VisualEditor/Developer glossary

VisualEditor has a rich set of developer terminology used to describe its inner workings.

Interface elements
See also the OOUI demos.


 * Window: any element that pops up over the interface
 * Dialog: a window with a specific flow of associated actions: opening, a user choice, closing...
 * Inspector: a dialog that is specifically related to a node or annotation on the page (the desktop presentation is a tooltip-style popup; the mobile presentation is a modal window)
 * Panel: a individual page within a dialog (whether accessed from a tab or a sidebar)
 * Context items: a pop-up that appears anytime the cursor or focus is within the context of a specific node or annotation. It shows information, but doesn’t let you edit directly. Multiple context items can appear at once as a stack when one cursor position is in multiple contexts.
 * Shortcut: keyboard shortcut (e.g. cmd/ctrl-K to insert a citation)
 * Sequence: a sequences of typed characters that causes some action and deletes the typed characters (e.g.  to open the link dialog)
 * Toolbar: a bar containing buttons that activate particular tools

Data model

 * Annotation: a tag that adds a special meaning to text (e.g. link, a language annontation).
 * Node: a standalone "item" like an image, a table, or a table cell. Nodes can have annotations (e.g. an image can carry a link).

Shorthand/abbreviations

 * VE: abbreviation for VisualEditor, MediaWiki's rich-text editing interface.
 * Mobile VE: MediaWiki's rich-text editing interface, implemented for mobile devices.
 * Mobile: The mobile site, regardless of what device you use to reach it.

Proposed elements

 * Edit cards: the proposed new design of the mobile context items . These "edit cards" will show details about, and actions related to, different elements within articles, like links, citations, images, infoboxes, templates, etc.