Manual talk:External editors

The following discussion has been transferred from Meta-Wiki.
Any user names refer to users of that site, who are not necessarily users of MediaWiki.org (even if they share the same username).

Use It's All Text! to invoke an external editor (e.g., gvim)

If you use Firefox 2 under Linux and are used to vim (or similar editor), there is a great tool to invoke an external editor called It's All Text, which is very easy to install and to use.

For more details, see the wiki page Text editor support, and in particular the link It's All Text, which is a Firefox addon. It just take one click to download and install in Firefox. You then need to close all Firefox windows and restart again to activate this addon.

Next, you need to specify the path to your editor. There are two ways to bring up the Preferences window: (0) Switch to edit mode by clicking the Edit tab of a wiki page, or use the shortcut Shift+Alt+e, with the "accesskey" being Shift+Alt (in some other systems, the "accesskey" may be the Alt key; see Keyboard shortcuts for more details), then (1) Right click in the textarea; a dropdown menu will appear; move the cursor to It's All Text for another dropdown menu, and select Preferences at the bottom of this menu; or (2) Right click at the little button "Edit" at the lower-right corner of the textarea window. The path to your editor can be put in the Editor box of the Preferences window.

To invoke vim, you need to use the graphical gvim, and thus put the path /usr/bin/gvim in the Editor box of the Preferences window. Putting /usr/bin/vim will not work.

Once the above is done, to edit a wiki page, switch to Edit mode (as mentioned above) to bring up the textarea, and click at the little Edit button at the lower-right corner of the textarea.

After editing, you can save (write) the current file in gvim by pressing :w, then toggle back to the textarea of the wiki page (by pressing Alt+Tab if you use xfce or other desktop environments); you would see the textarea background turned yellow briefly, meaning that the textarea had been just modified.

I tested all of my vim macros developed for vim for use in editing latex files, html files, etc. All of these vim macros worked.

To preview what you have just edited, just toggle back to the wiki window (by pressing Alt+Tab if you use xfce), then type Shift+Alt+p. If you want to continue to see what you have edited, go back to the previous textarea before the preview by pressing Alt+LeftArrow to get your firefox to display the previous page.

There should be a link to Text editor support in the current wiki page Help:External editors to give users more choices of how to set up an external editor.

Vql 11:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

How to install

This seems so great. I wish there were simply a link like how to install this in windows xp + gimp or photoshop: download this file and run but this ain´t so much user friendly is it? --alexandre van de sande

No - it's a reference implementation; I'm hoping someone from the Windows world writes a pretty, super-easy implementation at some point. To use this one, you'll have to follow the installation instructions here.--Eloquence 02:14, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

something news? A simple, easy, standalone application for windows? --Lastwebpage 20:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Anyone gotten this working in OS X 10.4? If so, how? ;D --ericg

Yup, have a look #ee.pl on Mac OS X. -- JVinocur 15:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Until someone writes the nice easy to use Windows version, would a perlcc compilation work? I guess the resulting executable might be pretty large. Zeimusu

Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0x4f)!
Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0x50)!
Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0xc7)!
Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0xc8)!
Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0xc9)!
Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0xca)!
Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0xcb)!
The program 'ee.pl' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadAtom (invalid Atom parameter)'.
  (Details: serial 205 error_code 5 request_code 18 minor_code 0)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

I got this error as well, and it went away when I made sure that the helper applications defined in the ee.ini file pointed to programs that actually existed on my system (the default settings use programs I don't have). Maybe that will work for you. If it does, maybe this should be something the script could warn about. -- JVinocur 15:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

...also, I get this error if there's no Editor at all defined for a given filetype. It turns out that the comparison of file extensions is case sensitive, which means that the default configuration fails for things like JPG. Rather than add all the different permutations to the config file, I just patched ee.pl itself to do case-insensitive comparisons:

--- /Users/jeff/bin/ee.pl.orig  2006-04-23 01:20:10.000000000 -0400
+++ /Users/jeff/bin/ee.pl       2006-04-23 01:20:15.000000000 -0400
@@ -222,7 +222,7 @@
 foreach $extensionlist(@extensionlists) {
        @exts=split(",",$extensionlist);
        foreach $extensionfromlist(@exts) {
-               if ($extensionfromlist eq $ext) { 
+               if (lc $extensionfromlist eq lc $ext) { 
                        $app=$cfg->val("Editors",$extensionlist);
                }
        }

-- JVinocur 05:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Would someone add a note to the page indicating whether this currently works under Linux, UNIX, Windows, or Mac OS? Right now it looks like it will work on any computer, but a novice user would be completely baffled by the instructions. en:User:Mzajac

Bookmarklet for text editing: could that example be explained in more det?

