VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive/2012/06

Upload and Insert Images in one step

Brilliant work! It still lacks some tools, like insert images, videos, audio and documents (pdf, xls, etc) Insert an image or any file from our computer is a complicated process in mediawiki. For common people is almost impossible.

It is so different to the that people get used to in windows and mac applications. In mediawiki you have to click on a link at the sidebar (not in the Editor toolbar) to upload. After that, you have to copy the file name and close the dialog. Then you click in the button to insert. Then you substitute the "File:Example.jpg" by the name previouly copied.

Compare this to the way Wordpress 3.3.1 Editor implemented. They made it so easy to insert images in one single button, one single step! Why don't you use that code? It is well written and it is free. With a few changes you could use that stable and tested code to quickly implement a very useful feature to Visual Editor.

The step by stepUpload Wizard with image copyright may be good for Wikipedia, but is an extension of unnecessary complexity, useless in many other wikis like the one I am developing for fifty thousand users in an intranet environment.

Upload and insert images should be as simple as Wordpress implemented so well in their visual editor.

I personally agree that on the design and user-interface level, Wordpress has done some great work and should be an inspiration. The media upload/handling is one area Wordpress does quite well indeed. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 14:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

In order to block as less as possible the editing flow I would follow an approach of "adding image to the document first, setting metadata later": Once you select an image from your computer it appears at the document with a footer where some lacking metadata could appear as placeholders (e.g., "no description", "no category") that can be edited in-place. For mandatory information (e.g., name or license) these placeholders may be visually presented as warnings and even block the image from being shown in the saved article if not completed. Pginer (talk) 16:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for this idea; I've added it to our task-list as bugzilla:37932. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Enhancements

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0

What about adding LaTeX to the selection of markup formats? Or DocBook XML? Or TEI XML? Is the underlying data model capable of supporting hierarchical structured markup? 109.255.79.69 19:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, TEI is something I would like to see featured as well! I don't know what else that entails though apart from adding XML-like tags. Currently the only way to use that, as far as I'm aware, is Extension:TEITags, but it was specifically created for a transcription project at UCL, and so is not guaranteed to work on any MW site. Cavila ^{MW 1.17, MySQL 5.5.23, Php 5.3.10, SMW 1.7.1} 20:23, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for these ideas; I've added them as bugzilla:37933 and bugzilla:37934. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Great Idea, but formating not working using Opera 11.64 Win

User agent: Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; U; de) Presto/2.10.229 Version/11.64

I can enter Text, but not a single formatting option works using Opera 11.64 on Windows. Please keep on developing this editor. It will be a great help for us in our internal wiki. It will allow even the secretary to edit additional text without training. Especially a help for Tables will be highly appreciated. 62.225.0.136 05:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. We're definitely going to include support for Opera and (hopefully!) easy editing of tables. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

table

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0

When I copy the table into the table in the visual one....The normal noe breaks and never wake upagain. Justincheng12345 (talk) 13:09, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback; we've replace the code so much that this probably no longer occurs, but I'll look for it. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Why not use a typical editor style?

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.168 Safari/535.19

It seems that an editor such as TinyMCE, or the editor that Yahoo uses would be adaptable (or limited) to specific wiki functions.

This would eliminate the pain of designing and coding a new one, and learning the new design by editors, especially "domain experts" who don't even like computers.

HTH

69.168.144.143 22:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Myself I think it's good the Mediawiki team take a shot at the best visual editor possible. Not to be constraint be an existing code base, poor design choices (not a shot at TinyMCE, but there is currently no decent—yes I have very high expectations—visual editor, they all fall short somewhere). And plurality of solutions is good, keep everyone on their toes. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 14:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback; we've looked at re-using an existing editor but unfortunately none of them were appropriate for our needs, and as Jérémie says, their usability isn't great either. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Great

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0

Good editor . Good Luck and good joob 187.54.35.43 20:42, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Lots still to do. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Errors

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_4) AppleWebKit/534.57.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.7 Safari/534.57.2

I have some errors in the current deploy: TypeError: 'null' is not an object (evaluating 'nodes[0].getElement().attributes') 3load.php:20TypeError: 'null' is not an object (evaluating 'node.children') TheDJ (talk) 19:41, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback; we've replaced the code so much that this probably no longer occurs, but I'll look for it. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Bold, italics and headings don't always work.

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/536.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/19.0.1084.56 Safari/536.5

The headings never work. The formatting sometimes breaks. I hope to use this extension as it is released as a usable product with MediaWiki Muqman 52 (talk) 00:26, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback; we've replaced the code so much that this probably no longer occurs, but I'll look for it. We look forward to getting to the point of releasing it as a standard part of the MediaWiki release. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Change button text for unsaved 'are you sure' dialog?

