 

 {|
 |}
 |}

Whereas if there is any content between the |-} and |} the php parser treats it as the code says it should. Consequently I'm not really sure what VE or Parsoid should be expected to do when it encounters this? Pinging Ssastry, who may have some useful input here.

As an aside, the markup here appears to be the result of incompletely cleaning up this VisualEditor edit on 27 July. That's one of the known table bugs, but I can't remember which, and so has either been fixed or is being worked on. Thryduulf (talk) 09:57, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the fixup is being done by Tidy which cleans up bad HTML generated by the PHP parser. It seems to close unclosed tables at a heading tag (<h1> and others). But, given that we've run into more several instances of unclosed tables, I think we (Parsoid) could think of implementing that behavior as well. However, it is a lot more trickier in our case since the table would have been closed automatically based on HTML5 specs by the HTML library we use (and unless the library is buggy, unclosed-tables seem to be handled differently than Tidy). So, to replicate Tidy's behavior as in the PHP parser pipeline, we would have to detect these automatic fixes, undo them, and close it before headings. That seems like a lot of work and hackery for unclear benefits when there are other higher-priority things to deal with. At this time, I am inclined to say that unclosed tables are best fixed up by editing source. Sounds reasonable? Ssastry (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that malformatted tables ought to be properly formatted. I wonder whether someone like User:MZMcBride could produce a list of tables that end with
|-
|}
or other known "illegal" structures so that they could be fixed. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) At some point Parsoid should be able to cope with unclosed and malclosed tables, but as it sounds like a lot of work I think setting that as a low priority task seems fine for now, as long as it doesn't destroy ones it encounters. When table editing comes to VE things may change, but hopefully the tools wont allow the creation of an unclosed table - I can't imagine a use for them outside templates (cf Template:Bug/Template:Bug)? Thryduulf (talk) 18:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Whatamidoing (WMF): I think you're conflating two issues here:
|-
|}

is being discussed at #Chess pieces still happening above. That is a scenario that most definitely should be handled as valid sequence of valid tags. 

|-}

as discussed here is not a valid tag and something that Parsoid should not be expected to frequently encounter. Thryduulf (talk) 18:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "start a new row" and "close table" are valid tags. But why should "start a new row—close table" be considered a valid sequence? "Start a new row" ought to be followed by a new row, not by a sudden end to the table. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:23, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It should be considered acceptable because it has produced tables that render correctly since pipe syntax was created, thus as noted in the above section, people will continue to write tables that way. Even though the html doesn't validate perfectly, html tables ending with a blank <tr>...</tr> line render fine in browsers - e.g. this test page, so VE needs to able to deal with it on an ongoing basis. Thryduulf (talk) 18:50, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is a philosophical issue that I see the VE team not quite grasping: the way that wikitext is pretty much parsed today is correct by definition, and is the behaviour they need to emulate. WYSIWYG only works if you actually present the same way that the established wikitext parser presents, or What You See Is What A Developer Thought You Should Get. No one needs a WYISWADTYSG editor.—Kww(talk) 19:06, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that "how it works today" is really what we should be aiming for. "How it works today is correct by definition" means that Template:Bug, the "Thou may not add citations to explanatory footnotes" bug, should never be fixed.
If we can get perfectly validated HTML, then why should we preserve invalid table formatting? I'm thinking that Parsoid and VisualEditor should quietly produce valid HTML in these tables (without making a mess, which is what they're doing now). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that if a given string of wikitext produces something that works and appears as intended, whether or not the HTML is valid, Parsoid and VisualEditor need to expect to encounter that wikitext on an ongoing basis and accept it as valid input. What you do to it to produce valid HTML is up to you, as long as the wikitext is preserved on roundtripping.
Tables ending with trailing new line are a good example of this - the wikitext produces a table that looks and works as expected. VE and Parsoid need to deal with it as valid input and work with the resulting table in exactly the same way as a table that does not have this feature.
Tables with a malformed closing tag followed by open and closing tags does not produce a table that looks or works as expected. In the long term VE should offer a way to fix this, either manually or automatically. In the short term VE and Parsoid just need to not damage the article when they encounter it - conceptually they need to recognise it as a malformed table and leave it exactly as it is. Thryduulf (talk) 08:54, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's my question: Why should we preserve the (busted/worthless/invalid-HTML-producing) wikitext on roundtripping, when we could actually fix the wikitext, so that it does not contain a pointless new-row tag? Why not make it 100% right in wikitext as well as in other forms? Why preserve the pointless wrong stuff? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:11, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Because as far as the user of wikitext is concerned it isn't wrong, afaict doesn't produce invalid html, and isn't regarded by everyone as pointless (see comment in the above-linked section). Thryduulf (talk) 00:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Visual separation (the only hypothesized benefit) could be achieved by leaving a blank line. I think we should kill these. (We definitely shouldn't be creating a big mess when we encounter them, which is why we filed that bug, but I think it would be preferable for them not to exist, per Adam's suggestion in that same section.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:25, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Buttons

