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; The FAQ didn't answer my question. Where may I ask it? |
; The FAQ didn't answer my question. Where may I ask it? |
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: You can ask on the VisualEditor feedback page on your wiki ([[d:Q12060906|see the list on Wikidata]]) or on the [[mw:VisualEditor/Feedback|central feedback page]] on mediawiki.org. |
: You can ask on the VisualEditor feedback page on your wiki ([[d:Q12060906|see the list on Wikidata]]) or on the [[mw:VisualEditor/Feedback|central feedback page]] on mediawiki.org. |
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; {{Anchor|VEFlow}} I've heard that VE will be the only way to interact with Flow, and there won't be a wikitext editor. Is this true? |
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:No. It's true that to get the benefit of all the features of Flow, you'll need to use VE - however - we've said before, and we'll say again now - there are no plans to disable the wikitext editor. There will continue to be a need for a wikitext editor in the future (for those without javascript, and screen readers, etc), so there are no plans to disable it. |
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<noinclude>[[Category:VisualEditor|*]]</noinclude> |
<noinclude>[[Category:VisualEditor|*]]</noinclude> |
Revision as of 03:28, 16 July 2013
General
- What is VisualEditor?
- VisualEditor is a software development initiative by the Wikimedia Foundation that will display text being edited as if it were already saved.
- Why is this change being made?
- The wikimarkup text in the old editing window is so complex that people who could become productive, experienced members of the community if the editing system were simpler are turned off upon attemping their first edit; read our longer explanation for more details.
- When will VisualEditor be enabled on my wiki?
- The current schedule (it may change) is as follows:
- 24 June: A/B test on the English Wikipedia. VisualEditor is released by default to 50% of newly registered accounts.
- 1 July: Deployment of the VisualEditor to the English Wikipedia, available for all logged-in users.
- 15 July: Deployment of the VisualEditor to the English Wikipedia, available for anonymous and logged-in users.
- 22 July: Deployment of the VisualEditor to most large Wikipedia wikis, available for all users. Which wikis are in this list is still to be determined, but will definitely include Wikipedia in German, French and Italian.
- 29 July: Deployment of the VisualEditor to all other Wikipedia wikis, available for all users, minus a few wikis (such as the Chinese Wikipedia) where the VisualEditor does not yet work.
- Currently, the plan is to deploy to Wikipedia sites first, and to deploy it to sister projects by end of December 2013, due to the complexity of some of the changes necessary.
- Why are you deploying the software so quickly? It doesn't look ready.
- The software definitely isn't finished; it has features to be added, and we're certain that after deploying it we'll find bugs. That's not because it's bad software, or because it's not ready, it's just because it's software to start with. Bugs are inevitable: MediaWiki itself is 10 years old, and we are still finding things that could be better, or things that are unexpectedly broken. If we wait until the VisualEditor is completely bug-free to enable it, it will never be enabled.
- Ultimately, the best way to detect bugs is to have as many people as possible looking at, using, and playing with the software. While we understand any bugs will be disruptive, they will be fixed: your reports from this preliminary deployment lets us identify them.
- I've found an issue with the VisualEditor. How can I tell you to fix it?
- If you're willing and able, then please report the issue in bugzilla in the "VisualEditor" product. We also have a feedback page here on the English Wikipedia.
- How do I disable VisualEditor?
- To continue to edit the wikitext directly, simply click the "Edit source" button instead of "Edit". On section edit links, you can open the classic wikitext editor 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 go to the Gadgets tab of your Preferences page, check the option "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" in the "Editing" section, and click the Save button near the bottom of the page. (Note that gadgets are community-developed and not supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.)
- A feature is missing in VisualEditor. How do I ask you to add it?
- Some features are currently being developed or planned (like formatting images, adding columns and rows to tables, and editing mathematical formulae). The Roadmap and the Wikimedia engineering draft goals for 2013–2014 provide some additional information as well. If you can't find any reference to the new feature you'd like to suggest, please submit it using the same process used to report an issue.
- Will it still be possible to edit using wikitext after VisualEditor becomes available?
- Yes. While the VisualEditor will become available to all users as an editing environment, a method for editing the underlying “source” text will continue to exist. There are no plans to remove the “Edit source” option.
- Why is my browser not supported?
