Help talk:VisualEditor/User guide/Archive 1

Translation
Available on it.wiki as it:Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Manuale --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:39, 23 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Do we want to use the translate tool here so that it is kept updated here (and then copy over), or just do that by hand? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:49, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm going to set up the page for translation, similarly to Help:VisualEditor/FAQ where this was split from. guillom 16:52, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Mac users
Is it worth saying something about using Command on Macs at the first mention of a shortcut? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 08:38, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. Thank you for the reminder. I've added it :) guillom 11:54, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Issue viewing this page with Firefox
When I view this page with Firefox 22, the image titled "The VisualEditor toolbar" is superimposed on the last three links over the links titled "TemplateData tutorial", "Help new users", and "Translate & localize documentation". In MSIE 10, the image is properly displayed underneath these links. GoingBatty (talk) 02:29, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing this! GoingBatty (talk) 03:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You're welcome :) It sort of fixed itself when I added a new section at the top. guillom 11:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Discoverability
Is this page linked from the VisualEditor interface? I couldn't find any help clue in it. --Nemo 14:57, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, if the interface can not point to localized versions for each wiki, yes, we might try and ask for a link here, at least. Will keep you posted. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 30 June 2013 (UTC) PS,.
 * The best way to do this would probably be to add a new interface message linking to Special:MyLanguage/Help:VisualEditor/User guide. That way, wikis can customize it to have it link to a local version. guillom 11:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Elitre created 50476 :) guillom 11:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * This is done, and I opened a bug about pointing more directly to the user's language. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
 * This is done, and I opened a bug about pointing more directly to the user's language. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

No thanks
How do I turn Visual Editor off? --Merovingian (talk) 18:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Never mind; I found it. --Merovingian (talk) 18:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * me too, see Help:VisualEditor/FAQ. --Flominator (talk) 15:41, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Translation in Marathi (mr)
The language Marathi (mr) is not appearing in the language list at the header of the page along with other languages. I have recently made certain translations there on the translation page.To see them here,i didnt find the page of my language. Pl confirm.

V.narsikar 13:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC) Thanks anyway! When I went back, it now appeared.

V.narsikar 13:45, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Translation into Bikol Central (bcl)
I'm doing the translation from English to Bicol Central. But it seems that my translations are not coming back to fore for further revisions. How can I get back to it? Can you give me a link to it? Thanks. Geopoet (talk) 02:20, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Hey - thanks for doing this. Unfortunately you replaced the original, English version rather than writing a new version for bcl. Instead, you should edit the page using this link. Thank you again. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:47, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Updates to the page
This can be used as a screenshot of the new More menu. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Saving for later, since these signs have disappeared from insert

 * The "" icon (an Egyptian ankh: ☥) will allow you to add Egyptian hieroglyphics to the page. (Pending. Not yet available.)
 * The "" icon (a sigma sign: Σ) will allow you to display mathematical formulas. (Pending. Not yet available.)


 * These show for me? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 05:42, 10 January 2014 (UTC)


 * They show at MediaWiki, but not elsewhere. The math formula item appears on other wikis only if you've opted in, and I don't see any way to enable hieroglyphics.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, the hieroglyphics experimental mode will eventually be a beta feature when it's a little more polished; for now it's MediaWiki-only (and has been for ~ 6 months). I still think they should be documented, maybe as "available on some wikis" or somesuch. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Appearance of page
What's the reason for boxes around headings? Or for shrinking the width? Because they are quite quite non-standard when compared to other help pages: Help:Contents or any other page. --Usp (talk) 05:32, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I believe that the original hope was that it would be easier to read. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I think having such drastic difference in appearance for a single thing (VisualEditor) does not help, on the contrary I would say. I think these kind of things (manually trigging heading style and page width) should be done centralized like in Typography_refresh. To prevent maintainability issues with blink-code for one. --Usp (talk) 06:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Frankly, Usp, I like the regular help pages better myself, but I think that there's a belief that the white spaces improve readability, as Whatamidoing says. (Maybe an accurate one - I haven't studied this at all.) I'm used to the regular wiki display, and I find this table system a pain to work with - I grumble at it every time I try to update it. :) --Mdennis (WMF) (talk) 15:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

info about "show changes" -- and how to enter an edit comment -- was HARD TO FIND
I stumbled into a visual editor because it was a default for a certain page (see https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Universal_Language_Selector%2FDesign%2FInterlanguage_links&diff=1023297&oldid=993136 ).