If you try and leave a page that you've edited before saving, you get a nice dialog box confirming you want to leave. The text is

 Are you sure you want to go back to view mode without saving first?
 Cancel    OK

What would you think of changing the button text from 'Cancel', 'OK' to 'No, take me back' and 'Yes, I'm sure'? It always feels weird to me to answer a yes/no question with ok/cancel rather than yes or no. Bhartshorne (talk) 20:25, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Alternatively, (since OK/Cancel is a pretty standard set of button choices) we could reword the question so they make better sense. Something like "You're about to leave the page without saving! Is that OK? ok/cancel" Bhartshorne (talk) 22:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback; we definitely need to review the language choices of our messages, you're right. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Control plus arrows doesn't move cursor among words

I'm used to being able to use Control+LeftArrow or Control+RightArrow to move the cursor one word's length leftward or rightward. Doesn't work yet in the Visual Editor. Is that in the plan already? Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 21:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Could be related to bugzilla:34095. Sumanah 19:40, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the feature request; I've added it as bugzilla:38000. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Linking unsatisfactory

Linking is too simple. You have to word the sentence to incorporate the name of the article. Also, one would expect to be able to link web sites as well as Wikipedia articles. Finally, there is no preview to see if the links are correct. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Still lots of work to do on this front. I really like how the current enhanced editor works in this regard and hope you'll look to build on that. Theflyer (talk) 23:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this. You can set the link to go anywhere (to another article, to an interwiki, or to an external link) using the link inspector (it just defaults to the same link as the display text) - sorry that this wasn't clear. We'll look at the design to make it more obvious what happens. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Preview is missing; it is crucial to test links. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:11, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that testing links is crucial - it's in the tracker as bugzilla:37904. However, not sure about need a Preview function (the idea is that the Edit and Read tabs should look identical, after all). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Unable to access the linking tool with no text selected

I am unable to access the link tool unless I have text selected. One thing I really like about the current enhanced editor is how you can click the link icon without any text selected and start typing a page name. I think it should be here as well.

Thanks for the idea. I've added it to our task tracker as bugzilla:38005. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Not seeing a way to insert an external link

The linking tool makes it easy for an internal link, but not seeing a way to do a link to an external source. Along same lines how would an external link be aliased?

See above about this - you'd enter some display text, select it, enter the link you wish in the inspector, done. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Toolbar

Hey, the new prototype (à la VisualEditor:Welcome) looks great. I tested a few edits, and I wanted to say both congrats and point out what is not really a bug but a UX choice that I think needs discussion:

Currently users expect "save" "preview" and other such functions to be at the bottom of the page. While I really really really appreciate that the toolbar follows me when I scroll up and down (I can't emphasize this enough), I think it's kind of a broken choice to put the save button in the upper right. It breaks what users expect currently, and feels a little a slow to have to mouse up there.

Are there are any plans to have a bottom toolbar with such functions to complement the current top toolbar? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:51, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This was the first thing I noticed as well. Additionally, the button's graphics make it blend into the background. I had to hunt around for the save button and that shouldn't be the case. Maybe just make it a deep red or something to make it really visible but I would personally recommend a different location. Top left or something. Theflyer (talk) 23:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this feedback on the design; I've added it as bugzilla:38006, but really there's a whole piece of work we need to do of which this is just a small part! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:44, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Visual Editor Bugzilla bugs

New visual editor bugs in Bugzilla only get sent to Trevor and Neil(!). This needs to be updated. Kaldari (talk) 21:59, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be fixed. When I reported a bug an email was sent to me, User:Inez, wikibugs-l, User:Trevor Parscal, User:Robmoen and User:Catrope. Helder 12:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Unparsed interface

When I clicked on Save, there was an item with the (wiki)text "This is a [[m:Help:Minor edit|minor edit]]" but I think it should be parsed, as in "This is a minor edit". Helder 22:01, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Argh, thanks - we caught one of those, but clearly missed this one.

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This is bugzilla:37819. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:49, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Are there edit conflicts?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T39828

I've removed content from previous edits but got no warning about that. Helder 22:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we discovered this during deployment. A priority right away, certainly!

