VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive/2012/06

Upload and Insert Images in one step
Brilliant work! It still lacks some tools, like insert images, videos, audio and documents (pdf, xls, etc) Insert an image or any file from our computer is a complicated process in mediawiki. For common people is almost impossible.

It is so different to the that people get used to in windows and mac applications. In mediawiki you have to click on a link at the sidebar (not in the Editor toolbar) to upload. After that, you have to copy the file name and close the dialog. Then you click in the button to insert. Then you substitute the "File:Example.jpg" by the name previouly copied.

Compare this to the way Wordpress 3.3.1 Editor implemented. They made it so easy to insert images in one single button, one single step! Why don't you use that code? It is well written and it is free. With a few changes you could use that stable and tested code to quickly implement a very useful feature to Visual Editor.

The step by stepUpload Wizard with image copyright may be good for Wikipedia, but is an extension of unnecessary complexity, useless in many other wikis like the one I am developing for fifty thousand users in an intranet environment.

Upload and insert images should be as simple as Wordpress implemented so well in their visual editor.


 * I personally agree that on the design and user-interface level, Wordpress has done some great work and should be an inspiration. The media upload/handling is one area Wordpress does quite well indeed. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 14:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * In order to block as less as possible the editing flow I would follow an approach of "adding image to the document first, setting metadata later": Once you select an image from your computer it appears at the document with a footer where some lacking metadata could appear as placeholders (e.g., "no description", "no category") that can be edited in-place. For mandatory information (e.g., name or license) these placeholders may be visually presented as warnings and even block the image from being shown in the saved article if not completed. Pginer (talk) 16:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for this idea; I've added it to our task-list as 37932. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Enhancements
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0

What about adding LaTeX to the selection of markup formats? Or DocBook XML? Or TEI XML? Is the underlying data model capable of supporting hierarchical structured markup? 109.255.79.69 19:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, TEI is something I would like to see featured as well! I don't know what else that entails though apart from adding XML-like tags. Currently the only way to use that, as far as I'm aware, is Extension:TEITags, but it was specifically created for a transcription project at UCL, and so is not guaranteed to work on any MW site. Cavila MW 1.17, MySQL 5.5.23, Php 5.3.10, SMW 1.7.1 20:23, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for these ideas; I've added them as 37933 and 37934. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Great Idea, but formating not working using Opera 11.64 Win
User agent: Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; U; de) Presto/2.10.229 Version/11.64

I can enter Text, but not a single formatting option works using Opera 11.64 on Windows. Please keep on developing this editor. It will be a great help for us in our internal wiki. It will allow even the secretary to edit additional text without training. Especially a help for Tables will be highly appreciated. 62.225.0.136 05:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback. We're definitely going to include support for Opera and (hopefully!) easy editing of tables. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

table
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0

When I copy the table into the table in the visual one....The normal noe breaks and never wake upagain. Justincheng12345 (talk) 13:09, 25 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback; we've replace the code so much that this probably no longer occurs, but I'll look for it. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Why not use a typical editor style?
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.168 Safari/535.19

It seems that an editor such as TinyMCE, or the editor that Yahoo uses would be adaptable (or limited) to specific wiki functions.

This would eliminate the pain of designing and coding a new one, and learning the new design by editors, especially "domain experts" who don't even like computers.

HTH

69.168.144.143 22:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Myself I think it's good the Mediawiki team take a shot at the best visual editor possible. Not to be constraint be an existing code base, poor design choices (not a shot at TinyMCE, but there is currently no decent—yes I have very high expectations—visual editor, they all fall short somewhere). And plurality of solutions is good, keep everyone on their toes. Jérémie Bouillon (talk) 14:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback; we've looked at re-using an existing editor but unfortunately none of them were appropriate for our needs, and as Jérémie says, their usability isn't great either. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Great
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0

Good editor. Good Luck and good joob 187.54.35.43 20:42, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! Lots still to do. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Errors
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_4) AppleWebKit/534.57.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.7 Safari/534.57.2

I have some errors in the current deploy: TypeError: 'null' is not an object (evaluating 'nodes[0].getElement.attributes') 3load.php:20TypeError: 'null' is not an object (evaluating 'node.children') TheDJ (talk) 19:41, 18 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback; we've replaced the code so much that this probably no longer occurs, but I'll look for it. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Bold, italics and headings don't always work.
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/536.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/19.0.1084.56 Safari/536.5

