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 feedbackReport bugsYour 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.
VisualEditor is a way to edit pages that looks more like a word processor. It was first offered here in 2013.
How do I enable VisualEditor?
VisualEditor is available alongside the original wikitext editor if you opt-in, by changing your preferences. It is currently not available to unregistered users at the English Wikipedia, unless they switch modes while editing.
Why is this change being made?
Some people who could become productive, experienced members of the community are turned off upon attempting their first edit in wikitext "source" mode. Some edits, such as adding or rearranging columns to a table in wikitext, are difficult even for experienced editors.
Where do I go to learn more about how to use VisualEditor?
In most cases, VisualEditor will not change or reformat lines that are not being directly edited. If markup already on the page is handled incorrectly (for example, with tables that are not closed), then it may attempt to correct these.
Will it still be possible to edit articles using wikitext after the visual editor becomes available?
Yes. While the visual editor will become available to all users as an editing environment, a method for editing the underlying wikitext "source" will continue to exist. There are no plans to remove the "Edit source" option.[1]
Won't this slow down reading and editing for people who have slow connections or computers?
VisualEditor loads the bulk of its code only when you edit a page in the visual editing mode. So if you keep using "Edit source" or are a reader, the effect on your user experience should be negligible (~4KB of additional JavaScript payload before you click "Edit", or about 0.5% of one typical page). Your web browser will typically cache the JavaScript, speeding up future uses even if you are on a slow connection. However, using the visual editor for editing may cause problems for those on slow computers or connections, especially on very large pages. For these users, opting-out for now may be the best option.
I've found an issue with VisualEditor or a feature that is missing. How can I tell you to fix it?
Please report the issue in Phabricator, after first searching exiting tickets to make sure it hasn't been reported already. Additional bug reporting instructions can be found here. There are four main kinds of issues that the developers especially need to hear about:
Something breaks: The failure may only affect a particular type of browser or computer, on a particular page, or after doing something else. Please post your problem at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. In your description, it is helpful to include information about what you were trying to do, your web browser, computer operating system, and a link to the article or a diff of the edit if it was possible for you to save the change.
Performance problems: If all pages seem unexpectedly slow on loading or on performing a particular task, or if it used to be faster and has recently gotten worse, then please report this.
User experience issues: If it didn't make sense, or if it was awkward, or if you couldn't figure out what you needed to do (Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide covers the basics), please speak up, and feel free to offer your suggestions for improving the design.
Missing functionality: Is there something you need to do, but it currently can't be done in VisualEditor, like editing mathematics equations or seeing hidden comments that contain instructions to other editors? Make sure that it's on the developers' list of needed features. If you'd like to know which missing features have been reported before, you can search the talk page archives and feedback archives. If you can't find any reference to the new feature you'd like to suggest, please report it at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
To continue to edit the wikitext directly, simply click the "Edit source" button instead of "Edit". On section edit links, you can open the wikitext editor selected in your preferences for that section by clicking "edit source" instead of the regular "edit" link.
If you would like to remove VisualEditor from the user interface, then you can do so.
If it is a beta feature: go to the Beta tab of your preferences page, untick the checkbox "Visual Editor", and click the Save button near the bottom of the page. (As of 2021, this is how you do it on Meta-Wiki and the Chinese Wikipedia.)
If the visual editor is already out of beta:
go to the Editing tab of your Preferences page, untick the checkbox "⧼visualeditor-preference-betatempdisable⧽", and click the Save button near the bottom of the page. (This is how you do it on some sister Wikipedias, for instance, Russian Wikipedia, as of 2021.)
Can I install VisualEditor on my personal wiki outside Wikimedia?
Yes. The VisualEditor extension is available for download.
Can I use named references like the basic wikicode editor does, so I can choose my own reference names?
This has been requested via Community feedback, and is on the list of things to do. There are some links and more information about this on the Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Named references page.
The FAQ didn't answer my question. Where may I ask it?
^<<And no, we're not taking markup-level editing away. Some users may always prefer it over visual editing, even if the exact nature of the markup changes, and even if VisualEditor becomes the best tool it can possibly be.>> Erik Möller, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change, op-ed for Wikipedia Signpost, July 31st, 2013.