Thanks for switching the buttons. unfortunately the way its implemented leads to (possibly right now only the english is different) the button being in a different place each time I switch between language versions.--Saehrimnir (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's a bit awkward. We've also heard some complaints from people who had just gotten used to the old order, when the new order was imposed on them, so they had to re-adjust. But this is how the vocal participants of the English Wikipedia want the tabs ordered, so that's what's happening here for now. Similar discussions have happened at a couple of other Wikipedias, and they have been less inclined to shuffle the tabs around for exactly these reasons. Someday (probably months from now, maybe years), the English Wikipedia will likely switch back to the default arrangement, but for now, this will be a problem for some people. If it's seriously disruptive to you, then I believe that someone could create a script that would change them back to the default just for your account. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(e.c.) I think it might lead to confusion, so I guess at some point there will probably be the need to "think globally" and take a decision about the position; this might be the same for all wikis, while each wiki might still label them as they see fit - my2c here. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I was one of the advocates for changing them back from the moment I discovered that this was done so I am happy now by switching it of in every Language but en since I only do source code stuff in every other anyways. I just would have liked to be able to test/use it further in the german version also.--Saehrimnir (talk) 14:05, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Saehrimnir: I was under the impression that in the German version of Wikipedia, you can use VisualEditor - but you need to select it (opt-IN) via preferences. Is this true? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Go to de:Spezial:Einstellungen#mw-prefsection-editing and select the last checkbox on the page, "Aktiviere den VisualEditor (nur im Artikel- und Benutzernamensraum; nur Firefox, Chrome und Safari)". Then click the button immediately below to save the changes. Thryduulf (talk) 09:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can of course activate it manually, but if you think VE should be default on de.wp as well (at least, this is my impression reading your words), it might be useful that you let that community know it. Regards, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:48, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No that is not what I meant, because I know and am capable to activate it there, but its still no use because the buttons are still in the wrong order. Wht I meant you should have made the change of positions globally because in this way all the things are fracturing. The fact that the same field in german wikipedia if checked activates the VE and in all other wikipedias deactivates it is another symptom. I that said I really like that you are finally doing a Visual editor I am just not happy with the fact that you try replace the the normal editor with it while it does not have some core capabilities like table formatting and special characters. Sorry for keeping you away from fixing and maturing this good feature with my confusing comment. --Saehrimnir (talk) 14:22, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Marine Corps utility cap

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I was in the Marine Corps for 5 years, 7/69 to 2/74 and never heard it referred to as an "eight pointed" cap. That name might be very recent. 139.84.48.251 (talk) 20:15, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for feedback on VisualEditor, our new editing interface. For feedback on a specific article, please head to that article's talk page. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 23:45, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Disappeared image caption

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T55312

If I edit Josephus on Jesus, the caption "A 1631 Testimonium page with commentary" for the image in the section Josephus on Jesus#Testimonium Flavianum is not visible. Doesn't appear to actually change anything when I go to save though. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 04:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After a lot of experimentation (see [4]) I've discovered that any caption with the lowercase words "page" and "commentary" in that order, regardless of anything else in the caption, is not rendered in VE. I've reported this as Template:Bug, thanks for the spot that was an interesting bug to narrow down! Thryduulf (talk) 10:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Further testing shows that it is "page " (including the trailing space) followed by "comment" that triggers the bug. Thryduulf (talk) 11:18, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, this is a fascinating one. I'm going to play around with this later today and see if I can find any other invalid strings. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 13:36, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Further further testing shows that the error is caused by "page " (including the space) followed by some text, or "page=" followed by any text or nothing. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:38, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This deserves some sort of prize for most fascinating bug report of the week. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'll certainly second that comment! I've copied Cryptic's comments to bugzilla. Earlier I discovered that it is confined to image captions, and that the behaviour of captions entered in VE is at least as odd if not odder!
If you edit or enter an image caption in VE with the words "page comment" in you can see the caption in that edit.
Saving and reentering VE exhibits odd behaviour - the caption of the image entered in VE is not visible as I predicted. However the edited caption of an image that was already present remains visible. This is confirmed on a subsequent round trip in and out of VE, but I can't test on other systems / browsers than Firefox 23/Linux. See [5] The image of Gloucester Docks at the head of the section was the one with the edited caption. The image at the end of the preceding section (the prospect of Derby) was added in VE. Thryduulf (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Null edit review changes issue.