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Reported on bugzilla:37828. Helder 12:31, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

mid-air collisions are not detected (currently)

I "lost" my edits due to a mid-air collision. Currently there appears to be no mechanism to detect if someone edits a text which you opened and changed and saved before... I thought we have edit tokens --Wikinaut (talk) 00:01, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Reported on bugzilla:37828. Helder 12:31, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Missing tooltips

It shows the name of the MediaWiki message (i.e. "<visualeditor-formatdropdown-tooltip>") instead of the appropriated tooltip in the "Paragraph" menu (it is not listed on Special:AllMessages either). The same happens for other entris of that menu (the headers). Helder 22:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the bug report; I've added it as bugzilla:38008. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Editing talk pages

Contributing effectively usually requires interaction on talk pages. If the visual editor only supports articles and not talk pages, and as a result they only work on articles and don't pay any attention to talk pages, they will not be welcomed into the community and will be turned against Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:26, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This is temporary. Right now we're only testing the editor itself.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:26, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Shift+enter for numbered lists

I believe being able to start a new line within numbered lists would be quite nice. Use Shift+Enter for that, just as every website on the internet does (including Facebook, though YouTube dropped support for it just now). Johnanth (talk) 22:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - this is now fixed and should be deployed soon. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

s is undefined

I just got the following error after clicking on "edit" using Firefox 9.0.1

Error: s is undefined
Source: https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.mediawiki.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20120611T151323Z
Line: 159

The page grayed out but nothing else happened. Helder 22:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Try here: [1] Polimerek (talk) 23:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

So far so good... =) Helder 23:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Do you still get this problem? Are you using a skin other than Vector? Otherwise I cannot reproduce the bug, sorry. :-( Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Dropdown menu with no text

Is the dropdown menu supposed to have no text right after the page finish loading? On https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:VisualEditorSandbox?debug=1 the text "Paragraph" only appears after I click in the menu some times. Helder 23:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes - we could instantiate the caret by default at the start of the article (and so force it to have a value). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

mw.util.wikiGetLink

I have this error with Firefox :

Erreur : mw.util.wikiGetLink is not a function
Fichier Source : http://bits.wikimedia.org/www.mediawiki.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=fr&modules=ext.visualEditor.core%7Crangy&skin=vector&version=20120621T224945Z&*
Ligne : 215

Ltrl G^☎, le 23:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, this should be fixed in the next few minutes.

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Triple click doesn't work

On other namespaces, if I click three times in a row over a word, Firefox 9 selects the whole paragraph, but on Visual Editor nothing happens. Helder 23:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this idea; I've added it as bugzilla:38011. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Auto-hide of formatting arrow

Once clicked, the formatting arrow's "Bold – Italic – Underline" menu remains expanded when the cursor is moved to another section. Having this intelligently disappear would be more intuitive. Otherwise, this is fantastic! AGK [•] 21:39, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This seems to work here - can you give details of what browser/etc. you were using (or has it disappeared since then? - we've change the code a few times). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Undefined link target

When I clicked on the "our feedback page" link which was in the text of the page VisualEditor:Welcome (before it was moved to Visual editor/Welcome), it loaded the page

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Undefined

I'm using Firefox 9.0.1 on Windos XP. Helder 22:07, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about this - do you still get this bug now? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Navigation and selecting text in the summary field

If I type "something" in the summary and then try to use SHIFT+Home, or SHIFT+Left arrow, or triple click to select the text, nothing happens. I'm using Firefox 9.0.1. Helder 22:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

+1. -- Rillke (talk) 10:54, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

+1, I also couldn't change the text I already typed in. --Geitost ^diskusjon 15:33, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Ctrl+LeftArrow, Ctrl+RightArrow, Shift+LeftArrow, Shift+RightArrow work here; I can change text already typed. But, End and Home don't – very annoying. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:11, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry you have had these problems - can you confirm that they still happen, and if so, on what browsers? I cannot replicate here, but we've changed our code since the 22nd so we may have fixed it. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:51, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Double click selects spaces

If I double click a word to apply bold, the editor also select the space which is after the word (e.g. these ''schemes ''fail). It should only select the word itself. Helder 23:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This appears to now be fixed - can you confirm, or is it browser-dependent (and if so, what browser are you using)? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

CTRL+Left arrow doesn't work as expected

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T35064

I was trying to use CTRL+Left arrow to move the cursor to the left, but it only moves one character at time (instead of one word at time). Helder 23:18, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Curiously, it works fine for selection (i.e. CTRL+SHIFT+Left arrow).