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]
I can not figure out how to return to editing the article when using the "Edit" (rather than "Edit Source") option. In order to preview changes, it appears that I need to click on Save page. From there I can preview the changes, cancel, or accept--but I cannot figure out how to return to the edit form and change my changes rather than discarding all of them (or accepting all of them). Am I missing something, or does the "Edit" functionality not include that feature yet? Grim0098 (talk) 02:30, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to check Template:Disable_VE_top out which might be a useful workaround if applied to those sections - we can then remove it once the bug is fixed, as in the case of some airport tables. Looking into the bug now. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 07:06, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Here you can see that a random edit when the tables are "shielded" with those template does not cause any harm. Anyway, it's weird because here you can see that a similar edit did not cause any trouble either when the page was basically featuring almost only the very same tables. It does take a while to load and edit the article with VE, though. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 08:32, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, this will need an extension to TemplateData so that parameters can be defined as requiring another parameter. Template:Bug is a request to be able to define exactly this sort of dependency relationship, although there appears to have been no full understanding of the need for it by the dev who commented and there has been no activity since July. Unfortunately I don't expect that VE will be able to do anything about this until it can be expressed in TemplateData as that is the only way that VE knows anything about parameters. I've filed the VE request as Template:Bug though so it can be worked out when TemplateData is extended. Thryduulf (talk) 11:47, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
e.c. I am not sure this is a bug. The template is probably meant to work like this, i.e., if you don't provide the third, you shouldn't add the fourth ;) I think you can already make this clear in the description/label fields of the related TemplateData: this would prevent people to do the same and hence avoid the problem. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:53, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Of course: and you can "skip" parameters with VE as well, but I guess only in positions where you are allowed to do so, not where the template expects to find a sequence. And you can definitely warn against this with TemplateData already. (I haven't experimented with other templates though). --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:27, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The problem seems to stem from the fact that that table is poorly formed, it has </tr> tags, but no corresponding <tr> tags. It still shouldn't mangle the table, but at least it should be a rare thing to encounter. My sandbox testing shows that there appears to be no issues with HTML tables more generally.
Nice work. At some point you may want to add LaTeX editing (probably best to do raw, not WYSIWYG LaTeX!). Also, when I clicked the Edit button it added a new line between the title and the first paragraph that I couldn't remove. 86.184.25.131 (talk) 11:16, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When reading an article or editing it using the standard editor, redirects appear as green links instead of blue since I configured it that way. VE does not seem to use these values, and shows all internal links (including red links) as blue. 28bytes (talk) 11:37, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Editing infoboxes using VE (as I did here) is somewhat difficult and unintuitive. I just wanted to change an uppercase "T" to a lowercase "t", but instead of just clicking and editing the desired infobox text, you must click on the infobox, then click the "transclusion" puzzle piece, then find the parameter that contains the text you wish to edit, and then edit the wikitext (not WYSIWYG text) as desired. While there are a wide variety of infobox types, some sort of WYSIWIG editor for them would be extremely helpful. 28bytes (talk) 11:48, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to create my first VE article today (I've created 100 or so the "old fashioned" way.) Here are some observations.
How does one create a redirect in VE? There does not seem to be an obvious way to do that.
When adding references, a plain box is presented. It's not obvious that to use one of the common {{Cite}} templates, you have to click the "add transclusion" button, and then manually type in the citation template you want. There should be some sort of menu to let you pick from the most frequently used citation templates.
When adding "The New York Times" as the "newspaper" parameter, I wanted to link to The New York Times but it was not obvious how to do so. Ctrl-K does not work in that box.
When adding the first reference to an article, VE should add a == References == section with {{Reflist}}. Or at the very least, just {{Reflist}}. As it is, the reference is just "hidden" when you enter it, and it's unreasonable to assume a new user will know they have to click the "transclusion" button and manually type in "Reflist" to get the references they entered to appear. There is no warning that the {{Reflist}} is missing until you actually save the article, when you get a scary red message at the bottom.
Adding: this seems to be a common problem among the other VE article creations today: [3][4][5]
Clicking on a link during preview mode doesn't work right: I used the hyperlink button to create a link to Salvation Army, but when I right-clicked on it and chose "Open Link in New Tab" (I'm using Firefox 23), I got this page.
How does one add categories? There does not seem to be an obvious way to do that.
Why does the "style" box contain a "Page Title" option? It is my understanding that level 1 headers are not supposed to be used in articles.
There seems to be an odd caching issue: whenever I try to link to the newly created article from another article, it does not auto-fill and says "new article" with a red link when I type it manually.
This looks the typical case where I prepare a very long answer, only to find out User:Thryduulf already got it - and better than me. So, pinging him to find out whether this is what would happen. In the meantime, thanks for your report. Almost everything looks already known to me, luckily :) and some answers can already be found in the user guide or in the known problems page. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:08, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Redirects are not possible (yet). It's Template:Bug.
That dialog needs, and is getting, a lot of work. I'm not sure when we'll actually see the improvements, though.
Actually, see #2: I want to be able to give it a link to a story at nytimes.com, and have it create the ref automagically.
Clicking on the references icon will add the <references /> block.
I haven't seen this click-to-invalid-page bug before. If it hasn't been discovered, then this needs to be filed.
It sounds like you found the hidden cat feature.
Some pages need this heading level, though (just not articles).