The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T55313

So I put a space and then a backspace. Go to save, review changes to check and make sure it is a null edit, then it goes to this "processing" dialogue but then it shows "Could not start the review because your revision matches the latest version of this page." So then I press the little back link on the dialogue, but it just goes back to the processing dialogue. If the page is small, the processing is really quick, so before I can even press back again, it goes back to the "Could not start" warning message. Even if I do manage to press the back a second time quickly, it will only stay at the save dialogue for a split second and then again bring me to the warning message, although then pressing back does take me to the save dialogue securely. FF 23.0.1 Win7. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 04:35, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed on Firefox 23.0 on Linux and reported as Template:Bug. As a workaround, the ^ link takes you back to the editing screen as expected, and you can then relaunch the save dialog. Thryduulf (talk) 10:30, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
edit conflict, going to mark my bug as a dupe. thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:35, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Toolbar icons style

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Status  New:
Description To be quite honest, the first thing that I see wrong in the visual editor is the black-and-white style of icons, similar to what Google products uses. It is not 1980s when everything was black-and-white, nor it is 1990s when people used 256-color icons; it is 2013.


Classic editor toolbar with clearly distinguishable icons and their meanings.


Another classic style toolbar used on Wikipedia before.


An Open-Office, a word processor, toolbar in 2007.


An open-source tool toolbar in 2008.


VisualEditor toolbar in 2013.

I believe it is important for accessibility to at least let users choose from a set of themes for the VisualEditor toolbar, if not alter the default theme.

Thank you.

To duplicate: Open VisualEditor and look at its toolbar.
Operating system Linux.
Web browser All.
Site En-WP
Workaround None.
Skin Vector.
Resolution The problem is not resolveable client-side.
Bugzilla None

Gryllida (chat) 05:36, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I think this applies, I am going to add your remarks there, thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:42, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you; I have also signed up and linked to the illustrations in the bug. Gryllida (chat) 11:33, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


How to see release content

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Is there a page, or perhaps a query that could be run in Bugzilla, that would tell me what the most recent update was to VE, and what bugs were intended to be fixed by that update? That way I could check the bugs that interest me that should have been fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:31, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In general, developer status reports are at mw:VisualEditor/status. The last status report includes a link to "all Bugzilla bugs closed in this period", a bugzilla database report. You can create similar database queries in bugzilla yourself.
(You'll find a link to this page of developer status reports on the VE navigation template, which is on this Feedback page, but set to not show unless requested; you can see it in its natural state at WP:VE. ) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:06, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks -- that's exactly what I was looking for. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:21, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


VE sucks. WMF shouldn't have released it yet.

