2017 wikitext editor/Feedback

About this board

Post your feedback about using the first iteration of the 2017 wikitext editor as a Beta Feature. While you can disable it by unchecking the New wikitext mode checkbox in your Preferences (Beta tab), the Contributors team welcomes your feedback and ideas, especially on user interface decisions and the priorities for adding new features. All comments are read, in any language, but personal replies are not guaranteed: the team will try and go through reports here at least once a week. Need more attention? Report directly in Phabricator. You can learn how to structure well your submission.

If you are reporting a problem directly on this page, please include your web browser, computer operating system, and wiki skin (usually Vector, sometimes Monobook). Also, while editing to reproduce a problem, please try to append &safemode=1 at the end of the URL; if the problem disappears, you are using a gadget or script that interferes with the editor.

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Issue with source editing

10
Chatul (talkcontribs)

I tried out the new wikitext editor and found it slow and awkward. There is a tab labelled '''Read''', but rather than giving me the expected preview it asks whether I want to leave the page.


I saw in another page that preview is hidden in '''Publish''', which is highly unobvious. Even less obvious is getting back to source editing.


Also, is there a way to get into the old editor without first disabling the beta?

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

If you want to use an older wikitext editor, you can hand-edit the URL to say action=submit instead of veaction=editsource.

Qwerty284651 (talkcontribs)

It would be more convenient to have the "Preview" button/option be visible from the getgo instead of having to look for it and accidentally stumble upon it in the "Publish" menu. ~~~~

Cremastra (talkcontribs)

As I said in my own feedback, I strongly support moving the "preview" button into the main editing area, not hiding it in a dusty closet behind "Publish Changes". Edward-Woodrow (talk) 16:00, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

The main problem is that the toolbar is already full, for people on smaller screens. There's one editor at the English Wikipedia for whom the toolbar is wrapped, so that it fills two full lines. If we add anything else, he'll end up with three rows of toolbar, and almost no place to type.

Cremastra (talkcontribs)

Hi, Whatamidoing (WMF). I suppose that makes sense. By the way, there is clearly some kind of discussion tool that is enabled by default here and on frwiki – the one that involves the "Topic" namespace, and signatures at the top of comments, and so on. I find it very annoying. How do I disable this? Thanks, Edward-Woodrow (talk) 23:42, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

You don't, really. It's enabled per page. This is the first phase of "Flow", aka Structured Discussions. I think it'll be removed sometime in the next year or so (or the next time it breaks).

Cremastra (talkcontribs)
Cremastra (talkcontribs)

And this is a reply to my previous comment. Indentation? No! It's just one hideous mess. Edward-Woodrow (talk) 19:37, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

If memory serves, they cancelled the project in the middle of the design work about indentation. At the moment, if you reply to something in the middle of a thread, then it indents that, but anything added to the end is not indented.

Also, to be fair to the project, it was meant to handle complex workflows, specifically including enwiki's ArbCom case pages and AFD. (Imagine a world in which ArbCom votes aren't tallied by hand.) They only got as far as "post messages on a talk page" when the project was cancelled.

Reply to "Issue with source editing"
Aaron Liu (talkcontribs)

The new VE isn't as good as the "2010" editor as it currently stands. The load time is way longer than the normal editor. The realtime preview feature doesn't work though I guess this is something else. The commonly used characters at the bottom aren't there. A lot of integral toolbar functions such as syntax highlighting appear to be missing. A lot of features from VE appear to be missing, such as editing templates using the vetemplatewizard, so the only advantages this appears to provide are the cite tool and the new buchered toolbar. Just my thoughts, I appreciate the entire project behind this.

DFlhb (talkcontribs)

My two main issues are missing realtime preview, and missing syntax highlighting. The instant switching between visual & wikitext is great, but I just can't use this until those two features are built in. Realtime preview is vital, especially for template editing, but also for normal article editing. Syntax highlighting is useful to be able to easily parse visible article text from citations and other templates.

Reply to "My general issues"

Did it break functionality ot the older wikitext editor?