Yes, it's still doing it, for me at least: I created the redirect home for unwed mothers this morning, and every time I try to link a page to that, VE says it's a red link. Perhaps you can try one of the articles that has it unlinked (Wickliffe, Ohio is the next one on my list) and see if you get the same results, or if it's just me? Incidentally, trying to link it on Reunited (TV series) generates some odd behavior: if you use Firefox, press Ctrl-F and then type in the text "home for unwed mothers" (without the quotes), that text will be highlighted, but if you then press Ctrl-K, the == References == heading is what gets blue-linked. (I suspect this is due to the way it handles templates, since the found text appears to be embedded in one.) 28bytes (talk) 18:48, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi 28bytes, I tried it just now, and it's still not working for me like it ought to. It makes the link, but the link inspector does not believe that the page exists. I also found this on a page (Odd) that is clearly not new, although most of the older pages work correctly for me. It doesn't matter if the capitalization is upper or lower for the leading character, and it also doesn't matter whether I type the word first or enter the link inspector first.
I also found a new problem, which is that if you select a word, enter the link inspector, and then cancel (escape key or "<" button), it links the word to the first thing in the search list anyway. Is anyone else getting this? I'm using Safari 6.0.5 on Mac OS X 10.7.5. What are you using? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:14, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Firefox 23.0.1 on Windows 7. (Happens on Vista and Windows 8 too, FWIW.) Yes, I have noticed that when you cancel from the link dialog it will create a link anyway, and you have to Ctrl-Z to undo it. 28bytes (talk) 17:33, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's enough of a mismatch that it's probably all browsers and all OSes. I've added Template:Bug for the 'since when did Escape mean Okay?' problem.
The problem with the redirects appears to be Template:Bug: they're deliberately filtering them out. (I supposed that if you're trying to link to Cancer, that you don't really want to see a list of the dozens of pages that redirect there.) But Odd isn't a redirect, and other disambiguation pages work correcltly. So the new not-a-red-link bug is Template:Bug. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:23, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also
Thanks. The user guide answered my question about categories, but raised a few more:
What is the "reference list" button supposed to do? I clicked on it while editing maternity home and a blank dialog came up; I was expecting a list of references (just one reference at the moment.)
In that same article, is there a reason VE will not let me use the uncapitalized link "pregnancy" but forces it to uppercase?
Similar to the request to make infoboxes directly editable, it would be nice to make references directly editable as well. For example, I tried clicking on the "The New York Times" in the reference so that I could link it, but could not do so; I had to click the [1] in the section above, then the reference icon, then the cite template, then the transclusion icon, then the "newspaper" parameter, then I manually added brackets and clicked "apply changes" first at the transclusion level, and again at the reference level. And at that point, the changes did not appear to be applied; "The New York Times" still appeared unlinked. I had to save the page and then reload it to make sure the linking worked. That's a lot of clicks just to link something! Using the wikitext editor that would be two clicks; highlight "The New York Times" then click the "[[]]" toolbar button; so this could definitely be streamlined in VE, I think, to make life easier on newer editors. (And older ones too, I suppose.)
It adds <references />, and nothing else. Just choose "apply changes" and it works. (Some instructions on that nearly blank box would be helpful.)
Template:Bug. The workaround is to first type pregnancy, then select it, and press Control+k to enter the link inspector. If you press Control+k first, and then type pregnancy, the autocomplete "feature" gives you leading caps.
Sorry I wasn't around earlier, I was showing my face at the WMUK office! I've marked bug 53491 (wrong link target) as a duplicate of Template:Bug although as that bug's title "VisualEditor: Respect Parsoid's <base>" describes the solution not the effect so I'm not surprised you didn't find it (I only found it when a bug I reported was marked as a duplicate of it).
There are several issues with links, and the workaround for all of them is to write the text of the link first, select it and then link it. I've reported this specific issue as Template:Bug recommending that the first character of the string input should be preserved, i.e. if you enter "Green" you get Green, if you enter "green" you get green. Template:Bug should make all this easier, as that asks for a way to explicitly set the display text from with the dialog.
Template:Bug relates to the paragraph styles drop-down, asking for individual options to be enabled/disabled on a per wiki per namespace basis. This is a low priority request though as its a nice to have rather than something essential.
A point was raised yesterday about an editor who was continually making changes to articles contrary to comments in the wikisource (two examples of such comments being "<!-- DO NOT CHANGE THIS NATIONALITY WITHOUT DISCUSSION ON TALK PAGE -->" and "<!-- This is, as Wikipedia guidelines suggest, as he self-identifies and by long-term consensus -->" ). A suggestion was made that as the editor concerned was using the Visual Editor he would not have seen these comments in the source. Is this true? (I don't use VE, and I'm an IE user so couldn't use it if I wanted to, so can't check). - David Biddulph (talk) 18:27, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is true. The FAQ, on this page, uses this problem as an example (search for "hidden comments", on this page, above). You might think that being in the FAQ, as an example of a common problem, would make fixing this a high priority for the developers. If so, you'd be wrong.