It's true, really. There are still dozens upon dozens upon dozens of bugs in it, and nobody on this site likes it or appears to find it trustworthy. The old wikitext editor was so much better and more reliable. I don't know why the WMF thought it was a good idea to release the VE while it is still in beta testing. It's just like commercial software; think about it! Would developers want to release their products while still in beta? Of course not! Because all that does is lead to the company making significantly less money than expected, and people not ever wanting to buy their products, because they will think that the developers are lazy, impatient, and always rushing their products before they're even ready. BTW, I have VE completely disabled for my account. Sometimes the stuff that's designed to be convenient just doesn't work. Anyway, that's my feedback on VE. Interlude 65 (Push to talk) 15:47, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Without commenting on whether or not it should have been released, I think it should be pointed out that it's not the case that "nobody on this site likes it or appears to find it trustworthy". At least one editor (me) likes it, and I find it trustworthy enough to use on most of my content edits. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, maybe not everybody hates it, but from what I've heard and seen, I'd say (roughly) about 95% of the users here on Wikipedia do, and would much rather edit using the wikitext editor. Further, just what are you insisting on the part where you said that "it's trustworthy enough to use on most of my content edits"? Can't you see (or at least heard of) all of the commotion VE has been causing on this site? Users have been reporting numerous problems with it, and I feel like all it's doing is hurting the world's largest, open source encyclopedia. Interlude 65 (Push to talk) 19:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just meant that I use it for most of my content work (currently radiocarbon dating), and while there are certainly bugs and missing features, I've found it a net positive for editing that article. I'm aware that there are bugs that cause unintended consequences including loss of text, but I haven't run into that myself. I find that I'm starting to default to using it, only switching to wikitext when I know VE can't handle it -- primarily math markup, and some punctuation issues. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library)
For what its worth Interlude me and about 500 other editors agree that VE sucks but the 5 or 10 that really like it keep insisting there is nothing wrong with it and refuse to do the right thing and make it opt in only. I'm not even saying we should stop working on it, but in its current state its too much of a mess to be pushing new users to it Kumioko (talk) 19:39, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know I'm in a minority; I did, rather belatedly, !vote in the RfC, and I see the direction that's going. That's fine; my preference would be otherwise, but RfCs are there partly to avoid minorities making decisions. My objection is simply to the blanket statements that I see occasionally: "nobody likes it"; "it has no benefits"; "everyone wants it to go away". Those aren't true. In addition, I think that arguments made acknowledging minority positions tend to sound less like rhetoric and more like reason, and so, to me, anyway, more convincing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:54, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The VE is still there for those that want to use it. That's a good thing: it's already useful for some types of simple edits, and it's getting slowly less painful to use over time for slightly more complex edits. However, in spite of the improvements, it's still essentially unusable for non-trivial "technical" Wikipedia editing, where editing the Wikitext is still really the only practical way to go. I look forward to seeing further improvements, but at the current rate of improvement, I suspect it may take years before it's ready to be made the default tool for beginner editors. -- The Anome (talk) 20:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Invisible deletion of lead word when adding maintenance template

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T55334

Back from a fortnight away, so I'm not up to speed on all recent developents, but decided to have a go with VE while stub-sorting.

Editing Parvardigar (Pete Townshend song), I fixed the stub, wanted to add {{unref}} after the navigation hatnote. Put cursor in front of the "P" of the lead sentence, added the template, all looked fine. Went to save it, looked at "Review your changes", and the word "Parvardigar" had been deleted, replaced by the template. Closed the "save page" window, had another look at the work in progress: the {{unref}} displays, and so does the word "Parvardigar": so the word seems to have been deleted, but is still being shown in the displayed version while I'm editing. Ouch. Will save the edit, then go back and fix it.

... Interesting: when I've saved the article, the word Parvardigar is missing, immediately. The change to stub template and resulting category don't appear till I reload the page. Quirks of VE. PamD 16:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And this is reproducible. Go to my VE sandbox and try to insert a maintenance template after the navigation hatnote and before first word of text. The natural way to try is to put cursor before first word of text and add template: the workround is to put cursor there, hit return to get a blank line, arrow up to get onto that blank line, and then add template. PamD 21:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actaully, the problem is that inserting any template before a bold, italic or linked word deletes that word. It doesn't seem to matter what else is around it. I've reported this as Template:Bug. Thryduulf (talk) 00:38, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It also happens to multiple words (e.g., all bold-faced words) and to formatted or linked words that you add immediately after a template. Putting a space after or hitting return between the template and the text seems to work correctly. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