- Modern web technologies and standards allow us to build a modern editing interface for Wikipedia and its sister wikis, but some browsers don't support many of the features needed for VisualEditor. Nevertheless, we're doing our best to support the most common browsers: VisualEditor works well with the most recent versions of Firefox, Chrome and Safari, and support for Internet Explorer 9 is coming very soon. We encourage you to upgrade to a supported browser, or failing that, continue to edit using the source wikitext editor because we will not divert resources from improvements that will benefit the majority of users by trying to work around the limitations of older browsers.
- Should we worry about a potential large increase in vandalism?
- One of the goals of the randomly-selected new user testing done in June on the English Wikipedia is to discover if one will occur. 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.
- Can the editors here order the developers to turn this off?
- No. By the official policy of the English Wikipedia, editors are not in charge of the website or its software. See WP:CONEXCEPT: "Some matters that may seem subject to the consensus of the community at the English-language Wikipedia are, in fact, in a separate domain. In particular, the community of MediaWiki software developers, including both paid Wikimedia Foundation staff and other volunteers, and the activities of Wikimedia Commons, are largely separate entities, as are the many non-English Wikipedias. These independent, co-equal communities operate however they deem necessary or appropriate, such as adding, removing, or changing software features, or accepting or rejecting images, even if their actions are not endorsed by editors here."
- However, the developers are paying close attention to the deployment; if something goes critically wrong, then we can and will delay the deployment (as we have done previously, with the A/B test) or, after deployment, temporarily disable the software.
- Why does no standard user preference to disable VisualEditor exist?
- VisualEditor is the new default experience for all users. We recognize that it still in beta and has issues, including lack of support for some aspects of wikitext. Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. Developing VisualEditor into a tool that can meet the needs of all our users will take time. Therefore, we encourage all users (including power users) to regularly check in VisualEditor's progress, and we're running VisualEditor in parallel to the traditional Wikitext editor.
- Power users will find ways to disable VisualEditor completely, e.g. by means of user scripts and gadgets. However, to encourage continued testing of VisualEditor as it develops, completely hiding it from the user experience will remain a non-trivial task.
- The current experience is designed to be minimally intrusive for users who want to continue to use wikitext indefinitely. Both at the page and section-level, editing as wikitext should require no additional action other than selecting the "edit source" option. We would rather make VisualEditor's availability through the UI interfere less with the experience of power users rather than introduce a new preference: For example, resolving bug 50542 could make the integration of VisualEditor less noticeable. Please let us know about similar issues.
- We hope to hear from users who could never imagine using VisualEditor as their default editing environment. Fixing bugs aside, we want VisualEditor to be as efficient and powerful as wikitext while being discoverable and easy to use, and we highly appreciate your feedback on what improvements could make it so.
- Won't this massively slow down the user experience for users who don't need it and who have slow connections?
- VisualEditor loads the bulk of its code only when it is used. So if you keep using "Edit source" or are a reader, the impact on your user experience should be negligible (~4KB of additional JavaScript payload before you click "Edit", at which point VisualEditor is fully loaded and initialized). If you load it, your browser will typically cache the JavaScript, speeding up future uses even if you are on a slow connection.
- Does VisualEditor work with Wikisource's ProofreadPage, or Wiktionary's templates, and other features that Wikipedia doesn't have?
- VisualEditor is currently only enabled on Wikipedia sites, but we have designed it to be flexible enough to be used on all Wikimedia sites. After deploying to Wikipedia, we will work to make sure VisualEditor works well with features specific to sister sites.
- Can I install VisualEditor on my personal wiki outside Wikimedia?
- Yes, at your own risk. The VisualEditor and Parsoid extensions are available for download, but they're still experimental; note that Parsoid requires nodeJS. If you do install and use them, then please let us know what worked and what didn't in Bugzilla.
- Where do I go to learn more about using VisualEditor?
- Please see the VisualEditor User guide.
- Does VisualEditor make automatic fixes to pages?
- 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.
- The FAQ didn't answer my question. Where may I ask it?
- You can ask on the VisualEditor feedback page on your wiki (see the list on Wikidata) or on the central feedback page on mediawiki.org.
- I've heard that VE will be the only way to interact with Flow, and there won't be a wikitext editor. Is this true?
- No. It's true that to get the benefit of all the features of Flow, you'll need to use VE - however - we've said before, and we'll say again now - there are no plans to disable the wikitext editor. There will continue to be a need for a wikitext editor in the future (for those without javascript, and screen readers, etc), so there are no plans to disable it.