VisualEditor


 * For the VisualEditor deployment at the English Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:VisualEditor.
 * For changes made using the VisualEditor, see [ VisualEditor], [ VisualEditor: Check], and [ VisualEditor: Switched].

The VisualEditor project aims to create a reliable rich-text editor for MediaWiki. VisualEditor is being developed so it can be used as a MediaWiki extension using the Parsoid project to supply HTML+RDFa; however, its core implementation can be run without MediaWiki, Parsoid, or Node.js.

As of late 2014, it is available to all users here at MediaWiki.org and on about half of the Wikipedias. It is also available as an opt-in Beta Feature to logged-in users on most other projects, in all languages. VisualEditor is only available in some namespaces, including the main namespace (where this page is), but not in discussion namespaces.

More information about VisualEditor can be found on [//blog.wikimedia.org/2012/06/21/help-us-shape-wikimedias-prototype-visual-editor Wikimedia's blog], the FAQs, and [ VisualEditor:Welcome]. Please visit the main, multi-lingual VisualEditor Portal.

Rationale
The decline in new contributor growth is the single most serious challenge facing the Wikimedia movement. Removing avoidable technical impediments associated with Wikimedia's editing interface is a necessary pre-condition for increasing the number of Wikimedia contributors.

Status



 * You can see the team's current code dashboard on gerrit.

Timeline

 * Some level of exploration was done in 2010 by the Wikipedia Usability Initiative.
 * The 2011 product whitepaper published by the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic product team identified rich-text editing as one of the "Great Movement Projects". Work subsequently started in May 2011.
 * The 2011-12 Wikimedia annual plan, released July 2011, states a goal for VisualEditor: "First opt-in user-facing production usage by December 2011, and first small wiki default deployment by June 2012".
 * The 2012-13 Engineering Goals document sets a timeline for VisualEditor's development and deployment up to the end of June 2013.
 * The 2013–2014 Engineering Goals document lists the goals for that year.
 * VisualEditor is scheduled to be deployed across Wikimedia projects over the coming months. Below is the schedule as of November 2014:

Enabling VisualEditor by default for all users or for all logged-in users can be requested by contacting product manager James Forrester.

Documentation

 * Generated code documentation
 * [[media:Page-retrieval.svg|Sequence diagram: Page Retrieval]]
 * [[media:VisualEditor_sequence-diagram_page-edit.svg|Sequence diagram: Page Edit]]

You can speak with us in our chat channel,.

Related pages
For more information on VisualEditor and its design process, see these directory pages:
 * Design portal
 * Planning and testing
 * Software
 * Feedback archives
 * /Presentations/
 * User testing reports