VisualEditor/2012-13 Q2 forward-look

2012/13 Q1

Quarterly VisualEditor forward-look for 2012/13 Q2

2012/13 Q3

This is the forward-looking plan for the VisualEditor team (including Parsoid) for the 2012-13 Q2 cycle (i.e., from the start of October through to the end of December 2012).

Priorities for this quarter

• Getting the APIs finished (so other people can more easily get involved)
• Improve stability of the core platform on our target browsers (so it works when we…)
• Deploy in some form to production in a way that lets test users edit real content

Browser matrix

This is not final, but work-in-progress for the VE team; data current as of end-September 2012.

The unofficial rule for Wikimedia's browser support is that we try to support reading (and not necessarily other functions) for all browsers used by at least 0.1% of page hits based on the WikiStats data. However, VE is complex and requires some specific advanced browser features (most specifically, ContentEditable support, but also very wide JavaScript support), which limits the platforms we can support either technically (indicated by being struck through) or resource-wise (indicated with a ✘).

Probable VisualEditor support

Browser	Desktop			Tablet			Mobile
	Overall %age	Version	%age	Overall %age	Version	%age	Overall %age	Version	%age
Android	N/A	Less than 0.1%		0.25%	4.0	0.11% ✔	4.34%	4.0	1.04% ✔
					Less than 0.1%			2.3	2.53% ✘
								2.2	0.47% ✘
								2.1	0.11% ✘
BlackBerry	N/A	Less than 0.1%		N/A	Less than 0.1%		0.19%	5.0	0.17% ✘
Chrome	29.03%	23.0	0.11% ✔	N/A	Less than 0.1%		N/A	Less than 0.1%
		22.0	2.85% ✔
		21.0	23.47% ✔
		20.0	0.36% ✘
		19.0	0.30% ✘
		18.0	0.47% ✘
		17.0	0.31% ✘
		16.0	0.24% ✘
		15.0	0.11% ✘
		14.0	0.12% ✘
		9.0	0.18% ✘
Firefox	19.22%	16.0	0.25% ✔	N/A	Less than 0.1%		0.04%	Less than 0.1%
		15.0	11.20% ✔
		14.0	2.75% ✔
		13.0	0.58% ✔
		12.0	0.76% ✘
		11.0	0.37% ✘
		10.0	0.52% ✘
		9.0	0.25% ✘
		8.0	0.20% ✘
		7.0	0.16% ✘
		6.0	0.14% ✘
		5.0	0.16% ✘
		4.0	0.29% ✘
		3.6	0.81% ✘
		3.5	0.20% ✘
		3.0	0.17% ✘
		2.0	0.24% ✘
		1.0	0.10% ✘
Mozilla	0.41%	5.0	0.18% ✘	0.09%	Less than 0.1%		0.47%	5.0	0.32% ✘
		4.0	0.17% ✘					5.0	0.11% ✘
MSIE	22.08%	9.0	10.11% ✔	0.44%	8.0	0.36% ?	0.02%	Less than 0.1%
		8.0	8.03% ✘		Less than 0.1%
		7.0	2.96% ✘
		6.0	0.83% ✘
Opera	3.05%	12.02	1.76% ✘	N/A	Less than 0.1%		1.48%	11.10 (Mini/7.0)	0.2% ✘
		12.01	0.44% ✘					11.10 (Mini/6.5)	0.3% ✘
		12.00	0.25% ✘					11.10 (Mini/4.2)	0.29% ✘
		11.64	0.14% ✘					11.10 (Mini/4.2)	0.15% ✘
Safari	5.56%	536.26	0.29% ✔	3.40%	8536.2	0.37% ✔	6.63%	8536.2	0.76% ✔
		536.2	1.70% ✔		7534.48	2.37% ✔		7534.48	3.93% ✔
		534.57	0.54% ✘		6533.18	0.32% ✘		6533.18	0.54% ✘
		534.56	0.27% ✘		0.0	0.25% ✘		534.11	0.29% ✘
		534.56	0.19% ✘		Less than 0.1%			534.8	0.23% ✘
		534.55	0.18% ✘					0.0	0.57% ✘
		534.52	0.19% ✘					Less than 0.1%
		534.51	0.12% ✘
		533.22	0.48% ✘
		533.21	0.24% ✘
		533.19	0.16% ✘

Notes:

Android 

Android before v. 3.0 does not support ContentEditable, so we will have to fall back to wikitext editing.

BlackBerry 

BlackBerry platform is very small and shrinking; VE team see no cost-benefit in supporting it.

Chrome 

Chrome has auto-update (but rapid version increases); VE team roughly intend to support the current, soon-to-be-current, and immediately previous versions only.

Firefox 

Firefox has semi-auto-update (but rapid version increases); VE team roughly intend to support the current, soon-to-be-current, and two immediately previous versions only.

Mozilla 

Mozilla (as opposed to Firefox) is not a sufficiently-significant browser for the VE team to consider it a cost-benefit.

MSIE 

MSIE is hideously broken but perplexingly popular; VE team intend to support IE9 and upwards.

Opera 

Opera's document model and JS issues would mean a very high cost for minor benefit; Opera Mini does not support ContentEditable, so it will have to fall back to wikitext editing.

Safari 

Safari on desktop and on iOS (iPad/iPhone/iPod) has very wide-spread auto-update; VE team roughly intend to support the current, and soon-to-be-current versions only.

Removed from plan

Parsoid

• C++ implementation for December

  We have decided to focus on the Node/JS prototype of the Parsoid for the December release as we do not expect to have the C++ version ready by then.

Node-handlers

• Table editor

  Due to the unexpected difficulties encountered, we do not expect to ship additional node handlers (for other content types) before December, including tables.

• Citation editor

  Due to the unexpected difficulties encountered, we do not expect to ship additional node handlers (for other content types) before December, including citations.

• Definition lists editor

  Due to the unexpected difficulties encountered, we do not expect to ship additional node handlers (for other content types) before December, including definition lists.

Areas of work

To come.

Open Questions

To come.