As an aside, "fixing this" is as simple as making text within hidden comments visible but non-editable (and in a different font - for example, white on a black background). That's not perfect (it would be good to be able to edit such comments), but that would be good enough for the moment - and, quite frankly, it seems not-all-that-difficult, programming-wise. -- John Broughton(♫♫)20:32, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My programming is limited to a very small amount of python as well as some HTML and wikimarkup, so I could be wrong but.. Is it really that hard to program in "look for <!-- and then display what's in between as something -->? Potentially, it could be displayed as an inline box or something. That cannot be that hard to code from my limited knowledge. ~Charmlet-talk-22:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My programming knowledge is less than yours, but my guess is that the difficult bit is making sure that by showing this it doesn't break something else. You also have to decide how to show something that wont be seen when you save the page, given that the point of VE is to be basically WYSIWYG (although it can't be completely). Neither of these things should have held it up as long as it has been though, so there may be something that you and I aren't seeing. I've done what I can to bring it to the dev's attention on bugzilla today, but @Jdforrester (WMF): may have more information about its prioritisation past and present. For now though we all just need to be patient. Thryduulf (talk) 23:47, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've commented further at bugzilla about programming and user interface issues. Responses/rebuttals are welcome, of course.
I originally was inclined to suggest displaying the hidden text in full, but with a different font/background color. I'm now more inclined to have the person doing the edit see a yellow warning icon (see examples here), and by hovering, to then see the full hidden text. That, to me, seems both less disruptive (the hidden comment is reduced to an icon, so it hardly disturbs the flow of the text, and maintains, roughly, the WYSIWYG concept of VE) and simultaneously harder to ignore - it waves, figuratively, a big flag in front of the person doing the edit, saying "LOOK HERE". -- John Broughton(♫♫)00:26, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As PamD notes at Bugzilla, the point of these notices is that they need to be front and centre so there is no question that you have seen it. I also understand that hovering is not easy/not possible on touch screen devices. So I don't think that hiding them behind an icon is the best way to do things, unless they are expanded by default and you can click on an icon to get a more WYSIWYG view. Thryduulf (talk) 10:34, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I like this idea: show the comment with a foreground/background different to the editable text, and allow it to be collapsed to confirm a WYSIWYG view.
Hi there, AFAIK the page is archived by a bot. We couldn't really edit here anymore if bugs which are not solved on Bugzilla are not archived. We use sometimes the "answered" template, but any section featuring this template can still be edited, of course. If you'd like to get updates on specific bugs, please add yourself to the CC list for that bug on Bugzilla, so that you get email notifications when the bug is changed: also, if you think that some discussion which is now archived deserves some more attention, just ping people to notify them about updates or new comments, like this: Mark Hurd :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah that was rhetorical, hence the smiley :-) I have added myself to the CC for this bug, which I commented on a week or two ago, and I actually reported the list continuation bug Template:Bug. Thanks for showing me how easy pinging is now though. Mark Hurd (talk) 14:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
VisualEditor stopped working completely like a month ago
My VisualEditor stopped working completely like a month ago. When I try to edit, the article's text goes gray, and the "loading bar" appears and shows does the loading animation. But that's it. It never loads. I am using Fireox 22.0 (technically Iceweasel). I have deleted my browser cache completely. I even tried resetting my Wikipedia preferences but it still happens. Any ideas? Cookies and Javascript are enabled too. Jason Quinn (talk) 01:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
From up above in "Why are we still using this?", the following are responses given to NicoV's questions.
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.
--Whatamidoing (WMF)
Concerning the supposedly fixed bug. It is still happening. (<nowiki> </nowiki>Local humane societies,...) diff
I was going to give examples of what turns out to be Template:Bug. As the bug is a year old, looks like this won't be fixed and therefore no use in giving the examples.
Why are these happening? (in the [[American Le Mans Series|American Le Mans Serie]]<nowiki/>s and Park Place Motorsport..) diff (is an [[American football]] [[wide receiver|wide receive]]<nowiki/>r who is currently a free agent.) diff (*[[Goat|Goa]]<nowiki/>ts) diff
That should be 51462. I'll reopen it since I can find it on it.wp as well, but it is, IMHO, one of those cases in which the nowikis actually make much sense, since they are invisible andthey prevent text to become preformatted.
Thanks for your opinion. I don't think we should actually stop commenting just because something is either too hard to fix or something else has the priority. Providing more comments and examples - instead than just reporting something won't work - is the only way we have to underline how much an apparently trivial thing means to our editing experience.
