VisualEditor


 * For help installing and running VisualEditor, see Extension:VisualEditor.
 * For changes made on this wiki using VisualEditor, see the filters [ visualeditor] and [ visualeditor-switched].

VisualEditor is a reliable rich-text editor for HTML documents. It was created by the Editing team for MediaWiki's HTML+RDFa document format (generated by Parsoid) and is available as a MediaWiki extension. VisualEditor's core implementation is a standalone JavaScript library and can run without MediaWiki, Parsoid, or Node.js. As of 2020, VisualEditor is enabled by dedault here on mediawiki.org and on most Wikipedia and Wikivoyage language editions. It is available as an opt-in Beta Feature to logged-in users on other Wikimedia projects. VisualEditor is generally not enabled for pages outside the content namespaces, such as discussion pages or template code.

More information about VisualEditor can be found on the multi-lingual VisualEditor Portal, on [//blog.wikimedia.org/2012/06/21/help-us-shape-wikimedias-prototype-visual-editor Wikimedia's blog], and the FAQ. Information about VisualEditor's wikitext mode is at 2017 wikitext editor.

Original rationale
The decline in new contributor growth was viewed as the single most serious challenge facing the Wikimedia movement. VisualEditor was built with the goal of removing avoidable technical impediments associated with Wikimedia's editing interface, as a necessary pre-condition for increasing the number of Wikimedia contributors. Subsequent research found no measurable gains over wikitext for new contributors.

History

 * 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 2011–2012 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 2012–2013 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 was deployed to most users at most Wikimedia projects by the end of 2015. See VisualEditor/Rollouts for a list.

Enabling VisualEditor by default for all users or for all logged-in users can be requested by contacting the Editing team's product manager.

Core module
VisualEditor is a standalone program that can be run without MediaWiki, Parsoid, or Node.js that provides a visual editor for editing HTML5 pages. It is written in JavaScript and runs in the browser.

Here are some helpful links:
 * Standalone demo
 * Documentation
 * Git repository (GitHub clone)
 * Installation help

Developer documentation

 * Developer glossary
 * Getting started
 * Generated code documentation
 * [[Media:VisualEditor sequence-diagram 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,.

Dashboards

 * Usage dashboard on Superset (requires dev shell account)
 * Continuous Integration
 * Code review dashboard

Related pages
For more information on VisualEditor and its design process, see these directory pages:
 * Design portal
 * Planning and testing
 * Software
 * Feedback archives
 * /Presentations/
 * Usability
 * Forecasts
 * 2015 Review of Process
 * Plans and Progress
 * Report
 * Design of Backlog
 * 2016 Team Offsite and Retrospective