4
2003:6:61AE:6684:99A9:BDC9:AB81:1214 (talkcontribs)

Some days ago I activated this new editor in https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Einstellungen#mw-prefsection-betafeatures . As I saw some features are missing (e.g. „Simple mode“ - hide refs etc.) or difficult to reach (preview, changes – already mentioned here), I turned back and deactived this new editor.

The old editor appeared, but if I activated the right toolbar button „Simple mode“, all in the edit area appeared in plain text without syntax highlighting, only the right toolbar was visible, and if I deactivated the toolbar button „Simple mode“, nothing happened.

2003:6:61AE:6684:99A9:BDC9:AB81:1214 (talkcontribs)

I found a workaround: If I clear all Website data of wikipedia.org and then activate the old editor, it reappeared and worked correctly!

2003:6:61AE:6684:99A9:BDC9:AB81:1214 (talkcontribs)

Sorry, the title must be Did it break functionality ot the older wikitext editor? but I cant change it anymore ;-)

2003:6:61AE:6684:99A9:BDC9:AB81:1214 (talkcontribs)

And now I pasted the title and forgot to change it, it must be Did it break functionality of the older wikitext editor?

Reply to "Did it break functionality ot the older wikitext editor?"
Cremastra (talkcontribs)

I tried it for about a month. There were no obvious bugs, but I had a few problems with it that caused me to stop using it:

  • Previews are hard to get.
In the standard wikitext editor, there is both the "Preview" tab that opens on the right and a large, easy to find "Preview" button at the bottom. In this version, one must click "Publish changes" before one gets an option to preview.
  • Edit summaries
In the standard wikitext editor, one just types in one's edit summary in the box at the bottom, and clicks "Publish changes". In this new one, one has to, once again, click the "Publish changes" button before being prompted to leave an edit summary.

Hiding previews and edit summaries is, I find, confusing and misleading. It also partially breaks , as the source mode button for the gadget is gone without a trace. Edward-Woodrow (talk) 21:52, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Reply to "Feedback"
TadejM (talkcontribs)

Hello. I'd like to report a bug when using 'New wikitext mode' in the English Wikipedia. The lines of wikitext overlap with each other and also with the editing interface when I am editing on mobile with the desktop view. I'm using Chrome in Android (Samsung phone), but toggle the desktop view.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

Is the text colorful? If so, the problem is in CodeMirror (the syntax highlighting software). You can turn it off in the "hamburger" menu (three lines near the big blue Publish button).

TadejM (talkcontribs)

Thank you. I've figured out wikEd was the cause. I've turned it off, but this is less than an optimal solution. Anyway, I suppose it was causing other trouble as well.

TadejM (talkcontribs)

It turned out wikEd was not the true problem since the problem persists but the page displays correctly if I reload it on mobile... I will let you know as soon as I figure this out. --TadejM (talk) 21:11, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

TadejM (talkcontribs)

I have not figured out the exact cause. None of the gadgets or beta functions seem to resolve the issue. I'm attaching the link to a screenshot. As said, when I reload the page, it displays correctly. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S21 phone with Android 13 and opening the file in Chrome 108 (desktop view).

TadejM (talkcontribs)

After disabling all gadgets and removing all custom css and js, I've now found that the issue is strictly caused by the option 'New wikitext mode' (i.e. 2017 wikitext editor) under Preferences/Beta features. It appears when I enable this mode and disappears when I disable it. I tested this in the English Wikipedia.

(In addition, wikEd does not work with this mode. I guess though that this must be resolved by its developer.)

TadejM (talkcontribs)

In addition, the responsiveContent gadget caused me problems when working on desktop. I had to disable it since when it was enabled, I was unable to correctly select wikisyntax. It is described as "Improved appearance for mobile, narrow and wide screens". I don't know if it caused any problems on mobile. Blank space was selected and when I tried to delete it, the wikitext was deleted instead.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

TheDJ will want to know about the gadget.

What happens if you go to the "hamburger" (three lines) menu and turn off syntax highlighting?

TadejM (talkcontribs)

I left TheDJ a message on his talk page. The issue only occurs when syntax highlighting is enabled. Otherwise, everything seems to work fine.