The headings never work. The formatting sometimes breaks. I hope to use this extension as it is released as a usable product with MediaWiki Muqman 52 (talk) 00:26, 19 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback; we've replaced the code so much that this probably no longer occurs, but I'll look for it. We look forward to getting to the point of releasing it as a standard part of the MediaWiki release. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Change button text for unsaved 'are you sure' dialog?
If you try and leave a page that you've edited before saving, you get a nice dialog box confirming you want to leave. The text is Are you sure you want to go back to view mode without saving first? Cancel   OK What would you think of changing the button text from 'Cancel', 'OK' to 'No, take me back' and 'Yes, I'm sure'? It always feels weird to me to answer a yes/no question with ok/cancel rather than yes or no. Bhartshorne (talk) 20:25, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, (since OK/Cancel is a pretty standard set of button choices) we could reword the question so they make better sense. Something like "You're about to leave the page without saving!  Is that OK? ok/cancel" Bhartshorne (talk) 22:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback; we definitely need to review the language choices of our messages, you're right. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Control plus arrows doesn't move cursor among words
I'm used to being able to use Control+LeftArrow or Control+RightArrow to move the cursor one word's length leftward or rightward. Doesn't work yet in the Visual Editor. Is that in the plan already? Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 21:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Could be related to 34095. Sumanah 19:40, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feature request; I've added it as 38000. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Linking unsatisfactory
Linking is too simple. You have to word the sentence to incorporate the name of the article. Also, one would expect to be able to link web sites as well as Wikipedia articles. Finally, there is no preview to see if the links are correct. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree. Still lots of work to do on this front.  I really like how the current enhanced editor works in this regard and hope you'll look to build on that.  Theflyer (talk) 23:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this. You can set the link to go anywhere (to another article, to an interwiki, or to an external link) using the link inspector (it just defaults to the same link as the display text) - sorry that this wasn't clear. We'll look at the design to make it more obvious what happens. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Preview is missing; it is crucial to test links. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:11, 26 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that testing links is crucial - it's in the tracker as 37904. However, not sure about need a Preview function (the idea is that the Edit and Read tabs should look identical, after all). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Unable to access the linking tool with no text selected
I am unable to access the link tool unless I have text selected. One thing I really like about the current enhanced editor is how you can click the link icon without any text selected and start typing a page name. I think it should be here as well.


 * Thanks for the idea. I've added it to our task tracker as 38005. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Not seeing a way to insert an external link
The linking tool makes it easy for an internal link, but not seeing a way to do a link to an external source. Along same lines how would an external link be aliased?


 * See above about this - you'd enter some display text, select it, enter the link you wish in the inspector, done. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Toolbar
Hey, the new prototype (à la VisualEditor:Welcome) looks great. I tested a few edits, and I wanted to say both congrats and point out what is not really a bug but a UX choice that I think needs discussion:

Currently users expect "save" "preview" and other such functions to be at the bottom of the page. While I really really really appreciate that the toolbar follows me when I scroll up and down (I can't emphasize this enough), I think it's kind of a broken choice to put the save button in the upper right. It breaks what users expect currently, and feels a little a slow to have to mouse up there.

Are there are any plans to have a bottom toolbar with such functions to complement the current top toolbar? Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   21:51, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This was the first thing I noticed as well. Additionally, the button's graphics make it blend into the background. I had to hunt around for the save button and that shouldn't be the case.  Maybe just make it a deep red or something to make it really visible but I would personally recommend a different location. Top left or something.  Theflyer (talk) 23:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this feedback on the design; I've added it as 38006, but really there's a whole piece of work we need to do of which this is just a small part! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:44, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Visual Editor Bugzilla bugs
New visual editor bugs in Bugzilla only get sent to Trevor and Neil(!). This needs to be updated. Kaldari (talk) 21:59, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This seems to be fixed. When I reported a bug an email was sent to me, User:Inez, wikibugs-l, User:Trevor Parscal, User:Robmoen and User:Catrope. Helder 12:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Unparsed interface
When I clicked on Save, there was an item with the (wiki)text " This is a minor edit " but I think it should be parsed, as in "This is a minor edit". Helder 22:01, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Argh, thanks - we caught one of those, but clearly missed this one.
 * Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This is 37819. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:49, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Are there edit conflicts?
I've [//www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?diff=next&oldid=552684 removed content] from previous edits but got no warning about that. Helder 22:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, we discovered this during deployment. A priority right away, certainly!
 * Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Reported on 37828. Helder 12:31, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

mid-air collisions are not detected (currently)
I "lost" my edits due to a mid-air collision. Currently there appears to be no mechanism to detect if someone edits a text which you opened and changed and saved before... I thought we have edit tokens --Wikinaut (talk) 00:01, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Reported on 37828. Helder 12:31, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Missing tooltips
It shows the name of the MediaWiki message (i.e. "&amp;lt;visualeditor-formatdropdown-tooltip&amp;gt;") instead of the appropriated tooltip in the "Paragraph" menu (it is not listed on Special:AllMessages either). The same happens for other entris of that menu (the headers). Helder 22:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the bug report; I've added it as 38008. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Editing talk pages
Contributing effectively usually requires interaction on talk pages. If the visual editor only supports articles and not talk pages, and as a result they only work on articles and don't pay any attention to talk pages, they will not be welcomed into the community and will be turned against Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:26, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This is temporary. Right now we're only testing the editor itself.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:26, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Shift+enter for numbered lists
I believe being able to start a new line within numbered lists would be quite nice. Use Shift+Enter for that, just as every website on the internet does (including Facebook, though YouTube dropped support for it just now). Johnanth (talk) 22:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks - this is now fixed and should be deployed soon. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