The right arrow behaves the same way as the left one. Helder 23:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Clear formatting doesn't remove section titles

It remove bolds, italics, but not the == headers ==. Helder 23:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This is intentional - headers aren't formatted paragraphs, they're semantic constructs. Similarly, remove-formatting doesn't destroy lists, and won't tables, categories or images. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

range is null

If I open https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:VisualEditorSandbox?debug=1 and click on "Numbered list" as soon as the page is loaded, I get:

Error: range is null
Source file: https://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf5/extensions/VisualEditor/modules/ve/ve.Document.js
Line: 50
ve.Document.prototype.selectNodes = function( range, mode ) {
	range.normalize();

Helder 23:25, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Cancel edit?

If the user click in the "edit" link and then do not want to edit anymore, it should be able to click in some "Cancel" button/link (maybe the "Save page" button which is just disabled could be replaced by the cancel? Or we could have both?). Helder 23:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that was bothering me as well. Filed as bugzilla:37845. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

ESC doesn't exit the save popup

If the user press ESC while the save popup is open, it should just return to the edit mode, but it does nothing unless we click in the [x] button. Helder 23:32, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the bug report; I've added it as bugzilla:38621. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Help link (?) should open in a new tab

Currently the (?) link in the "save your changes" popup is trying to open the target in the same page, so Firefox ask me if I want to leave the page and lose the changes I've made. Helder 23:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

end is undefined

Open https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor:Test?debug=1 click in "edit", wait the editor to be loaded and then press CTRL+A. If I do this I get:

Erro: end is undefined
Arquivo-fonte: https://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf5/extensions/VisualEditor/modules/ve/ce/ve.ce.Surface.js
Linha: 833
		rangyRange.setEnd( end.node, end.offset );

Helder 23:39, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

After that, if I press "delete", I get:

Erro: this.data[offset] is undefined
Arquivo-fonte: https://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf5/extensions/VisualEditor/modules/ve/dm/ve.dm.Document.js
Linha: 479
	annotations = ve.isArray( this.data[offset] ) ?
		this.data[offset][1] : this.data[offset].annotations;

two times. Helder 23:47, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

rect is undefined

1. Open https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor:Test?debug=1
2. Click "edit" and wait the editor to be loaded
3. Scroll to the end of the page, press SHIFT and click right after the last character.
4. Press "delete"

I get this:

Erro: rect is undefined
Arquivo-fonte: https://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf5/extensions/VisualEditor/modules/rangy/rangy-position.js
Linha: 215
                                return { x: rect.left, y: rect.top };

Helder 23:42, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

issues in Safari on iPad

Since you asked for feedback on mobile platforns... Two big issues right off.

• backspace backs out all content entry, not one character.
• iPad pop-up select dialog seems to trump the MW link pop-up...at least most of the time. Got it work once and can't repeat it.

- PKM (talk) 23:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Also tried it with iPad. It seem not like highlighted text. Especially the heading, highlighting did not seem to "stick". A possible solution to conflicting pop-ups would be if the editor recognized the platform and instead popped down24.217.149.193

node is null

1. Open https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor:Test?debug=1
2. Click "edit" and wait the editor to be loaded
3. Type "a"
4. Click "Undo"

Sometimes I get:

Erro: node is null
Arquivo-fonte: https://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf5/extensions/VisualEditor/modules/ve/ce/ve.ce.Document.js
Linha: 21
	if ( !node.canHaveChildren() ) {

Helder 23:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Links to invalid titles

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T35094

The editor should not allow links to invalid titles. Helder 00:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

How to end the list

Hi,

If I switch on list button - then it is OK - I just add one item after another by pressing enter on my keyboard. But then I want to finish the list and be able to continue adding non-listed paragraphs. So in order to do it - as in "normal" text edditors I click the list button in hope to "switch it off" - the effect is that all the list is changing to normal paragraphs. So, I redo and try again... Then after some experiments I finally learned that the only way to finish the list is double enter, and then start edditing again. But then if I delete one "invisible" enter, I am back to list - but not exactly - as my paragraph is for some reasons idented but not numbered... OK - so I write anyway, and then my use to be idented paragraph is glued to the numbered list above and I am back trapped in the list... Gosh.. so I press enter - the effect - another listed item - grr.. so I double enter and all the story begin again... It is terrible and counter intuitive. The list buttons must "remember" its status of being "switched on" and "off" inside and outside the lists. Sometimes also the text which seems to be in the next paragraph under the list behaves really strange... For example I've got something like that:

1. OK. Let's start numbered list (click enter)
2. List (click enter)
3. List (click enter)
4. List - (now I want to escape from the list, so I press enter twice)

nd then click below the list... Good - it seems I escaped from the list...