Hello

could that example with the bookmarklet be explained a little more in detail pls? This script has to be save as a file, or how it this supposed to work.

thanks

Uwe Brauer

Could someone link to the download for this script please?

Bookmarklets are quite similar to normal bookmarks in your web-browser, with the exception that they don't point to an ordinary URL, but contain some javascript commands, that will be performing some useful action if executed. So if you click the bookmark(let), you won't navigate your browser to some web-page, but will execute the javascript.

To create the example bookmarklet from this page for you, all you have to do is the following:

1. create a new bookmark in your web-browser
2. enter something meaningful into the name (or title) field, maybe: WikiMedia external editing
3. copy the bookmarklet's code into the address field, where you normally would have an URL (somethig like: http://www.example.com/):
   javascript:location=location + '?action=edit&externaledit=true';
4. save your newly created bookmark(let) - it's ready for use now.

To use that bookmarklet, simply click it while viewing any wiki-page and your broweser will recieve the control file for external editing of that page.

What happens, if you click the bookmarklet and execute the javascript code it contains:

The code takes the curent contents of your browser's address-bar (which will probably be something like: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help_talk:External_editors), concats it with ?action=edit&externaledit=true and puts the result (which will be something like: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help_talk:External_editors?action=edit&externaledit=true) back into your browser's address-bar, causing him to navigate to that new URL.

Hope, my explanation helps clarifying things a bit. -- mIstA 17:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

PPD error

Hi, I'm install perl on windows and get error after typing install Encode

following is a print out.

E:\Perl\bin>ppm
PPM - Programmer's Package Manager version 3.2.
Copyright (c) 2001 ActiveState Corp. All Rights Reserved.
ActiveState is a division of Sophos.

Entering interactive shell. Using Term::ReadLine::Perl as readline library.

Type 'help' to get started.

ppm> install Config-IniFiles
====================
Install 'Config-IniFiles' version 2.38 in ActivePerl 5.8.7.813.
====================
Downloaded 32439 bytes.
Extracting 5/5: blib/arch/auto/Config/IniFiles/.exists
Installing E:\Perl\html\site\lib\Config\IniFiles.html
Installing E:\Perl\site\lib\Config\IniFiles.pm
Successfully installed Config-IniFiles version 2.38 in ActivePerl 5.8.7.813.
ppm> install Encode
Error: PPD for 'Encode.ppd' could not be found.
ppm>

what's wrong with it? Moses 08:12, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

-- I don't think you need to install Encode - it should come as part of your core perl installation. It's complaining that it can't find the module in your repository, and that's because it doesn't exist as a module! :)

I get the same error in Windows XP. The instructions say this, though:

2) Open a command line window and type

    ppm
    
   Now type the following commands:
     
    install Config-IniFiles
    install Encode
    rep add Gtk http://gtk2-perl.sourceforge.net/win32/ppm/
    install Gtk2

— Omegatron 23:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Installation for non-root user

The install file reads:

 == Installation under Unix ==
 1) Install Perl if required, www.perl.com is your friend
 2) Become Root and run the CPAN shell with
   perl -MCPAN -e shell

Is there a way to install the extension if I don't have root access to my server? --Jcarroll 05:42, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

file:// and Firefox

Firefox behave diferently for:

• firefox -remote "openURL(file:///tmp/preview.html)"
• firefox -remote "openURL(/tmp/preview.html)"

The first will open a new window or tab.

The second will reuse the same window/tab.

I used this feature in ee.pl to avoid it opening new previews tab in the browser :-)

Editing via Email

Could this method be usઇed along with a script on a server to allow pages to be updated via email? I'm not talking about adding pages or anything complicated like that.

Not really, it'd be easier to write an email-to-wiki gateway using the api, than using this interface. Bawolff (talk) 12:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

For each wiki you want to use ee.pl with, add an entry like this to ee.ini:

[MediaWiki] URL match=//www.mediawiki.org/w Username=(MyUsername) Password=(MyPassword)

This is necessary so people can log in – it does not know your password otherwise! Note that if you are active on many wikis, such as multiple Wikipedia languages editions, and you use the same username and password, you can simply use something like "wikipedia.org" or "wikimedia.org" with this authentication information as the URL match pattern (or indeed ".org" if you only intend to access these sites). An example generic entry:

Generic] URL match=edia.org Username=(MyUsername) Password=(MyPassword)

ee.pl on Mac OS X

I've managed to get ee.pl running on Mac OS X. It's even more complex than the regular install, but it can be done if you're a little bit comfortable using the commandline. (This is OS 10.4, but it probably would work on the past couple major versions at least.)