s is undefined
I just got the following error after clicking on "edit" using Firefox 9.0.1 Error: s is undefined Source: https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.mediawiki.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20120611T151323Z Line: 159 The page grayed out but nothing else happened. Helder 22:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Try here: Polimerek (talk) 23:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * So far so good... =) Helder 23:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Do you still get this problem? Are you using a skin other than Vector? Otherwise I cannot reproduce the bug, sorry. :-( Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Dropdown menu with no text
Is the dropdown menu supposed to have no text right after the page finish loading? On https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:VisualEditorSandbox?debug=1 the text "Paragraph" only appears after I click in the menu some times. Helder 23:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes - we could instantiate the caret by default at the start of the article (and so force it to have a value). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

mw.util.wikiGetLink
I have this error with Firefox : Erreur : mw.util.wikiGetLink is not a function Fichier Source : http://bits.wikimedia.org/www.mediawiki.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=fr&modules=ext.visualEditor.core%7Crangy&skin=vector&version=20120621T224945Z&* Ligne : 215 Ltrl G☎, le 23:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, yes, this should be fixed in the next few minutes.
 * Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Triple click doesn't work
On other namespaces, if I click three times in a row over a word, Firefox 9 selects the whole paragraph, but on Visual Editor nothing happens. Helder 23:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this idea; I've added it as 38011. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Auto-hide of formatting arrow
Once clicked, the formatting arrow's "Bold – Italic – Underline" menu remains expanded when the cursor is moved to another section. Having this intelligently disappear would be more intuitive. Otherwise, this is fantastic! AGK [•] 21:39, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This seems to work here - can you give details of what browser/etc. you were using (or has it disappeared since then? - we've change the code a few times). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Undefined link target
When I clicked on the "our feedback page" link which was in the text of the page VisualEditor:Welcome (before it was moved to Visual editor/Welcome), it loaded the page

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Undefined

I'm using Firefox 9.0.1 on Windos XP. Helder 22:07, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry about this - do you still get this bug now? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Navigation and selecting text in the summary field
If I type "something" in the summary and then try to use SHIFT+Home, or SHIFT+Left arrow, or triple click to select the text, nothing happens. I'm using Firefox 9.0.1. Helder 22:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * +1. -- Rillke (talk) 10:54, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * +1, I also couldn't change the text I already typed in. -- Geitost diskusjon 15:33, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Ctrl+LeftArrow, Ctrl+RightArrow, Shift+LeftArrow, Shift+RightArrow work here; I can change text already typed. But, End and Home don't – very annoying. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:11, 26 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry you have had these problems - can you confirm that they still happen, and if so, on what browsers? I cannot replicate here, but we've changed our code since the 22nd so we may have fixed it. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:51, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Double click selects spaces
If I double click a word to apply bold, the editor also select the space which is after the word (e.g. [//www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=552632 ]). It should only select the word itself. Helder 23:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This appears to now be fixed - can you confirm, or is it browser-dependent (and if so, what browser are you using)? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

CTRL+Left arrow doesn't work as expected
I was trying to use CTRL+Left arrow to move the cursor to the left, but it only moves one character at time (instead of one word at time). Helder 23:18, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Curiously, it works fine for selection (i.e. CTRL+SHIFT+Left arrow).
 * The right arrow behaves the same way as the left one. Helder 23:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Clear formatting doesn't remove section titles
It remove bolds, italics, but not the. Helder 23:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This is intentional - headers aren't formatted paragraphs, they're semantic constructs. Similarly, remove-formatting doesn't destroy lists, and won't tables, categories or images. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

range is null
If I open https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:VisualEditorSandbox?debug=1 and click on "Numbered list" as soon as the page is loaded, I get: Error: range is null Source file: https://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf5/extensions/VisualEditor/modules/ve/ve.Document.js Line: 50 ve.Document.prototype.selectNodes = function( range, mode ) { range.normalize; Helder 23:25, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Cancel edit?
If the user click in the "edit" link and then do not want to edit anymore, it should be able to click in some "Cancel" button/link (maybe the "Save page" button which is just disabled could be replaced by the cancel? Or we could have both?). Helder 23:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was bothering me as well. Filed as 37845. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

ESC doesn't exit the save popup
If the user press ESC while the save popup is open, it should just return to the edit mode, but it does nothing unless we click in the [x] button. Helder 23:32, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the bug report; I've added it as 38621. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)