A but not really, because for some reason my lines are "jumping back and forth"

There is also problem with integrating together two numbered list. For example I made by mistake two lists

1. one
2. two
3. three

(double enter)

1. four
2. five

Try to delete double enter and integrate two list - It seems to be immposible...

Polimerek (talk) 00:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Question

Why is there no ability to convert to editing in wikitext? I see that it is reserved for administrators of the project, is there a reason for this? I would like to see how the wikitext versus the editor integrate. Perhaps something like the way wordpress does it would work.Ryan Vesey (talk) 21:42, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

The primary reason is because we don't want users adding things that would break the editor.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, Jasper's right. We definitely will have both editors enabled in later deployments. You can see through the history tab's diffs what changes with the wikitext. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Exit edit mode

Took me an extra few seconds to figure out the way to exit edit mode without saving. Perhaps there should be a clearer "cancel" somewhere? Next to save? Rehman 01:25, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

See above: #Cancel edit?. Helder 02:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh thanks, didnt see that :) Rehman 12:57, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Issues with Bold and Italics

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T35140

When trying to use bold and italics I run into some problems. You should be able to click bold, then type your content then unclick bold. That doesn't work, you need to highlight information and then click bold and somehow choose it from a little menu that appears under the highlighted text. The same thing happens with italics. Integration with ctrl codes would be useful. Ctrl+b for bold ctrl+i for italics.Ryan Vesey (talk) 02:17, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be bugzilla:33140. Helder 12:22, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Integration with Microsoft Word

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T35105

I don't know if anybody is familiar with editing using wordpress, but there is an option to add text from microsoft word. Clicking import from word opens a special window and you can paste the content into that window. The window will modify it to make it compatible with wordpress, could we do something similar?Ryan Vesey (talk) 02:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

That seems to be bugzilla:33105. Helder 02:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

My feedback

I have several issues that need addressing:

No editnotice

It should be possible to create a (dismissable) editnotice in the future.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:59, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I would say also that it may be better to show people the info about the CC-BY-SA licence before they start contributing to the page (to avoid lost effort for people who do not agree with the conditions). This could be in a (modal) popup right after clicking on "edit". Helder 12:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

A modal popup would be annoying.--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Well a one time modal screen like: "Hi, this seems to be your first edit. Please be aware that whatever you change, will be licensed to be reused by others (even commercially) and might be subject to change. This is normal proces within Wikipedia. You do retain your copyright, but you will license your contributions as CC-BY-SA 3.0. By continuing you explicit license all your changes and contributions this way. Cancel / Continue / Learn More", would not be too harmful I think. Problem is that it would require a cookie to keep track of. TheDJ (talk) 08:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Linking and text selecting is wrong

I should be able to select any amount of text and press the link button above to create a link. Instead that "link" button above does absolutely nothing; it is also very inconvenient that the little arrow that's supposed to show a menu does not show up consistently when I select, especially if I select more than one character.

Text replacing a link simply equals a blank

When I delete a link and replace it with text and save, I have to re-save; the initial save produces nothing in place of the deleted link.

The buttons at the top should have the desired effects on the selected text

Currently the bold and italic buttons do nothing to the currently-selected text, and they don't even turn on italic typing when clicked without any text selected.

This is a great start, but of course it needs work.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:59, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

bots

Have you thought about bots, editing a Visual Wiki? --92.204.110.186 05:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

That's going to be difficult for bots to understand. Bots will have a hard time recognizing things like external links. Anyone however is able to develop a bot library for the visual editor too.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:06, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Since the wikitext will remain the storage format and editable, bots should not be affected by the VE at all.

Parsoid produces an annotated HTML DOM (see for example http://parsoid.wmflabs.org/mw:VisualEditor:Test), which should actually be easier to edit for bots than wikitext. This DOM then serializes back to the wikitext. -- Gabriel Wicke (GWicke) (talk) 08:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Unable to enter UTF8 text

Trying to use input method to type in kn (Kannada). it doesn't work. Just love the way we would be editing wiki in coming days on local language wiki's with this Visual Editor.

Yes. Even it is not working for Malayalam. Once we enter a new character previous character vanishes. --Anoopan (talk) 05:40, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I have Problems at the End of the Page. If you scroll down on a well filled Test Page and Edit something at the End, the lines disappears after pressing Enter ...

It's in their To do later list. --朝彦 (Asahiko) (talk) 11:42, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Link behavior

When dealing with links I found some strange aspects:

• You need to select the link text to edit link properties. Placing the cursor inside a link should be enough instead.
• When a link is selected, the link icon at the toolbar looks as pressed. This makes the impression that you can disable the link by pressing it again (as it happens with the bold icon for example). However, the button takes you to "edit link" options. I think it is better to do the following: once you select a link, the link button at the toolbar can show three dots next to the link image to represent the idea of "edit link".