Note: There is an issue (At least for me) dealing with FireFox (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3) and sites using Apache's rewrite rulesManual:Short URL. It seems apparent when you attempt to save and open a page that has a ":" (colon) in the name. Since a colon is the directory separator in Mac OS X, FireFox will not rename the temp file it uses to download the control file to the proper name then it does not appear to call ee.pl with the proper name. As if it sees the colon, silently fails the rename and doesn't continue to process. It appears to be a FireFox bug. Both Mac OS X and ee.pl can handle a file with a colon in the name (not recommended). I have not tried Safari nor forcing a content-disposition[1] header in MediaWiki to serialize the filename (Requires hacking the code). I will advise when I do. (Sukima 13:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC))

1. You probably want to have /Applications/Utilities/Console.app running throughout this (and displaying console.log), since useful error messages can appear there.
2. Put ee.pl in your ~/bin/ directory, and create ~/.ee-helper/ and put ee.ini there.
3. Install some extras off your OS install media, if you don't already have them:
   • The developer tools
   • Apple's X11.app (or some other X11, if you don't like Apple's)
4. Install Fink, and get these packages:
   • gtk+2
   • glib2
   • And possibly others, if you get error messages later. (I already had a ton of packages installed, so it's hard to know which ones are truly required. I suspect gtk+2-dev and glib2-dev may be needed.)
5. Perl stuff:
   • A recent version of Perl is already installed on your system.
   • The LWP and Encode packages are already installed as well (at least on 10.4).
   • Run sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell to enter the CPAN interactive environment, and run these commands:
     1. install Config::IniFiles
     2. install ExtUtils::Depends
     3. install ExtUtils::PkgConfig
     4. install Glib
     5. install Gtk2
   • At this point, test your setup: open up an xterm inside X11.app and try running ee.pl (with no arguments) and hopefully see a graphical error message pop up. If you don't, examine the output you see and try to figure out if it's complaining about Gtk-related problems (try to find the missing components via Fink) or Perl-related problems (try to find the missing components via Fink first, since some Perl stuff is available there, or via CPAN).
6. Now, if all you want to do is use tools that run inside of X11, you should be set. However, you probably want to use native OS X applications for your browser and perhaps even your editors, and that's the tricky part, because OS X doesn't silently mix commandline and graphical applications.
   • Take a look at the helper applications defined in ee.ini and adjust anything you like. You'll need to use OS X's open command as an intermediary if you want to use any native graphical applications (ones you can launch from the Finder):
     • Use Browser=open "$url" to let it pick your default system web browser, or something like Browser=open -a Safari "$url" to force a different one.
     • For the [Editors] section, simply identify the application you'd like, for example:
       • wiki=open -a TextEdit (a native application)
       • wiki=/usr/X11R6/bin/xedit (an application that runs inside of X11)
   • At this point, test your setup:
     1. Download a control file (for example, the one for Meta:Sandbox and save it to disk (say, in your Desktop folder).
     2. Start X11.app and run in an xterm: ~/bin/ee.pl ~/Desktop/Meta:Sandbox
     3. You should be able to make changes in whatever editor you configured, save them to your local copy, and use the ee.pl window (in X11.app) to preview in your web browser and/or save changes back to the wiki.
   • Finally, you have to set up your web browser's MIME type handling. In the unlikely event you use a browser that runs in X11.app, just configure it to use ~/bin/ee.pl as your helper application for application/x-external-editor. However, you probably want to use a native web browser, and to do that you need to make a graphical wrapper:
     1. Save the OSXee.sh script (below) in your ~/bin.
     2. Download DropScript and use it to make a graphical version of OSXee.sh (by default it will be called DropOSXee). Put DropOSXee in your Applications folder.
     3. At this point, test your setup: in the Finder, drag the Meta:Sandbox control file (that you downloaded above) onto the DropOSXee icon, and the ee.pl window should appear in X11.app.
     4. Configure your browser to use DropOSXee as your helper application for application/x-external-editor.
        • Most browsers have this in their preferences/configuration somewhere. Safari, however, uses the operating system's mappings, and to adjust them you need to install RCDefaultApp into your System Preferences application and modify the MIME types there.

I think that's everything. Let me know if you have trouble. -- JVinocur 15:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

OSXee.sh

#!/bin/sh

. /sw/bin/init.sh               # get the Fink-modified PERL5LIB variable

if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ]; then      
    export DISPLAY=:0           # make windows appear in X11.app
fi

exec $HOME/bin/ee.pl "$@"

Extension

Somebody should make an extension for mozilla so users can easily use external editors. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.198.164.74 (talk • contribs) 25 April 2006.