hlist in infobox, File:Image, and tables

I made this User:Atethnekos/sandbox4 as a demonstration. If the hlist template is used in an infobox or a table like on the page, when I go to VE, the list will end up be extended far into the page. If it's used with [[File:Image]] as on the page, the list will end up being cut off, and then some weird things will happen if I try to click on the hlist template (e.g., the page will be extended to right and my browser will give a horizontal scroll bar). FF 23.0.1 Win7--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:33, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I filed all here - I did some tests as well, please feel free to revert them if you want :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When I edit the end of a wikilink (not the link itself, but the text displayed), such as changing it to a plural, the actual link does not continue over the new characters. Also, I want to create a line break in the middle, the break and any text after it are not included in the link. Is there a patch being developed that will allow editors to choose whether they want the link to extend over some new text or not?--¿3family6 contribs 20:05, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the stage that they're at is realizing that it's complicated. People want:
  • [[Example]]
  • [[Example]]s
  • [[Example|Examples]]
  • [[Example]]'s
  • [[Example]].
It's a bit hard to guess which form is what the editor wants, but you probably don't want to get to asked every single time, either. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The way to do it at the moment is to enter your new text, select everything you want to appear in the link and then load the link dialog (using the button or ctrl+k) and confirming the link target. While possibly not the best, this reliably includes what the user wants linked and nothing else. Prior to a couple of updates ago, it was nearly impossible to end a link as everything you typed apart from a linebreak was included whether you wanted it or not. That was far more disruptive than what we have now. Thryduulf (talk) 23:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, I remember when the editor did that. I think your suggestion is the best solution.--¿3family6 contribs 23:58, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Super/sub script issues

Appearance in VE
Wikitext result

I took a poke at the subscripting and superscripting feature now available on mediawiki.org, and I think I may have encountered a bug. First, I noticed a strange behavior where anything I typed at the end of that third line, if I then hit enter, it would be duplicated in the fourth line, and my cursor would move to the fifth (blank) line. I then took a look at the wikitext generated by VE, and it looked odd, so I copied it into a wikitext editor, and got a rather different looking result than VE was showing. Also, upon saving with VE, I got this result, which is the same as copying into wikitext editor, but not what VE was showing me. Chris857 (talk) 20:54, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Testing this now. Note to self: when I created the sandbox to test this, I got the message that it was created only when I hit Edit again to change that text. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:10, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I don't think it has to do with the new features. Proof is, I can reproduce (on Mediawiki) the same bug without using them. You just need to add quickly casual sequences of words, as if you were vandalizing the page. In the linked diff I kept writing on the third line, it was VE which splitted what I wrote on more lines. I was also able to reproduce the difference among the content you "write" and the one which is saved. Filing this now. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'll actually add everything here. Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After editing a page in beta mode on the iPad, the format of several links, which have not been edited by me, was changed (HTML hyperlink tags added), prompting an error message on saving the page. The corrupted links can be found in my edit (undone afterwards) of the EMD SD90 MAC article. Wetzgau21 (talk) 14:51, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, it is a known thing, see here (and it is probably caused by the browser or some broken plugin/extension, not by VE). Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, sorry, didn't know that. But it would be great if there would be a workaround for this problem without having to change any (default) settings on iPads. Wetzgau21 (talk) 21:21, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Don't be, Wetzgau21, you were not required to know about this, of course! I actually found out about this yesterday because I noticed NicoV's comment on a related bug. Hope this gets fixed soon :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your message, and for noticing and fixing the problem in the article. In this edit, your iPad apparently thought that the numbers were telephone numbers. We'll need to find a way around this. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

change if format

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this league not double round robin, but single round robin and knock out. 223.30.7.70 (talk) 19:50, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we might actually consider an all-play-all article editing tournament with VisualEditor... in the meantime, please notice this page is for related feedback. For general help with Wikipedia see Help:Contents and the Wikipedia:Help desk! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Incorrect information

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The information for Charles Hall states in 2005 he was involved in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. I am the mother of Matthew that was killed in this accident and I would be happy to provide evidence from the inquest that Matthew had not had a drink at all. The alcohol that showed up in one of the samples contained bacteria from Matthews stomach contents due to him suffering crush injuries to his chest. --Meer2005 (talk) 20:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for comments on VisualEditor, our new editing interface. For feedback on a specific article, please refer to that article's talk page. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:53, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Eating references

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T54228

I did not see this mentioned elsewhere, but I have encountered a bug where, if I add multiple citations to back a statement, the Visual Editor only saves the first citation I added. This happened once when I added three citations to back a claim and had to add each one individually over the course of three edits and again just now when I had to add a second citation after it didn't get saved. Multiple citations can be added if they are separate as I had added a citation for another statement in the same edit and it was saved. Seems VE has a problem specifically with citations being added next to each other.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:39, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds similar to what the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation reported recently: Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive_2013_4#Problem adding multiple references. That's for a bug that's supposed to have been resolved. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:13, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That does describe what has been happening to me so it does not seem to have been fixed.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:29, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've reopened Template:Bug and copied yours and Sue's comments there. Thryduulf (talk) 09:55, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An experience with an edit-a-thon