Pginer (talk) 06:25, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T39491

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T35053

1. Unrelated to the above, links should be saved in the short format when possible. For example, text "Beograda" that links to "Beograd" should be saved as [[Beograd]]a not as [[Beograd|Beograda]]. (enhancement)
2. Also, if linking to a nonexisting article, the link should be red. Perhaps you could also offer the existing pages as the user is typing the link. This requires Ajax, but shouldn't be hard to do, you may see how Wikidata did it. (enhancement)
3. It would be VERY VERY VERY nice if you could, when you select text, somehow get to the pop-up menu without leaving the keyboard. Not sure what key combination should be used for this, though. Tab perhaps? If that is done, it should be possible to tab through the menu as well. (enhancement)
4. Finally, if you select a text with space at the end (and/or the beginning) and make a link, the space is going to be included in the link. This is almost never desired, and I have commonly see it happen in visual HTML editors - I'm not sure if it should be fixed silently or if the user should be asked what does he want. (bug) Nikola (talk) 07:08, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

The "suggest a title" part of your second item is bugzilla:37491 / bugzilla:33053.

The last one is bugzilla:33053. Helder 12:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Differentiate editing mode from reading mode

I was confused at some point as to whether I was in editing or reading mode (since it looks the same). Simple thing maybe change the background of the page (a light gray or something) when you're editing, so that you can see which mode you're in. notafish (talk) 08:21, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

References

Hello, How is it possible to insert references using the Visual editor ? I think that this is a very important issue since many of the new contributors forget to insert references. Also it would be good to make it easy to use the citation templates like en:Template:Cite book, en:Template:Cite journal, fr:modèle:article and fr:modèle:ouvrage. --PAC2 (talk) 09:34, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I guess it's not possible yet but it's really an important issue to consider. My idea is to prepare a button which would bring up a dialog box to enter the ref text (similar to the one we already have). To edit the citation already inserted, clicking on the citation marker would bring up the same dialog box. --朝彦 (Asahiko) (talk) 03:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The three major problems, currently, with editing in Wikipedia - for newcomers - are footnotes, templates (such as infoboxes), and tables. By contrast, numbered lists are rarely found in articles.

VI is going to be successful - or not - if it handles those three things well. (By "well", I don't see any alternative other than to move the editing out of the main edit box.) What has been done so far in VI is just baby steps. It's not clear at this point that VI is going to be any more successful than the Vector skin in help newcomers to edit Wikipedia. John Broughton (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Editor doesn't respect "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" preference

Just one of those weird little things I cba to file a bug for, but can be bothered to post here about :P Jarry1250 (talk) 10:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Editing from previous version

Not sure if this is the way it is supposed to happen, but if I go into the page history and select a previous version, and try to edit from that version instead of the current one, the editor still opens with the current text. GoEThe (talk) 11:06, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Use semantic buttons

The current editor uses button like B (for Bold) or I (for Italic), which have no real meaning on the web (and especially here). These buttons should be what they really input in the page : a strong statement, and an emphasized one. Those aren't arcane or geek terms, everyone understand what emphasize means. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 14:18, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Except they both have meaning in html5, and are actually what are output by the wikitext '' (I) and ''' (B). Whether that should be the case shouldn't be considered here, imo. --Izno (talk) 23:02, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Emphasis and strong statement are not the only cases where one would require italic type or bold face. For italic, name of ships, mathematical/physical variables, foreign words in English are not emphasis but are typeset in italic. Mathematical vectors and tensors are not strong statements but are typically in bold. HTML5 definitions of b and i elements cover these nicely. --朝彦 (Asahiko) (talk) 00:12, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

If Wikipedia/Mediawiki make the switch to HTML5, it means here having the four buttons (strong importance, stress emphasis, stylistically offset, alternate voice) which will not be understood by people at large, especially when they will need to use several at once to achieve some semantic meaning. Good luck teaching that to Everyday Joe. But I guess that's a HTML5 issue, not a Visual Editor one. Still, in that paradigm, I think my underlining point is valid: don't have a bold button but a “stylistically offset” one, and so forth. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 08:04, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Use appropriate headings option (no more h1!)