I am afraid that might depend on what users select to be linked, or sometimes on them still using the old markup way to create links - ignoring the warning popup. Also see [7]. There are many requests related to wikilinking, if you believe that some intended behaviours should be, well, different, please read the developers comments to the bugs and feel free to weigh in. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:10, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How about we just use an edit filter to block edits with <nowiki/>, these are always an error unlike legitimate uses of matched pairs. --Salix (talk): 11:54, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, there are legitimate situations where you can use <nowiki/>: apostrophe before/after bold or italic formatting for example. Of course, other ways exist like {{'}}. --NicoV(Talk on frwiki)12:35, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You are right that the numbers won't match, but the references still work in that they can be correctly edited - you wouldn't be able to preview them by hovering on the number anyway. Adding to [8] though, thanks :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:53, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
From the bug comments, this was allegedly fixed two releases ago, but I'm seeing the same problem that Davipo reports. VisualEditor finds ten refs in the inforbox, but still starts over with ref #1 in the body of the article. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't the same as Template:Bug, when that was happening the references for the infobox would not have appeared in the reference list at all, this is just problem with numbering. Thryduulf (talk) 18:45, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly. I've crosslinked them and given Template:Bug a more descriptive title (making it easier to find). If I get time tomorrow I'll go through some more of the unconfirmed VE bugs and see if they're still occurring, but it would be really useful if James or someone else on the VE team could reduce the backlog of unassigned bugs and prioritise them. Thryduulf (talk) 22:27, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to look at Template:Bugzilla while you are at it. It truly annoys me to see the VE team brag about responsiveness when they can't even take the time to confirm and prioritise the bugs coming in, especially when I take the time to distill a test case for them to look at.—Kww(talk) 22:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Perhaps you can persuade James that deciding that deciding that the {{#tag:ref}} feature never should have been supported in the first place falls outside of his scope.—Kww(talk) 23:53, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.
In Australia, 'bok choy' is also used. Source: I've lived in Australia my entire life, and I'd only ever heard 'bok choy' until I read this article. Not sure if that's a valid enough source, though I thought I might at least mention it. 202.61.150.40 (talk) 12:29, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This page is for feedback about the VisualEditor. For feedback regarding a specific article, please use that article's talk page. Thryduulf (talk) 12:39, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sham entry
The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.
This entry is religious propaganda. It is opinionated, unreferenced and a promotion for this person. See Wikipedia entry for "Daniel Nalliah", his co-founder of their evangelical church. 123.2.188.143 (talk) 14:22, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This page is for feedback about the VisualEditor. For feedback regarding a specific article, please use that article's talk page. GermanJoe (talk) 14:29, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Easier to use
I just discovered something that is much easier and faster to do in VisualEditor than in the classic editor: fixing list formatting. Someone had made a list of books without any list formatting. Each "list entry" was a paragraph, separated by blank lines. Fixing it required only highlighting the list and clicking the list button. All the blank lines were automagically removed. I'm very happy about this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:20, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi,
When trying to link to other wiki pages, most of the time the correct page shows up but when it doesn't there is no way to create a new link. For instance, I'm trying to link "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" from the Memphis Minnie list of songs page to the "My Chauffeur Blues" wikipedia page. BIcurious3334 (talk) 15:23, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The article you are trying to link to is at Chauffeur Blues, although I'll create a redirect from the title you were using in a moment. You can always enter a link to a page that isn't in the list though, just type out the name in full and press enter or click the red linked top entry in the list. Thryduulf (talk) 16:20, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Using Firefox 23.0.1 in Windows XP, if I view W. S. Gilbert, whether logged in or not, most images are 220px wide. This is because they use the thumb parameter, and 220px is the default on English Wikipedia, and what I have not changed my preferences.
As the subject says -- no means exists of adding this important feature. Additionally, no means exists of flagging this article as containing questionable content. 173.11.86.22 (talk) 18:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Citation needed can be added. You just need to use the transclusion (AKA template) editor - click on the puzzle piece icon on the toolbar, type "citation needed" into the input box, click add the template, optionally add the reason and/or the date and click apply changes. Thryduulf (talk) 19:15, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I've done it. It's, admittedly, a little harder in VE (this'll likely change) but you just click the icon that looks like a puzzle piece, type "cn" when asked which template, and it'll appear when you hit confirm. I believe the VE team intends to have a some one click solutions in the near future, including adding templates of your choice to a bar? Although I'd hope there'd also be a few automatic lists you could choose to pull up - cleanup templates, etc. Adam Cuerden(talk)19:18, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'd thank Adam for the brainstorming: I read this before though - I think this was asked at it.wp before as well. Right now I can't find the related bug, will take a better look tomorrow :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We discussed a customisable template toolbar at Wikimania, but having a few default sets selectable seemed like the logical extention of that. Adam Cuerden(talk)15:26, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A quick mockup of how my suggestion could look I've left some comments on that bug, including suggestions for quick access buttons to commonly used templates. A crude mockup of how they might look is attached here. Thryduulf (talk) 22:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
URL names with Wikipedia links
[http://oeis.org/A019283 Sequence A019283 in [[OEIS]]],
although probably not what is desired, is automatically changed by VE to
[http://oeis.org/A019283 Sequence A019283 in ][[OEIS]].
Not related to this problem as such, but I've reported the <nowiki> added in that diff as Template:Bug. It seems to be triggered by single apostrophes following links in a bold or italic section. Thryduulf (talk) 23:32, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Copy and paste in style editor produces weird behavior
The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.
