Thread:Talk:Release Management RFP/NicheWork and Hallo Welt!/Release Management and Visual Editor

Ori.livneh asks ''How could we make VisualEditor more usable for third parties? As release managers, what role would you play in this process?''

The dependency on node.js is really problematic for tarball users. Installing an extension (any extension, even without a dependency on node.js) is really too much of a problem right now. We plan to address that, but that solution probably won't be able to take into account a dependency on node.js.

A WYSIWYG editor is one of the top requests and some third parties will be able to use VisualEditor. However, making it "more usable for third parties" would mean making installation as easy as installing a PHP-only extension. That means rewriting Parsoid in PHP -- something I just don't see happening by the WMF.

Bottom line: the user already has a PHP webserver set up and configured. Installing and configuring a node.js server "just" to enable an extension -- when lots of people have already installed MediaWiki without a WYSIWYG editor -- isn't going to happen.