The title of an article is the top level heading (h1 tag) of the page, and appropriately so the only one. The visual editor should not allow the user to enter another one. The user top level heading available should be h2. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 14:22, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

[+1]. I was going to suggest that but forgot it. Helder 14:34, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

+1 me too. Ltrl G^☎, le 15:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

+1 also. The standard on wikipedia is to start at a level two heading. Why do we keep making this ultra confusing. If the community has decided level 2 is the right top-level heading, then lets make that clear with the UI. Theflyer (talk) 23:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Problem is of course that Wikipedia is not the only user :D But perhaps we should just make =line= an HTML h2 and start counting from there ? Then 1 would be appropriate. The problem is of course the amount of existing content, not the convention. A real proper change there is gonna be hard. An 'workaround' is gonna be confusing since the counting won't match the wikicode. TheDJ (talk) 08:46, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Only works with vector

On https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor:Test?useskin=monobook there is no edit button, only the "view source" button. Helder 14:37, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and it tells that the person doesn't have the right to edit the page, but not how to get this right. It would be easy just to say that one has to use the vector skin instead of misleading that one doesn't have the right for editing (so I searched around why I didn't have this right). --Geitost ^diskusjon 15:30, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Can't add lines to pre-formatted block

When editing inside a pre-formatted block, hitting enter creates a new pre block, instead of a new line in the current pre block. This makes it pretty much impossible to edit pre-formatted text. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Headings

When you hit return on a heading line, I think it should automatically set the next line to normal paragraph style. Currently it seems to replicate the heading style from the line you were on. Theflyer (talk) 23:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

+1. I think this is the expected behavior for people who use LibreOffice Writer or Microsoft Word. Helder 00:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Numbered list anomaly

If I start a numbered list and then hit return before adding any text, it removes the number but the software goes into an odd mode. If I use the back arrow to get back to the line, the software still leaves the indent but I cannot use the number list icon to either reinsert the numbered list or to undo the indent. This only seems to happen with numbered lists (not bullets) and only for the first row of the numbered list. Theflyer (talk) 03:06, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Visual Editor Struggles in Chrome

I use Google Chrome browser (latest version: 19.0.1084.56 m) and I realized the Visual Editor is struggling to render properly in it. Scrolling is a problem, using my external mouse and/or the touch pad. The page isn't able to scroll to the bottom as it comes back to the center of the page anytime i try scrolling. At some point, scrolling creates some weird, blur-like rendering of the page with the text 'screeching' across the screen.

When I click on the left pane of the page under the mediawiki logo (that whole area), i'm able to scroll fine and perfect. After clicking back on the editing area, it start becoming 'unscrollable' and inputting text is a problem

Every other thing seems to work on the chrome from my current test as at now, however just these few anomalies.

--Nkansahrexford (talk) 03:21, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I can't replicate this problem in Chrome 19.0.1084.56 m. The Land (talk) 14:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Whats up with the 'Redo & Undo'?

i tried cutting a text and using the 'Undo' button, i could bring the text back to the page. However, when I use the delete option from the drop-down menu after right-clicking, I am not able to Undo by bringing the deleted text back to the page.

I am using Google Chrome (latest version: 19.0.1084.56 m) and I wonder if its a browser-specific problem or not.

--Nkansahrexford (talk) 03:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

What link Am I directed to?

Its nice feature having to input links very simple and easy. I want to learn how to determine what page a link traverses to as it doesn't show anywhere on the link.

This i think its important, since similar content can be found on various sites, therefore, its nice for the user to know which page what link will direct him/her to by just hovering over the link text. when a user hovers on the link, something like this can appear as cursor title: 'Visual Editor - MediaWiki' and on another link with similar content will render after hover as: 'Visual Editor - Wikipedia'

This, I think will be a fast way of learning where you're going after clicking a link by avoiding confusion and visiting sites unintentionally.

Thanks.

--Nkansahrexford (talk) 03:36, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

And I think users should be able to Ctrl-click the link to go to the destination just as in wikEd. <!-- Meow (talk | 喵 @ ZHWP) --> 08:12, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

-- --Yeah you've got a point. That would be perfect too.