Illud Sine Nomine (talkcontribs)

I encountered this today, with desktop view on my phone (Android 13). The code was colorful, but the cursor seems to be at wrong place, so I could edit nothing (except by switching back to mobile view) until I turned the feature off. My browser is Ecosia.

Vincenzo1492 (talkcontribs)

I had the same garbled text prob in the English Wikipedia (but not in other Wikipedias) as @TadejM had before. It is possible to bypass the bug by turning off either New Wikitext mode or CodeMirror in the Hamburger Menu while editing.

After turning these on again the bug reappears. Thus it seems like CodeMirror is producing the bug as @Whatamidoing (WMF) mentioned, but it must be a different cause:

  • The garbled text bug did not appear in other Wikipedias while I was editing and where CodeMirror and New Wikitext mode turned on, too, e.g. the German Wikipedia.
  • And I finally managed to get rid of the bug completely:
    • While I edited an article in the English Wikipedia where the garbled text bug appeared I switched to Preferences --> Gagdets --> Editing and turned off the Syntax Hightlighter (which is not CodeMirror but the Syntax highlighter by Remember the dot) and saved prefs.
      • Note: CodeMirror and New WikiText Mode were on all the time and I did not change their modes/prefs.
    • I reloaded the tab with the article in edit mode - the mix up of colorful overlayed text disappeared.
    • Later I turned on the "Syntax highlighter" in Gadgets again to reproduce the bug. But curiosly the bug did not return... not in the article I was editing, not in other edit sessions. Not even after I restarted my browser (Firefox) which completely clears my sessions, cookies, caches, etc. and forces me to log in again.
    • BTW: I have wikEd generally turned off.

Hope that will help you, too.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

If anyone can figure out how to force the bug to appear reliably, I'd love to hear the instructions.

Reply to "Garbled wikitext"

الاقتصاد بين عام 2017حتي عام 2023

1
Dr Waled Al Badry (talkcontribs)

كانت مصر في السنوات ما بين عامي 2016_2017 في اطار نقدي واصلاحات اقتصادية حتي الدخول الي عام 2018 كانت مصر جاهزة اقتصادية للخوض والتقدم .

Reply to "الاقتصاد بين عام 2017حتي عام 2023"

Add suport for other gadgets/tools

1
Qwerty284651 (talkcontribs)
Reply to "Add suport for other gadgets/tools"

Edit notice link disappears

1
58.6.172.190 (talkcontribs)

When I enable "New Wikitext Mode" the red link "Page notice" that allows adding edit notices disappears. I'm an admin if that makes a difference. I tested it with the old and new Vector skins. ~~~~

Reply to "Edit notice link disappears"

Doesn't automatically expand when collapsed sidebar in New Vector

1
CactiStaccingCrane (talkcontribs)

When I collapse the sidebar in New Vector, the edit form didn't automatically expand to fill the white space. The same thing happens on VisualEditor as well.

Reply to "Doesn't automatically expand when collapsed sidebar in New Vector"
Skalman (talkcontribs)

Hi, I'm creating a gadget for improved source editing. Are there any hooks that I can use?

So far, I am aware of the following ways to edit wikitext:

  • Traditional <textarea> (action=edit)
    • Hook: wikipage.editform
    • Edit with: $("#wpTextbox1")
  • Syntax highlighting with CodeMirror (action=edit)
    • Hook: ext.CodeMirror.switch
    • Edit with: elementFromHook.CodeMirror
  • 2017 wikitext editor (veaction=editsource)
    • Hook: ???
    • Edit with: $(".ve-ce-documentNode") - do you have anything more exact?


Also, is there a good way and place to show warnings that the user will see before saving?

Nux (talkcontribs)

Check this out for 2017: VisualEditor/Gadgets#User's position in the model. Seems to work fine for inserting text. Note that you can use `new ve.Range( 0 )` to insert at the beginning of the text.

The hook seems to be `ve.wikitextInteractive`, but haven't tested this.

Skalman (talkcontribs)

Thanks for the pointers, Nux. That link was very helpful!