Well, anybody can use the existing ee.pl with any browser (simply by modifying the helper app configuration), so I'm not sure what mozilla-specific things you're imagining an extension would be needed for. -- JVinocur 13:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

An extension to replace ee.pl, for the vast majority of editors who don't know how to or want to deal with it. — Omegatron 00:01, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The installation instructions as they currently stand are totally unintelligible. I followed them to the letter and it didn't work. I suspect that only someone who already knows how to do such things can successful make this work, which makes the instructions useless. If only there were simply a Firefox extension that I could install. 61.68.147.153 03:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I followed the instructions in Windows. I was going to submit my ee.ini file as the default for Windows installations, but the whole thing doesn't work anyway. You need to clarify that filenames with spaces need to be in quotes, for one thing. Still doesn't work, though. GIMP crashes, even, saying there's a problem with the PNG plugin? It needs to print debug information. — Omegatron 17:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Ooh! I got it to work for SVGs. — Omegatron 18:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

And gimp with gimp-win-remote so it doesn't re-open GIMP. — Omegatron 18:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind. I got it to work in XP. I'd like to upload the files to make it easier for others to use. — Omegatron 19:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

On Ubuntu

I just installed ee.pl on a Ubuntu Dapper machine, and I had the following message:

Can't locate LWP/UserAgent.pm in @INC [..]

This is because the LWP module wasn't installed. It is in the libwww-perl package. Once this package installed, it worked just fine. 87.81.24.23 19:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Same on Gentoo Linux. LWP here is another package - Light weight process library (used by Coda). Shoudn't it be noted in install instructions that dependency LWP on some distros (at least Gentoo and Ubuntu, probably more) belongs to libwww-perl? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.219.73.4 (talk • contribs) .

Run cpan, and execute i libwww-perl (and continue installing packages that are needed, it may take a while). -- ReyBrujo 12:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Windows ini file

To get this running on Windows XP:

It wasn't immediately clear that I actually had to edit the ee.pl file. You do. Just change the one line, as per the instructions, to make it look like this:

ee.pl

...

# By default, config will be searched for in your Unix home directory 
# (e.g. ~/.ee-helper/ee.ini). Change path of the configuration file if needed!
#
# Under Windows, set to something like 
#   $cfgfile='c:\ee\ee.ini'; 
# (note single quotes!)
$cfgfile='C:\ee\ee.ini';

...

And an example .ini file with the same Free programs as in the original implementation would look like this:

ee.ini

[Settings]
# Where should we store our downloaded data? Note that this isn't pruned
# currently.  
# (This directory must already exist.)
Temp Path=C:\WINDOWS\Temp

# Which browser should be used? The $url will be subsituted with the URL
# of whatever we want to look at. The browser should support the file://
# URL syntax.
Browser="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" $url

# Should the file be loaded in the browser after being saved? This is 
# highly recommended, but requires the Browser variable above to be set.
Browse after save=true

# Is there an external diffing tool you want to use?
Diff="C:\Program Files\KDiff3\kdiff3.exe"

# Should UTF-8 text pages be transformed into iso8859-1 before loading them
# in an editor? This is good for a wiki which contains only a few specal
# characters and for users whose editors don't support UTF-8.
Transcode UTF-8=false

# Should pages be watched by default? (Equivalent to the setting in your
# MediaWiki user preferences.)
Watch default=false

# Should edits be checked as minor by default? (Equivalent to the setting
# in your MediaWiki user preferences.)
Minor edit default=false

[Editors]
# A bunch of extensions (separated by ,), followed up by the application you 
# want to associate them with.
jpg,png,gif,jpeg="C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin\gimp-win-remote.exe" gimp-2.2.exe
ogg,mp3,wav="C:\Program Files\Audacity\audacity.exe"
svg="C:\Program Files\Inkscape\inkscape.exe"
wiki="C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe"

#
# SITE DEFINITIONS
# Here we define usernames and passwords for different wikis. 
# Each site should follow the form
#
# [Site name]
# URL match=<something that is part of the URL>
# Username=<your username>
# Password=<your passwords>
#
[Testwiki]
URL match=edia.org
Username=wikipedian
Password=passwordgoeshere

— Omegatron 19:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't work with Image:Function x^2.svg, though. Something about the special character not being escaped correctly. — Omegatron 19:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Login error

Please help me! I always get login error when I'm doing the login with ee.pl. Here's the error:

Could not login to 
http://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speciale:Userlogin&action=submitlogin 
with username 'Pietrodn' and password 'hiddenpass'.