However, I was able to find [only] the "Save page" button -- I had no idea where to look, to find (or, to find out how to find) the "show changes" button, nor the method to enter an "edit comment".

Fortunately (see the"DIFF" link above) I was making only a single-character edit -- a spelling (or blatant TYPO) correction. Upon clicking on the "Save page" button, some of my questions were (too late! -- in a sense) answered.

However, before I found those [answers to my questions], I had to -- FIRST! -- "give up" on trying to find them. The organization of how it works might seem very clever to you. That is, the set-up of clicking on the "Save page" button FIRST, and then being shown (the existence of, and the location of) the "show changes" button, and the method to enter an "edit comment" -- all of that, might seem very ergonomic to you.

But -- (switching now, to discuss this Help page, instead) -- when a person comes to a Help page, it should be possible -- [and, ideally, easy!] -- to find the desired answers -- (even the ones I was looking for, IMHO) -- without being obligated to already know certain things. So, IMHO this Help page should contain the character string "show changes", even if only to allow readers of this Help page to find what they are looking for. Such readers might already know about the existence (and the usefulness) of the "show changes" button in the OLD (non-"Visual") ["wikitext"] editor. They might get an idea (as I did) to search for the character string "show changes". (That character string should probably be placed in a section that "explains" the stuff mentioned in the previous paragraph -- i.e., the fact that AFTER you click on the "Save page" button, THEN you are shown the "show changes" button, and the method [or "opportunity"] to enter an "edit comment".)

I was glad (at first) that there was a hyperlink to this "help" page. However, initially, I found this "help" page UN-helpful, and I was disappointed.

I have made many edits (a 4-digit number) to the English Wikipedia -- using the "OLD" (non-"Visual") ["wikitext"] editor. I am very unfamiliar with the "visual editor". So far, I do not like^H^H^H^H prefer the "visual editor".

Just my 0.02. YMMV. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 03:57, 6 June 2014 (UTC) (but "see also" w:User_talk:Mike_Schwartz)


 * Good idea, Mike Schwartz. We should be able to internationalize this so that it will auto-translate to whatever jargon is common on that wiki, by using , which will give us "" (in whatever language you're viewing the page in) and  , which will produce "" or the local equivalent.
 * On a bigger question, do you think it would be a good idea to have a sort of "cheatsheet" for experienced editors?  I'm not sure that experienced editors need this whole long thing.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:04, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

"In most cases you do not select text"
Hi,

The page currently says:
 * In most cases, when creating internal links (links to other pages in the same wiki) you do not select text. But when creating external links, in most cases you do select text before starting the linking process, and text is probably something you just typed.

This sounds very odd to me. I select text in both cases: When I add an internal or an external link.

Am I missing something here? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:14, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Not really. There are just several ways to create links. For simple wikilinks, you don't need to type a word, select it and make it a link. You can simply hit CTRL+K, or the link button, and add it in the dialog. (You can also type it, put the cursor on it and hit CTRL+K to create the link, yet another way which doesn't involve selecting.) For external links, you'll probably want to select multiple words first and then adding the link; otherwise using the method I just described would lead to a label which is a mere number in brackets. HTH, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Elitre, You can also type it, put the cursor on it and hit CTRL+K to create the link - if I understand correctly, this only works if the title of the target article is a single word.
 * In general, this whole description sounds too complicated for me. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:00, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yup, that's what I had in mind when I said "simple". Please feel free to try to simplify that passage yourself, of course. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:36, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

"it will not be saved until you save the entire page"
The page currently says:
 * Your link will immediately appear on the VisualEditor page, but it will not be saved until you save the entire page.

