Perhaps I've simply missed it, but I've noticed that I'm unable to insert a signature anywhere in the VisualEditor interface. While I realize this would have limited use, seeing as Talk pages aren't VisualEditor-accessible, it does have use in User spaces, Project pages, and various MediaWiki pages. I was wondering if this feature had been taken into consideration at any point in the past?
This post was posted by Jdforrester (WMF), but signed as Nicereddy.
@Nicereddy: This is intentional – the editing experience for a rich document editor and a rich comment editor are somewhat different, and rather than try to build a hybrid editor that serves both needs poorly, VisualEditor is focussed purely on the first. Flow, which will use VE's editing tools in time, is the project to make talk spaces great. As you mention, there are a number of different areas where users are encouraged to sign their name, and all of these will (in time) be served by Flow; this is why (for example) VisualEditor is disabled on the Project: namespace on most wikis.
Almost always when I try VE, it can't do what it is supposed to. This is somewhat unproductive. It's nice that WMF has in mind good software architecture but it renders VE simply unusable for pages like Tool Labs/Collection of issues after Toolserver shutdown not to mention how confused I was that my signature wasn't accepted after I clicked "edit" despite it has been in the past.
Hi Rillke, I'd appreciate a list of what you try to do and don't manage to in VE. The reason why you can't use VE to sign is explained above by James. I agree that on pages like that it can be confusing (we shouldn't be using the main namespace for discussions, though :/ ). Some kind of warning (a pagenotice perhaps?) might help in this case. Best,