Make sure you have a definition for this website in your ee.ini, and that
the 'URL match=' part of the site definition contains a string that is part
of the URL above.

And there is my configuration section for Wikipedia:

[Wikipedia]
URL match=pedia.org
Username=Pietrodn
Password=hiddenpass

I use Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. I tried to print the response of the HTTP server and it's 501 (not implemented).

Pietrodn · talk with me 18:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Minor problem with Firefox

When using Firefox under Ubuntu, whenever I try to edit externally I get a message that reads

/tmp-1 could not be saved, because you cannot change the contents of that folder. Change the folder properties and try again, or try saving in a different location.

This is a Firefox problem, I am aware, and running Firefox as root solves this problem. I am guessing it is a misconfiguration somewhere, but I have not been able to find the issue. Has anyone experienced something similar? Apparently, the article name is missing somehow (thus it tries to save it at /tmp-1 because /tmp exists), while running as root it saves correctly (in example, /tmp/User:ReyBrujo or /tmp/User:ReyBrujo-1 if the former already exists). And yes, I am asking in some Firefox places for advice as well. Thanks! -- ReyBrujo 05:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

problem with uploading

I've got EE.pl running sucessfully. It launches the appropriate app and edits the file. However, when I try to save to the server, it just hangs. Firefox does launch (as it's my browse after save browser) but the upload never seems to occur. There' no error messages or anything. Eventually the perl interpretter just crashes.

I turned on debugging, but that only gives a copy of the process file, which looks as I'd expect it to.

I should mention that the server is running on https. Is this a problem for posting but not getting?

The next section may help you. It is self-explanatory.--Oibane 08:35, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

A patch for handling UTF-8 pagename

Hi. Let me propose a patch. In fact, I've sent it to Erik Möller, the author, but there's no response. Who maintains it now? Let me quote the e-mail I sent.

I've written a patch for ee.pl, the external editor helper. In summary, it is necessary for utf-8 pagename handling. I believe it is harmless for non-utf8 cases.

In detail, the patch does two things; when the pagename is in utf-8:

1. (an aesthetical problem) The pagename was not correctly displayed in GUI. To fix it, I added "Encode::decode()".

2. (a critical issue) It was impossible to submit the new content for "Edit text" mode. (I have not tried the other modes.) It was really incredible, but "open"ing the temporary file the second time for reading (I mean, open(TEXT,"<$unixtempdir/".$filename)) always failed. The file existence test "-e" also failed. (I use Linux and perl-5.8.8, but I doubt it matters. Usual utf-8 filename opening/closing in perl causes no problem.)

As a solution, a new variable "fullpath_perl" is introduced, but I don't know why it works. ;-)

 --- ee.pl.orig	2006-12-02 20:47:48.000000000 +0900
 +++ ee.pl	2006-12-03 21:57:57.000000000 +0900
 @@ -207,9 +207,12 @@
  	
  	# decode HTML entities
  	HTML::Entities::decode($text);
 
 +	$fullpath_perl = "$unixtempdir/" . $filename;
 +	$label_string = Encode::decode("utf-8", $filename);
 +
  	# Flush the raw text of the page to the disk
 -	open(OUTPUT,">$unixtempdir/".$filename);
 +	open(OUTPUT,">", $fullpath_perl);
  	select OUTPUT; $|=1; select STDOUT;
  	print OUTPUT $text;
  	close(OUTPUT);
 @@ -278,7 +281,7 @@
  # Cancel: Quit ee.pl
  #
  sub makegui {
 -	$title_label = Gtk2::Label->new($filename);
 +	$title_label = Gtk2::Label->new($label_string);
  
  	$vbox = Gtk2::VBox->new;
  	$hbox = Gtk2::HBox->new;
 @@ -386,7 +389,7 @@
  		} 
  	# Save text back to the server & load in browser
  	} elsif($type eq "Edit text") {	
 -		open(TEXT,"<$unixtempdir/".$filename);
 +		open(TEXT,"<" , $fullpath_perl);
  		$/=undef;
  		while(<TEXT>) {
  			$text=$_;

--Oibane 08:35, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I had the same problem on Linux/Debian Etch and your patch works fine. Nevertheless I still cannot save modified pages despite previewing works. I suspect EditTime and Tokens be the origin because I spied the network and both actions seem to send correct POST data to the MediaWiki engine... (NB: my MediaWiki version is 1.5)

-- JM. Philippe 10:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about

could someone tell me how to do all this, because I have no idea what a MIME file type is, or how to do this. It would also be a good idea to clean up this page, so that others like me won't have the same problem. If it helps, I have Firefox v.2.