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52458
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T55396

Just over a week ago, I helped out at an edit-a-thon at the Royal Ontario Museum. Whilst there, I did talk to the new users about trying out VisualEditor (as opposed to the wikitext editor). To a person, they all said that VE was *more* difficult to use than wikitext, especially with respect to references. Now, they had all had reinforced to them the importance of referencing factual information, so they were all trying to include references. They pointed out that at least with the wikitext editor, they could pull up templates that were complete and they didn't have to try to figure out the parameters. They were using mostly printed sources, not websites, so there was no URL to use as a quick-and-dirty reference insertion. The wifi wasn't great there, and even I had a hard time opening pages with VE as compared to wikitext (it kept hanging on me). Finally, they complained that the help pages weren't as helpful as they expected because they were now oriented toward VE, while they were working with wikitext. That last point tells me that we need two complete sets of help pages. Risker (talk) 02:08, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Real life experience is particularly useful - thanks for this report. My take-away (besides agreeing with you that parallel help pages are needed) is that VE should have something like Wikipedia:RefToolbar/2.0 added, for references. This actually isn't that difficult, programming-wise (at least, it isn't difficult for the four default templates):
  • Set up a place on the editing menu (perhaps a second line) where the pull-down menu for reference cite templates
  • Provide an option for each language Wikipedia to indicate whether to display or not display the pull-down menu (default= "no")
  • Set the label so that it can be specified by each language Wikipedia
  • Set up a place where each language Wikipedia can specify the templates to be included on the pull-down list
  • Modify the template/transclusion dialog so that it can be invoked with a new template already selected for it.
The other thing that would help would be a significant redesign of the template/transclusion dialog, to address the existing, significant problems with the user interface/user experience. A lot of the process is far less intuitive than it could be. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:07, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this, John. I forgot one other very significant point: not a one of them understood what the "puzzle piece" was supposed to represent, and when shown, all of them still thought it was a poorly chosen icon. Most had no suggestion as to an alternative, although two thought "curly brackets" would be a good idea. I suspect that's because they'd seen curly brackets for templates when using wikitext. Risker (talk) 03:12, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments.
Do you have the links to the help pages they were using? Most of them say nothing at all about VisualEditor except for a warning at the top, but I believe the pages oriented towards new users have been changing recently. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Whatamidoing (WMF), the one that was immediately pointed out to me was Wikipedia:Tutorial/Editing which is linked from Help:Contents as the first wikilink under "I want to edit Wikipedia". In fact, most of the pages in the tutorials have been rewritten to focus exclusively on VisualEditor. Risker (talk) 03:58, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The help page comment should be easy to implement - just copy a pre-VE version of each help page to the corresponding Wikitext help page and update some links. VQuakr (talk) 05:46, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've added your comments about reference editing to Template:Bug and reported your comments about the icon for inserting templates as Template:Bug. Thryduulf (talk)

Can't access the album review section

In album articles (like Def Leppard's X) I can't edit the reviews section because the track listing is next to it. Please fix this. Mab987 (talk) 05:50, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I forget which Bugzilla number this is, but the problem with editing X (Def Leppard album) is that the article is formatted with multiple columns, another basic fundamental feature of Wikipedia editing that was neglected in the rush to release VE.—Kww(talk) 06:24, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ref name

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52568

I tried to edit refs with VisualEditor, but it seems to lack the <ref name="Example"> feature.-Seonookim (What I've done so far) (I'm busy here) (Tell me your requests) 06:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! If you want to reuse a reference, make sure you follow these steps (just remember that, right now, you need to save first before being able to use a new reference). Does this help? Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:01, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
VisualEditor does not currently support adding reference names, but this is requested at Template:Bug. Unfortunately that bug has remained unprioritised since it was reported in early July so I can't say when the feature is likely to be added. Thryduulf (talk) 10:19, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VE breaks table/references?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T55402

The article The Legend of Korra (Book 2) gets constantly disrupted when somebody edits (any part of) it using VE. The following two lines of text are inserted into a table:

<ref name="Futon">{{ns. -->
|''''=|ok Tw=| Spir=ts''''' is the second season of the animated TV|ser=es ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'' by [[Michael Dante DiMartino]] an| [[B=|an Konietz=}}</ref><ref name="Futon">{{ episode| ("c=|pters=|. Ord=red in early 2011, ''Book Two: Spirits'' will a|r o= [[Nickelodeon]] in the U.S. beginning on September 13, 2013.<re| nam=|"Yahoo 15 =}}</ref><ref name="Futon" /><ref name="Futon" /><ref name="Futon" /><ref name="Futon" /><ref name="Futon" /><ref name="Futon" /><ref name="Futon" /><ref name="Futon" />

Please check the recent article history. Although at first I though this was some persistent vandalism, I seriously doubt this now. If possible, please edit the article in such a way that the bug does not show up any more. YLSS (talk) 06:59, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is usually caused by some minor error in the table markup such as a missing quote, but I've not been able to find anything. There are other people far better at spotting those things than I am though, so hopefully someone will notice something I haven't. If this is the cause then it is Template:Bug. Thryduulf (talk) 10:44, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Did some testing in a sandbox out of curiosity. The error is caused by the named ref "Futon" in the table, and only when it is formatted as a named ref:
  • Moved the ref as named ref outside of the table structure and deleted all iterations - OK, VE works.
  • Used exactly the same cite within the table, but only as unnamed, single "ref" - OK, VE works.
  • Removed all references from table and added a new named ref "TEST" within the table - VE-edits get corrupted with "TEST"-text. GermanJoe (talk) 11:57, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, it's more than just named references in a table [6][7][8]. Thryduulf (talk) 12:30, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This one [[9]] is an article version, that is OK for VE. I have reverted back to the original situation: [[10]] (VE error). Something in the difference is the cause :). GermanJoe (talk) 12:44, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but I haven't yet figured out what that something is! I can't reproduce it in a simple table with that reference in my sandbox [11], so it seems likely to be the interaction between named references and something else. I haven't got time at the moment to investigate further. I've reported it as Template:Bug, but it can be refined if we can narrow it down. Thryduulf (talk) 14:15, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
VE doesn't accept ref names with leading and ending quotations marks in this specific situation. Changed the OPs article to fix that for now, but it's definately a bug. GermanJoe :(talk) 14:22, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
GermanJoe, Thryduulf: see Template:Episode_list and how the ProdCode parameter is used there: 
<td id="pc{{{ProdCode}}}">{{{ProdCode}}}</td>
So, if you pass in 
| ProdCode = 113<ref name="xyz" />
you can see that the td-cell produced by the template will break. So, the template is not designed to take anything but numbers/strings for the ProdCode parameter. The same is true for the EpisodeNumber parameter. All uses of this template in WP pages where these parameters are not strings are errors in source wikitext on those pages. Hope this clarifies the matter. Ssastry (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've been trying to figure out how this was done. You can't add a named ref at the moment, so it must have begin by re-using (and modifying) an existing one. But then why did it add a second/different instance with the same name, rather than changing the original? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This bug affects all edits in VE, whether you touch the table or references or not, so the inability to name references in VE is not relevant here. As for adding references with the same name, do you mean something like Template:Bug?
Anyway Ssastry has commented on the bug, saying that it's some sort of interaction problem with something the episode list template does. I don't understand it, but those who understand template coding are encouraged to read Template:Bug and see if they can fix the problem. Thryduulf (talk) 16:02, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I also pasted the explanation above. Ssastry (talk) 17:50, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

mistranslation

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

there is a mistranslation in the Etymology section of this article. Nishikigoi translates literally as Western (Nishi-Ki) Carp (Goi/Koi). 98.65.239.24 (talk) 15:51, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for feedback about the visual editor. to give feedback about a specific article you should post on that article's talk page. Thryduulf (talk) 16:04, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Mysterious attempt to use anchor element

I've just found this edit; see the first two changes where the <a>...</a> element has been used. this element is not permitted in wikitext - was it added by the user, or by VE? --Redrose64 (talk) 16:14, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there :) You'll find this reported above - it happens when editing with iPads, AFAIK. Thanks for any help in undoing these diffs :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:17, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this seems to be a bug in Safari on the iPad where it "helpfully" converts numbers in certain editing areas that it thinks are phone numbers into external links that phone applications understand. The VisualEditor editing surface is one such text area but it is not limited to VE (and there are similar problems with some other browser plugins). The devs though are trying to work out a way to detect these injections and stop them getting into the saved revision. Thryduulf (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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