Pasting a sentence that includes bold text and a link (may not be requirementa) is un-editable. Trying to edit a part of the sentence deletes the entire thing, as if the entire sentence was selected instead of one word. Trying to insert a word also overwrites the whole sentence. WildElf (talk) 03:18, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't save the edit. However after reproducing it several times to gather more info, I disabled my add-ons. Sure enough, 'disable clipboard manipulations' add-on was the problem. There is no issue with wiki code. Sorry for the false alarm. --WildElf (talk) 04:25, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the update. I'm glad that you figured it out. If you see anything else strange, please don't hesitate to let us know. I'd rather have a false alarm than an unreported problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You can enter subst:prod as "unknown" template name and add it in VE, after saving it will be substituted (disclaimer: i tested this only with subst:prod and subst:nld in my sandbox). It's not really comfortable, but parameters can be added manually as unknown parameters (f.i. the reason for prod). GermanJoe (talk) 08:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I'm copy/pasting from the FAQ here: We think that those who come with the intent to vandalize are probably doing it now because hitting the “Edit source” tab and blanking a page using the wikitext editor is just as fast (if not faster) than doing the same thing with VisualEditor.. Since it takes a while to load and does not allow very fast typing, and this is especially true for large articles, this is not an issue, I think. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:04, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I know that the VE team were monitoring the vandalism level from when VE was made opt-out in late June/early July, to see whether these predictions were correct. I haven't seen any official results yet, but anecdotally I'm not seeing any noticeable increase in vandalism among articles on my watchlist. Longer term, I don't suspect that there will be any significant difference in the amount of vandalism, but the vandalism will be split between the two editors. Given that is easier to do some things in VE than in the source editor and vice versa, it wouldn't surprise me if the nature of the vandalism differs between the editors. This is speculation though. One thing that is certain is that it makes no difference to the revert tool or anti-vandalism bots, etc, which editor was used so vandalism reversion is exactly as easy as it was beforehand. Thryduulf (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think 1) en wikipedians largely put trial and error efforts and deliberate vandalism in same basket.It is like counting apples and oranges together.2) en wikipedians use more of stick than communicate to understand and recommunicate to explain.Obeviously the people who fail to understand others views prefer to use stick rather than recommunicating to explain.Over use of stick than explaining the point is the real reason higher percentage of deliberate counter attacks in form of vandalism on en-wiki.And this form of deliberate vandalism will persist irrespective of the system of edit you use until proper communication takes place.(Please note I do not intend to support vandlisers in any way for any reason).
With VE real difference will come in patterns of trial and error efforts.In part wikis need to make edit filters more smarter and effective in part it will need long term studies to understand change in pattern of trial and error and address those issues.
How are some people thinking this is a valid place for article feedback? I located this link from the BETA link once I'd started the VE. Is there any other place it is available from? Mark Hurd (talk) 14:21, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's available from any VE-related page, via the navbox. I should check the "what links here" though since I was asking myself the same question. I was thinking about some kind of sitenotice I might have hidden, welcoming templates, or new user guides. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've checked what links here and didn't see anything obviously "interesting". I'll spend a few minutes now trying things in an incognito window to see if I can find something while logged out... Mark Hurd (talk) 15:02, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't an unusual level of wrong-forum posting. The Help Desk gets more misplaced comments. Eventually, I assume that the beta label and the link to this this page will be removed from VisualEditor, which ought to end this minor problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Still looks like VE Feedback to me
User:Markhurd editing while logged out. I can't see where people might think this is article feedback.
But I have seen two issues to note:
1. This "Submit Feedback" form's blurb should end with "your username or IP address, if not logged in."
2. It's grabbing bolded text immediately after an image (i.e. no whitespace in between ]] and ''') and duplicating it; not allowing you to edit it and the Show Changes shows it will duplicate it. 121.45.55.242 (talk) 15:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)(That was me logged out Mark Hurd (talk))[reply]
Searching for "duplicate" doesn't obviously find existing reports of this.
See this edit [11]. I confirmed it is not specific to being not logged in by attempting a VE before fixing the problem using edit source (and avoiding it by inserting a new line).
Interestingly this page was immediately previously edited by an anonymous VE 7 hours before and it didn't have a problem. So either you've recently pushed out a new build or it is browser specific (mine's Chrome) or something.
I'll report it on bugzilla if I can't find a duplicate there.
I haven't reported it because it's no longer repeatable! I tried here, and here and even went back to the original page and made it look the same as it was before I attempted to edit it earlier and it worked fine :-(.