ChrisDHDR 09:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not look it up?

After all, if I'm not mistaken, this is the Internets.

Oh and speaking of "looking it up", have you heard of a cool site called Wikipedia?

Things that make you go hummm... --Angrykeyboarder 04:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE make perfectly transparent!

I second what ChrisDHDR says: I am sitting here browsing with Firefox v.3. There is a an image on Wikipedia that I'd like to edit. The article says I can do this. It does not tell me how to do so in a step-by-step way. Saying that someone should go read another article on a generic topic (MIME types) is a way of saying that this article doesn't provide or link to the necessary instructions. Someone please write or link to instructions for your non-geek mom or dad, not for the developer in the neighboring cubical. I'm sure that the article contains what I need to know, but it needs to be restated in fully transparent way: IF browser = foo THEN DO (1); (2); (3); (4); END ELSEIF.... The END is important. Write instruction code using the parental-virtual-machine instruction set. I thank you in advance for making a small yet very high-leverage contribution to the future of Wikipedia and its kin. 67.117.145.210 00:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Another problem

I had to change it to Browser=/usr/bin/firefox to get it to work in Ubuntu. — Omegatron 04:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A new version is needed

There a lot of problems with ee.pl; this page lists many. A better error check and reporting, file parsing, and Perl's "use strict" could help to avoid the most common problems that beginners have.

The latest version of ee.pl is according to [2] of September 2005. Is there still someone to maintain the script? If not, someone has to take the role and include all the patches in a new version.

--85.216.120.151 20:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

MIME

Perhaps this is just me being ignorant(it usually is), but I do not have MIME type file extension in my list of Firefox associations and I don't know how to add it in. Is this addressed somewhere? Thanks--an embarrassed user who would rather remain nameless — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.250.185.214 (talk • contribs)

MIMI is just a common name for "mime types". You are supposed to create a new MIME type application/x-external-editor. — Alex Smotrov 15:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Firefox 2.0 on linux

To get to the "Download Actions" dialog, instead of Tools→Options, use Edit→Preferences. I think this should be added to the list of different operations in different browsers. Shambler 20:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Scratch that, no use - you can't configure it this way in the Linux Firefox. Shambler 20:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, same on FreeBSD. On Unix systems Firefox uses mailcap (why they bothered having a dialog box that doesn't work baffles me). So you need something like this in your /etc/mailcap or your ~/.mailcap and it should work:

application/x-external-editor;/usr/bin/ee.pl %s

HTH, Lewis Collard! (talk, en, commons) 16:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Versioning Issue?

I've been seeing clearly altered images on the Mars Opportunity Rover page, but nothing I can find in the image histories indicates they were altered, het I don't believe such clearly hoaxed images were uploaded in their preset state. It seems to me that one explanation is that the history/version system isn't recording edits through this method, and thus I can't revert those images.

Bad recomendation in terms of security

There's a curious thing nearly at the bottom of the page: "Less is more! [...] adding the whole URL often causes an error".

I definitely think this is a very bad recommendation in terms of security. If a person has another wiki at meta.wickipedia.org, this thing would send your real pass, wouldn't it?

--138.100.10.182 14:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Поддержку для Встраивания

Кеннет Kasajian говорит: что было бы здорово, существует разделение между файл изображения и файл, исходный файл изображения. Я, например, хотите, чтобы файл изображения будет PNG-файл, созданный из файла Visio, но я также хочу, чтобы хранить связанные Visio файл в том же хранилище данных. Потом, я хочу, чтобы иметь возможность нажать на изображение в вики, иметь его запустить Visio, где я его редактировать, сохраните оригинальный файл и сохранить как PNG.

End of content from meta.wikimedia.org.
Note that the above conversation may have been edited or added to since the transfer. If in doubt, check the edit history.

Can't login when using domains (ie. ldap authentication)

I can't login since I'm using multiple domains in my mediawiki installation. I've fixed it for myself by setting the domain in ee.pl, line 172-173:

$response=$browser->post($login_url,@ns_headers,
Content=>[wpName=>$username,wpPassword=>$password,wpDomain=>"mydomain",wpRemember=>"1",wpLoginAttempt=>"Log in"]);

Could be handy to set this in ee.ini file... would do it myself but I don't master perl :(

-- Arnaud Loonstra 194.121.231.241 10:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Where is "See the setup instructions for more information"?