Isn't that true for all other changes? Is there anything special about linking? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It is, and a similar remark is also made for galleries editing. This note was in the guide since its very first version. It is possible that people were a bit confused by how VE worked in June 2013, so we thought that such a warning was necessary. Do you think those passages should now be revisited? Best, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * On one hand - Yes.
 * On the other hand - VE is kinda similar to Google Docs, and Google Docs autosaves everything, so this may confuse some people.
 * So I'm not entirely sure. Are there any tests with users from which we can know the expectations? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:03, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I can ask. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * James confirms there are not such tests, but we believe that we can safely take out those notices entirely at this point (or if we really want to be cautious, just adding a general one at the top of the page rather than inside single sections. HTH, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Exporting the English version
Extracting the English version from the grips of the translation system is complicated, so here's the link:

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Help:VisualEditor/User_guide/en&action=edit

Click that and copy the results to any English-speaking wiki. (NB that today's version won't work very well for you, unless you also have a copy of Language screenshot URL installed.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 9 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Update:
 * Here's my current workaround for the Language screenshot template. It should work on any language.
 * Copy the text over.
 * Use "search and replace" on your browser to find the string  and change it to   (or the preferred local equivalent).
 * At the end of that line, replace the  with -xx.png so that "xx" is the code for the language whose screenshots you want.  This means that you'll paste -en.png for English ones or -it.png for Italian ones.
 * Preview the whole page before saving, to make sure that you haven't missed anything and that all of the screenshots actually exist for that language. (Fallback to -en.png if they don't.)
 * The file names won't normally change, and the screenshots should update automatically (by bot), so you should only have to do this once per major update to the page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor Portal template
Is the VisualEditor Portal template needed here?

Some of the links in it can be useful for general users, but some seem too much for a page that is supposed to give people quick reference about editing. It's very big and doesn't work so well with the rest of the text, which has special design - margins, a lot of whitespace, etc. I tried moving it a bit to other places on the page, but it just doesn't quite fit anywhere.

Can it be removed entirely? If there are any very useful links, they can be posted separately in a smaller box. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:41, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing it's here for consistency, but I also think a smaller/shorter box just on this page (maybe with a similar design though) won't hurt. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Page formatting
I'm not sure if this change is worth it. It makes things easier for me, but it's going to make the translation work harder for all of the translators (who will then have to copy the formatting). Also, it probably breaks all of the existing translations. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. Sorry, Shirayuki. Nikerabbit, any thoughts? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk)


 * Indeed it "broke" (fuzzy) the translations. I unfuzzy many of them in many languages manually. Can someone revert all my related changes? Here are the languages I changed: ca de es fi fr it nl pl pt pt-br. Macofe (talk) 21:44, 18 December 2014 (UTC)


 * See . Wrong markup breaks "Edit this section" feature. --Shirayuki (talk) 12:39, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand, but it's either that or having to deal with wiki mark-up in the translations themselves. Whatamidoing, Elitre, myself and a few other people maintain the English page. I don't know about them, but I'm fine with paying the price of editing the whole page instead of just one section to make the translation easier, and there are many more translators than maintainers of the English page. (Other English page maintainers really don't have to agree with me :)
 * That said, it would be better if tags didn't break section editing. Shirayuki, can you please a Phabricator bug about this? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm resigned to having to edit the whole page all at once.
 * To my surprise, I couldn't find anything about this widely known problem in Phabricator. It's now T85120.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:44, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Templates
The page says:
 * If you are editing an existing template, and the template has been updated, then the dialog will show the values for the parameters.

This sounds weird to me. Can anybody please clarify?

Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 22:23, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That sentence can be safely removed AFAICS. The previous one makes it obsolete by already mentioning "opening an existing one", --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:10, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

A bug with marking for translation
Hi,

There's currently a bug that prevents this page from being marked for translation: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90704. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 10:20, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * thanks for letting us know, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:57, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Needed updates
This needs some pretty significant updates again, including lots of new screenshots. Here's what's on my list of necessary changes so far:


 * add instructions for inserting and editing bare URLs (both http://example.com and )
 * add instructions for using Cite Basic on a pre-existing/Citoid ref
 * add Citoid-related instructions

What else? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:55, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * What people need to do about MediaWiki:Visualeditor-quick-access-characters.json now. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I updated VisualEditor/Special characters (which already existed and is linked from this page) for that. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Screenshots
User:Amire80, I've just changed File:VisualEditor - Editing references 20.png to a blank dialog, rather than one with text in it. Assuming that User:John Broughton approves my change, then this is an image that we should probably set up for Language Screenshot Bot.