It is reproducible just edit the old revision [12] and bingo duplicated text. Its a very odd error, I copied and modified the text in my sandbox and it manages to duplicate text which is not actually in the revision being edited[13]. --Salix (talk): 18:02, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So {{template}}'''Bold''' text results in the bold-face text being removed. This also happens with [[link]]ed or ''italicized'' text immediately after a template. Have you tested those options as well? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:01, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Unable to save edits or review changes while editing
This is likely a transient problem, but wanted to at least squeal "ouch" as I've been unable to review changes or save changes via Visual Editor over the past 30 min or so. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:26, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone has reported this before today, I can still count 27 VisualEdits among the last 500 on this wiki. I also managed to test in my sandbox, and it threw in some nowikis as well, so I'd say everything's nominal :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I restarted my computer and browser and still had this problem. Thus, it is either some problem with my editing environment locally or some problem with the article I've been trying to edit, that being Renault. I'll try some different things later. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ceyockey, I can get to "Review changes" in that article (I made a minor text change to the lead) but didn't try to save it. It was rather slow; I think it was ten seconds to open the page in VisualEditor, but a bit more than a full minute to get "Review changes" displayed. Were you doing something more complicated? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
One useful first step is to try making the edit while logged out, if that works and your account doesn't then it's likely some gadgets or custom js/css that is at fault. If it doesn't work with either, then its unlikely to be any of those things. Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you!
I was working on an article for a few hours last night and I realized that I've now become faster in VE than I was using wiki syntax -- yay! Here's a quick summary of some of my VE writing observations so far FWIW:
+Cite book is much faster now that I don't need to manually select the parameters every time I use it (thanks Erik).
-But, I still very much look forward to the VE team reproducing the functionality I used to have with wiki syntax, in which I could paste in a book's ISBN and have the rest of the fields autopopulate. That was *amazing* -- it saved me about 90 seconds of tedium per citation.
=I would also recommend that as you revamp the cite tools, please let the user see all the fields and their contents at the same time. Currently I find myself skipping back and forth among fields multiple times, checking to be sure I filled everything in -- which is wasted time. Also, I suspect that the way it's set up currently (separate fields, populated separately) makes it feel to the user like it's more work than it actually is. I think that's because we're used to tasks being broken down into bite-sized chunks, and these chunks are very very tiny bites. (I am writing quickly here -- if that doesn't make sense and someone wants me to try to articulate it better just let me know.)
+The ability to reuse an existing citation is saving me tons of time in article writing: yay and thank you :-)
+But the one major advantage VE has over wiki syntax IME so far, which I expected but have still found remarkably pleasurable/useful, is this: back when I was writing articles in wiki syntax, the actual *act of writing* was impeded by the syntax. What I mean by that is that the mark-up obscured the actual text you were working on, which made it hard to scan for typos, to control pacing and flow, to essentially do any vetting or refining tasks, at all. And, the need to continually distinguish between mark-up and non-mark-up imposed a tiny cognitive processing burden, which was a distraction from the actual work of writing. So, I used to compose and refine in a text editor, and just paste into the editor to add mark-up as a final step. That was slow and kind of painful, and although it worked okay with new articles, it was pretty messy and problematic for existing articles. Now with VE, I can finally compose and refine in the editor and actually *see* the text, not obscured by wiki syntax. This is easier and faster, but I think the real gain is that it enables me, and presumably other writers, to actually *write* better. Yay! and thank you :-)
Hi Sue, thanks for your feedback. I actually think that some of your notes might be usefully added to existing bugs/features requests or VE-related pages, since there are a few remarks that look pretty new to me. I promise you, in a while you'll need VE for almost everything, I am finding out that I often don't seem to be able to add (wiki)links the old way anymore... --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with your third point – and with all templates, not just citation ones. It's like filling out a tax return, but every line is on its own page. -- Ypnypn (talk) 16:37, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Being a pedantic sort I checked your edit [14] and following bot edit [15] which fixed some minor problems introduced. The main one being the use of |origyear= rather than |year= in {{cite book}}. This was due to an error in the template data, with |origyear= being marked as "required", really it should be either |year= or |data= marked as required but to be even more pedantic neither are actually required just recommended (see Template:Bug).--Salix (talk): 17:05, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I had the Problem that while I was writing my Change Summary after editing the page I wasn't able to delete what I had previously written i.e. couldn't use delete or backspace. Tathbelin (talk) 20:27, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is Template:Bug which I've just had to reopen. I hadn't experienced it for a while, James closed it early this morning (UTC) but then I encountered it again a short while before your report here. Thryduulf (talk) 21:26, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This page is for feedback about the VisualEditor. To leave comments about a specific article, please use that article's talk page, although I recommend you phrase things a little softer as your language above reads to me as rather insulting to whomever drew the diagram that you think is wrong. Thryduulf (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This one isn't that major, but I've noticed that when editing in VE, the color of wikilinks and external links are the same. While the shades of blue are noticeably different when viewing an article, this pretty much disappears when editing an article. Like I said, it's not a big deal, but it is handy to be able to detect the difference between the links when editing an article.--¿3family6contribs23:37, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is a known issue. Template:Bug is tracking it along with redlinks not being red, etc. It doesn't have a target set, so I can't give you an estimate of when it will be fixed, sorry. Thryduulf (talk) 23:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Missing images do not appear in VE
The following discussion is marked as answered. If you have a new comment, place it just below the box.