We have 1.11 installed. Our image pages contain a link

See the setup instructions for more information.

but that page (in Help: namespace) says it has been moved here (Manual: namespace). How do I change the text in my wiki to link to the correct URL at Manual:External editors ? I can't find it in my MediaWiki namespace, although I do have MediaWiki:Uploadtext

--DavidBiesack 19:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

How to make this works in Chrome?

Chrome does not have MIME addon. So how to make this works in Chrome? -- Mosesofmason 16:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

IE8 - please help

I'm afraid I don't understand what the "helper application" is, nor, therefore, how to associate .php files with it. Can anyone shed some light on my quandary? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 17:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Problem installing gtk2-perl

Hi, I'm trying to install ee.pl but I have an error when installing gtk2:

#1
C:\>ppm rep add Gtk http://gtk2-perl.sourceforge.net/win32/ppm/
Downloading Gtk packlist...not found
Downloading Gtk packlist...not found
Downloading Gtk packlist...done
Downloading Gtk ExtUtils-Depends PPD...done
Downloading Gtk ExtUtils-PkgConfig PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Glib-1.043 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Glib-1.060 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Glib-1.062-MSWin32-AP586 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Glib-1.100 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Glib-1080 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Glib PPD...forbidden
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-1.043 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-1.060 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-1.062-MSWin32-AP586 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-1.100 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-1080 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-GladeXML-1.004 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-GladeXML-1.005 PPD...done
Downloading Gtk Gtk2-GladeXML PPD...forbidden
Downloading Gtk Gtk2 PPD...forbidden
Repo 2 added.

C:\>ppm install Gtk2
ppm install failed: Can't find any package that provides Gtk2

#2
C:\>ppm repo add http://www.lostmind.de/gtk2-perl/ppm/
Downloading www.lostmind.de packlist...not found
Downloading www.lostmind.de packlist...done
Updating www.lostmind.de database...done
Repo 3 added.

C:\>ppm install Gtk2
ppm install failed: Can't find any package that provides Gtk2

#3
C:\>
C:\>ppm repo add http://voltar.org/active/5.8/
Downloading voltar.org packlist...done
Updating voltar.org database...done
Repo 4 added.

C:\>ppm install Gtk2
ppm install failed: Can't find any package that provides Gtk2

Can you help me? Thanks--B3t 13:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Nobody can help me?--B3t 10:20, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I had the same prblem with a newer Version of Perl (5.12.x) I tried Perl 5.8.9 and it worked without any errors...

FYI: External editing with ee.pl is broken in MW 1.15.4

See:

• Mediawiki-l thread

Platonides filed two bugs:

• Bug report 23764 ( Update ee.pl ways)
• Bug report 23765 ( External editor login broken by csrf fix )

- Daniel K. Schneider 15:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Bug 23765 is fixed so it should work again. You need the latest version to work with MW 1.15.3 and higher. Bawolff 02:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

It does work indeed (tested with my MW 1.16.0's) ! Great many many thanxs, Bawolff ! This will make my wiki editing efficient again :)

Users: all you need to do is to replace the old with the new ee.pl

- Daniel K. Schneider 12:35, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Ubuntu 10.04, Gimp

Hi. I have followed the steps on this page, but when I click in the edit links (for example [3]) I see this error:

Could not login to 
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Especial:Userlogin&action=submitlogin 
with username 'Emijrp' and password '********'.

Make sure you have a definition for this website in your ee.ini, and that
the 'URL match=' part of the site definition contains a string that is part
of the URL above.

My ee.ini contains "URL match=edia.org". Any tip? Is it due to new Vector skin? Thanks. Emijrp 09:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

See the paragraph above. It should be fixed now (as of about half an hour ago) but you need the latest verion of ee.pl. Bawolff 02:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

XExternalEditor

1. I wrote the Java Program XExternalEditor that works like the ee.pl script. It represent a GUI where you can upload the file you edited back to the wiki.
2. Why is the description i posted a long time ago gone?
3. The project is started again @http://sourceforge.net/projects/xexternaleditor

Excellent, this feature is in desperate need of an implementation that is easier for the average end user. I don't know why your description was removed. I don't see anything that looks like it when looking through the edit summaries. Maybe you added it to the old meta version of this page or something. Feel free to flesh out what I added. Bawolff 01:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Is this application currently expected to function correctly with (English) Wikipedia? I just attempted to use it on the Wikipedia sandbox and encountered two major issues. Firstly, "Wikipedia:Sandbox" was stripped to "Wikipedia Sandbox" (no colon), and secondly, "previews" were written directly to the article--that is to say, they were edits, not previews. Did not work out so well. - 58.175.76.199 14:58, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I reported the bug with the preview today. An where it stripped the colon? In the filename? Then it is OK, becuase windows tke no colon in the filename. --Fg68at 13:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

And now it is functioning. --Fg68at 09:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

XExternalEditor Java program does not show preview suddenly and stops working to upload. Any idea? --Yjenith (talk) 11:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Mime Types on a Mac

• You can use this tool to edit Mime Types on a Mac RCDefaultApp. It works fine on OS X 10.7 Lion.