--Nkansahrexford (talk) 08:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes I already noticed myself trying to click the links a couple of times, since they look so much like real links, you expect them to actually take you somewhere. TheDJ (talk) 08:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

TOC

The wysiwyg does not consider the ToC when lay outing the page. TheDJ (talk) 08:36, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Tables

Is there support for tables? Edward Buckner (talk) 08:36, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

In later releases, from what I see at Visual editor/Todo later list. --朝彦 (Asahiko) (talk) 11:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

See also the FAQ. Helder 11:49, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Using shift for capitals unfocussed my editing

It seems that when I start a sentence with a capital, by pressing shift, the JS captures my shift action, then runs into JS errors and loses edit focus

load.php:204 TypeError: 'null' is not an object (evaluating 'domNode.nodeType')
load.php:225 TypeError: 'null' is not an object (evaluating 'selectionRect.start.x')

Mac Lion, Safari version 5.1.7 (7534.57.2) TheDJ (talk) 08:40, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

My two cents

• Tables aren't on the menu. However inserting wiki code for a table in the visual editor does create a table after saving. So saving parses inserted wiki markup.
• Images aren't on the menu. Inserting wiki markup code for inserting an image in the visual editor ends up being enclosed in a pair of <nowiki></nowiki>.
• So how to insert an image? Just insert the wiki markup and don't forget to use the menu item "insert link" to change the inserted text into a link.
• Please, please add a button "image" to the menu that just does nearly almost exactly the same as "insert link" so ordinary people have a clue they can insert an image. The popup window can politely ask to insert a file name of the image already uploaded on this wiki or on commons, maybe can even be as smart as prefixing [[image: and suffixing ]].
• The visual editor can be thoroughly screwed by inserting <nowiki> in the visual editor.
• Please, please forcefully assume all typed in text in visual editor is plain text and parse all inserted text as plain text. Only allow wiki markup to be entered in visual editor through either menu items or through source editing. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 09:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Images and tables were not in the scope for this preview release. Take a look at Visual editor/Todo later list. I'm pretty sure they will be in the next iteration. --朝彦 (Asahiko) (talk) 11:37, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Ad's last two points - I was having a weird problem with the visual editor moving my cursor about while I was typing. it turned out there was a tag present that didn't display in either the article or the visual editor. I managed to select, and then delete, the tags (even though they didn't display) and that solved my problem. So I tend to agree with Ad's conclusion, make it parse all text as plain text not Wikitext. The Land (talk) 14:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I just committed some fixes to the Parsoid wikitext escape algorithm that should hopefully close (most of) the holes you discovered once they are deployed. The goal is indeed to ensure that any entered text is interpreted as plain text by escaping it using <nowiki> and html entities where necessary. -- Gabriel Wicke (GWicke) (talk) 18:11, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Problem with image

This change I add hello to an image https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=VisualEditor%3ATest&diff=554147&oldid=554144

It is possible to add an image. This isn't stable. Subsequent editing reverts the insertion of an image. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 10:41, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The current preview release never intended support for images. See Visual editor/Todo later list. --朝彦 (Asahiko) (talk) 11:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Back button should work

The Back button should take users back from the editing screen to the initial content page. At present, it is not obvious how to exit the editing interface. This, that and the other (talk) 12:24, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

See also #Exit edit mode and #Cancel edit?. Helder 13:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Local Context help: guide the user

Each semantic or formating button, each editor tool should have context help that can lead to advanced explanations. Something like: you select or mouse hover the “B” button, a context bubble appear saying something like “Strong: meaning this text or element is of strong importance to the overall article. It will usually be displayed in bold, but not always. Learn more.” The last one being a link to a full guide of semantic versus presentation, what to use when, etc. And of course, these should be easily rewritten by Wiki Admins to tailor the Visual Editor to each Wiki customs and specification. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 08:11, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Two mode editor

What about a two mode editor? One is the visual editor with limited capabilities and the other one is the actual editor with full capabilities. In this way new editors could start with the visual editor and the experienced editors could stick to their editor. Another advantage is, that the visual editor could go live within months. Maybe we find in the future a visual way to create e.g. tabels and templates (and what else is missing). --92.204.58.205 06:46, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly what we have right now and what we'll have for a long time, though eventually the visual editor should have all features. Note that currently the original editor is restricted to sysops only on the test pages.Jasper Deng (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I´´ve added a table and the table was not shown properly. that means, that the visual editor, as it is now, can´t go live. The editor added nowiki-tags, what is good, but also show the return-signs, what is bad. I had to delete the table in the end. --92.204.0.122 11:12, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Some Problems

The problem that can't input Chinese characters still exist.--Alexchris (talk) 12:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Selection changed after multi-line bold

Start selecting in the middle of one line, and select into (at least) the next line. Click "bold". Text changes as expected, but the selection now starts at the end of the first selected line.

Also, select two subsequent full lines (the "selection blue" must extend the entire screen, not just end at the end of the second line!). Click "bold". Nothing gest bolded, and the cursor jumps somewhere else. --Magnus Manske (talk) 13:11, 26 June 2012 (UTC)