Procedure: Go to this old revision of an article. Scroll down to the equipment section, and note that it includes an image which was deleted. Activate VE. Note that both the entire image box, including caption, are now invisible. When it comes to handling missing images, there are probably a dozen viable alternatives to this approach, all of which would be superior. --Cryptic C62 · Talk02:31, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way to list things in numerical order but non-consecutively. For instance, the credits of a music producer who only produced certain tracks on an album. Example: Tyshane. Also, it would be nice to be able to tell the editor to write "01" as opposed to "1". In the case of Tyshane, the track which I wanted to add was the first on the recording, but I still couldn't use VE's numbered list because that only lists "1", not "01". I ended up using User:John Vandenberg's switch editor to pull off this edit successfully.--¿3family6contribs02:59, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand your first sentence, sorry. But your second issue isn't possible with the source editor editor either, as VE produces the same wikitext for this - a line beginning with #. It would be certainly be useful to have this, but it isn't (initially) a VE issue I don't think. There is Template:Bug and Template:Bug which are sort of relevant. I've reported Template:Bug for this specific issue, but the numbers of the earlier bugs should give you a clue not to hold your breath for this functionality (they were both reported in 2005), sorry. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Forget the first part. I didn't realize you can indent the text and type whatever, which is how this type of numbering is done in the source editor.--¿3family6contribs12:45, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So someone added a book to a ==Further reading== section. Book #1 used a citation template. Book #2 did not. Neither had bullet list formatting.
Selecting them was hard. I ended up selecting the header, the template, and the plain-text citation. Then I clicked the 'list' button. Then I went back and repaired the formatting for the section heading. This isn't necessary, but it was easier than trying to figure out the exact stop to place the cursor. Here is the (correct) result.
But the display was odd. While I was in VE, the bullet for the first citation was at the start of the second line of the citation, not the first. It still displays this way now, if you just edit the page in VE. Has anyone else seen this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:36, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the display issue is Template:Bug. That's been sat unprioritised for over a month though so who knows when it will be fixed.
Sorry still working on to report the issues in the thread , so bringing it back from achive
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.
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]
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]
Thanks for all above replies.I will study and list problems for Marathi language VE+ULS environment here in a tabular form over couple of days
In normal speed typing,after we type first alphaabate cursor moves from right to left direction.Word marathi need to apear मराठी with VE+ULS instead is coming राठीम
Marathi language devanagari is written in left to right direction.But when we use ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण with VE cursor is moving in opposite direction as if we are typing a right to left script
VE+ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण (Non-VE source edit environ,ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण works normal
Uncalled for repetition of charecters please see the file image
After this problem some time backspace, delete keys and left and right arrow keys of the key board work some times, do not work many times
VE+ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण (Non-VE source edit environ,ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण works normal
Firefox+Win7
?
4
mr:अभिमन्यु and all other articles with text already present
Screen shot or diff Not possible without video recording itself of VE's moving self action
spell correction of any word eats up text on right side until you press space bar
उदाहरण
VE+ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण (Non-VE source edit environ,ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण works normal
Firefox+Win7
?
5
Any random selected article on mr-wikipedia
Wont be defficult to provide screen shots , Still need more usage pattern observation before providing screenshots to provide steps to reproduce
Where text is already present,Along with any of above problems, Some times edited aspect is shown in edit window but does not reflect in edit preview
Probably problem arises when we insert any additional charecters or word between two existing words in a sentence.I suppose this would be easy to reproduce.
VE+ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण (Non-VE source edit environ,ULS Method of input = अक्षरांतरण works normal
Firefox+Win7
?
6
Any random selected article on mr-wikipedia
Image to be provided
If for spelling correction purposes only few charecters within any word are selected and replaced with other charecter of same or lesser length, without movement of arrow keys or spacebar, save button does not get enabled, so effectively we would not be able to save the change
Behaviour seems to be indirectly related to above point 5 testing for the same going on
7
all articles
Do we need image for this
need enabling ULS input in Link,Reference,Category and template edit-windows
उदाहरण
Following most required marathi language typing pattern produces marathi sentense as given below in ULS input अक्षरांतरण (transliteration) using roman engilsh "qwerty" key board in traditional wikisource editing; The target for VisualEditor team is the same to happen smoothly for VisualEditor+ ULS input अक्षरांतरण (transliteration) environment.
most required marathi language typing pattern example
Thank you, Mahitgar. This is really helpful and will be a core part of the set of issues I will take to the office during a visit mid September. I feel the relation between VE and ULS will stay with us longer than the format of this feedback page permits. Therefore, I suggest to move the topic to my talk page; where I'm automatically notified in case you expand your findings there and we don't have to rely on Elitre for pings - although she does an excellent job in keeping the issue high up my radar :). Beyond Mr.WP itself, I'm also perfectly prepared to take on board issues you find on Hi.WP or generally VE bugs across Indian language projects you see as critical and feel they should be highlighted by me. Best regards, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
references icon will add the <references /> block.