Also, I'm now trying to replace all the non-automated screenshots with something from Help:Sample page. Eventually, I'd like that page to be translated, so that any language can have good, relevant screenshots in the local language. If you see anything that you want to change, then please be bold, or let me know. (NB that the sample "article" is intentionally public domain/CC-0, for ease of re-use.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:59, 28 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It might be nice if File:VisualEditor - Media editing 8.png could also be taken over by Language Screenshot Bot. I'm not sure that's possible, though.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ideally, File:VisualEditor_edit_tab-en.png would have a larger size/higher resolution (all versions), and the en language (only) would not be taken at the English Wikipedia, which has a custom display that will not match what's seen on >99% of the other wikis when the language is set to English. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Updates

 * "put your caret in the paragraph"
 * "Caret", not "cursor"?
 * "For any item to have an effect, you must have first selected (highlighted) some text."
 * Removed from the "Formatting" menu item. It's not true.  (Type something.  Choose bold from the menu.  Type something.  The new text is bold.)
 * The table item was missing from the description of the insert menu. My quick description still needs the MediaWiki message name added (and copyediting).
 * I added a new image for "simple link" editing.
 * I pulled this item. I am not sure that it's necessary, since it repeats the same process as the previous step.
 * "In the Reference dialog, if you want to include a citation template, or any other template, in your new reference, click the Template icon (puzzle piece) in the "Insert" toolbar menu within the Reference editor" has the main toolbar menu, rather than the one inside the ref dialog.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * For "caret", which appeared three times, I've substituted "cursor", which already appeared seven times.
 * For the "Formatting" menu, I've added a sentence at the end, to cover the "start at the cursor" option. I didn't put translate tags around this, however, so that needs fixing.
 * For the table item in the insert menu, I think no copyediting is needed. As for the MediaWiki message name, I note that this also needs to be added in the "Editing tables" section.
 * John Broughton (talk) 21:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Common terminology
There are words that appear frequently - "cursor" is one, and there probably are some common phrases, where it would be nice to be able to translate once (presumably outside of the VE user manual) and be done with. Is that possible? I'm guessing that creating new MediaWiki message names would be considered bad form; if so, then maybe a separate series of "MediaWiki help names"? In any case, I'm willing to create a list if that in fact would be useful. John Broughton (talk) 21:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Sections not marked for translation
Hi. While finishing the Romanian translation, I noticed there are still several texts in English, which (apparently) were not marked for translation. Any reason for this situation? Thanks. -- Winter  eu 22:32, 14 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi Wintereu,
 * When a section isn't marked for translation yet, it usually means that someone is re-writing it. We added and changed a couple of sections a few days before you posted this comment, and the page was marked for translation a few days later.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Whatamidoing (WMF), There's something broken in the second part of Help:VisualEditor/User_guide (" ") but I can't see how to fix it. Possibly related to the above. –Quiddity (talk) 23:59, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I finally figured it out: translation variables must be wrapped inside translation tags, or they're ugly.  That section isn't fully marked up because the text hasn't been finalized (last I checked?).  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:06, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Tutorials for Wikipedia version
Hello,

For those interested, I've started reformatting and summarising some of the user guide content into simple tutorials on English Wikipedia using the  template.

en:Help:Introduction to, containing:
 * en:Help:Introduction to editing (VE)
 * en:Help:Introduction to referencing (VE)
 * en:Help:Introduction to images (VE)

I plan to do a couple more for tables and templates. If you have a moment, please take a quick look and check for errors or improvements! Evolution and evolvability (talk) 09:29, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Bi-directional switching


We should probably think about adding this image. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:51, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

When are invisible templates invisible?
Question I was just asked: "Some templates are not visible to someone reading a page. In the visual editor, such hidden templates are shown as puzzle icons."

Is there a more more exact (technical?) definition of what will keep a template hidden (and thus shown as a puzzle icon)? /Johan (WMF) (talk) 15:53, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * It shows if the result of the template is 0px wide or high. This is at the discretion of the template authors. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 18 February 2016 (UTC)