XExternalEditor Java program does not show preview

XExternalEditor Java program does not show preview suddenly and stops working to upload. Please help --Yjenith (talk) 16:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

External editor application for OSX

Hey, I've been editing for a while, and I've found it rather annoying to keep having to click the "preview" button, waiting for the page to load, and then scrolling all the way down the page to get back to the editing window every time I want to check if a wikilink worked or a formatting change showed up the way I intended. I've gathered that the only way to simultaneously view a preview of the page and the editing window is to use an external editor for my edits. I'm running OSX mountain lion and Firefox 17, and I've already installed It's All Text!, so now I just need to find an external editing app that suits my needs. Can anyone recommend one? Thanks Rob Hurt (talk) 20:02, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

For the external editor feature, your best bet is probably ee.pl, but be prepared for hard setup. Honestly it sounds like you're more after some sort of AJAX live preview or even just open preview in a new window. Having the "preview" button open in a new window (leaving your current window alone) is possible with javascript (unfortunately i don't have a code snippet handy). Bawolff (talk) 23:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm just looking for the easiest effective option. Any advice on how I can actually set it up? Rob Hurt (talk) 16:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Changing "Process/Type" in control file ?

Hi,

I was wondering if it was possible to have more values for the Process/Type field in the control file ? Currently, it's limited to "Edit text", "Edit file" or "Diff text", probably depending on the action on the page, but I'd like to have more options. Or an extra field to be more specific on what to do with the page.

I think of developing external editor feature in my tool, WPCleaner, but I have 2 different editors depending on what you want to do on the page :

• Analyze a page to fix disambiguation links, check wiki errors, spelling, typography, ...
• Working on a disambiguation page to fix all the pages that are linking to it.

I was hoping to be able to add a parameter to the URL for external edit (something like externaledit=true&externaleditaction=analysis) that would be passed into the control file. Is it possible ?

Thanks, --NicoV (talk) 09:01, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Contradiction

The begining of this article states "this is accomplished using a _very simple_ system" [my emphasis added]. 15 minutes and a dozen steps later I reach a point where I encounter the statement: "It is written in Perl and may be difficult to set up.""

Someone appears to be unclear on the concept of what "simple" actually means.

External editors no longer supported

It appears that external editors are no longer supported at all, meaning that the url suffix ?action=edit&externaledit=true no longer causes a prompt for a download of a control file. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island?action=edit&externaledit=true

Am I making the correct assumption? Heyzeuss (talk) 11:43, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the functionality has been removed. See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7092#c4 --24.64.164.166 21:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

That photo is not of me, signed Elizabeth Pareker composer

The message that this feature should no longer be used is clear. However, the user that finds this page is left standing in the dark as what to do instead. 137.224.252.10 16:00, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I imagine it might be possible to replicate this functionality using a greasemonkey script in firefox. --24.64.164.166 21:09, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

No control file specified

I have Mediawiki 1.16.2 on my localhost on Windows 7

Installed everything and set up configuration file path $cfgfile='c:\ee\ee.ini';

But when I push the button ee in any wikipage it opens the GUI window and says

"No control file specified.
Syntax: perl ee.pl <control file>\n",

When changed the path to $cfgfile="c:\ee\ee.ini"; (note different quotation marks)

it shows

"c:(some sign)e(some sign)e.ini could not be found.
Please move the configuration file (ee.ini) there, or edit ee.pl
and point the variable $cfgfile to proper location. 

Tried different ways to write the path but it is not working anyway giving me messages like these above or closing immediately.

The file ee.ini is where it should be (I even cut and pasted the path into File Explorer address bar and it opens this ini file in Notepad).

I know perl very little. What can I do?

MediaWiki preferences

"In your personal MediaWiki preferences you can set up external editing as a default edit action: Preferences → Editing → 'Use external editor by default'."

The Preferences page does not even contain the word "external".

Add update on why feature was removed?

1. Should a more user-friendly explanation outlining why this feature was removed (besides the existing 'gerrit' link) be included?
2. Relatedly, should any modern (i.e. circa 2022) alternatives be included?

- Jim Grisham (talk) 17:16, 16 August 2022 (UTC)