2017 wikitext editor/Feedback/2017/06

Post your feedback about using the first iteration of the 2017 wikitext editor as a Beta Feature.

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.

The Editing 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.

We are trying to keep the page tidy by providing links to relevant tasks while closing threads. You can help by adding {{tracked|T######}}. By all means, feel free to re-open a thread if you need to!

See also:

View open developer tasks – Complete workboard – Report a new bug in Phabricator – Join the IRC channel

S-T turning (繁简转换) problems and so on

1. I found that when I preview on Chinese wikipedia (zh.wikipedia.org), the simple-traditional Chinese system will be unabled. For example, I'm a simplified Chinese user, when I preview "繁體字" with normal editor, it will display "繁体字". But with the new editor, it won't.
   （我发现在中文维基百科预览时，繁简转换将会失效。例如，我是简体中文用户，当我用普通编辑器预览“繁體字”时，它就会显示“繁体字”。但是使用新版的编辑器就不会。）
2. When I preview without changing the wikitext, it won't reload the preview. It gets in the way to try the templates and modules, or update with other pages' changing.
   （当我没有改变输入框中间的代码就预览时它就不会重新加载内容。这不利于尝试模板和模块，也不利于在其他页面有改变时更新页面的预览。）
3. The preview content is whole-screen-wide, but not the page-content-wide. And when the page background is not white, the preview's background is still white.
   （预览的内容有整个屏幕宽，而不是页面宽。而且当背景不是白色时，预览的背景仍然是白色的。

(I'm not good at English. I'm just a ninth-grade middle school student in China.) SolidBlock (talk) 08:58, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

The second one is very frustrating but I think this is because of the editor's power saving mode. If there isn't any changes on the page then the editor doesn't load it again. My opinion is that it should do. @SolidBlock try the following: write a space (or a simple character) and delete that immediately. Then the editor will update the page. Bencemac (talk) 18:02, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@DChan (WMF), ideas? Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:26, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

From a pain-disabled user

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T167832

(My user page on en.WP discusses my limitations to some degree.)

Since the 1990s I've seen many tools migrate from text-based interfaces to graphical ones, and not always with good results for various sets of users with various disabilities. I've just used this editor, and it did not surprise me. It significantly increased the amount of mouse clicks I was forced to use to complete a task.

(Side note: Clicking Publish... to get to Preview... is right up there in awkwardness with Windows' Start > Shut Down.)

One of the reasons I wasn't surprised was because of the careless usurpation of Alt-Shift-V. Even though as of the time of this post it still is in the tooltip on en.WP if you hover over the Show changes button, the shortcut's function is now to switch you to the Visual Editor.

There is at least one bug about this, but if you look at my en.WP user page, you might get some understanding of why, when I found it had been closed or had been given some such status, I didn't try to figure out how reopen the issue. I have to do what I can, when I can. I was discouraged and out of when-I-can.

So now I have to use what hotkeys I can simply to get to that button's location before wasting an incrementally pain-filled mouse click on it, and I use that view often to make sure I don't upload the wrong thing after, say, passing out or a stillsdisease.org fever spike. And right before I click, I get irritated by a tooltip that still shows me how I used to check my [V]ersion before saving it by comparing it with the previous [V]ersion.

It's like a poorly-formed curb cut: you don't notice it's a problem unless you have to push overly hard against it to move on when it's supposed to be there to help you move on in the first place.

Thank you for all your hard work in general, your patience with my irritated tone in this post, and your consideration of how to make this tool in particular less mouse-click dependent for those of us who are rodent-impaired. I'd consider help on the Alt-Shift-V problem a bonus.

I will try to take notes the next time I use the 2017 Wikitext Editor so the bulk of my feedback's details on this page can be on what this page is actually about. Heh! Geekdiva (talk) 12:46, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Just a personal note as a volunteer who often tries to fix and evaluate these kinds of accessibility problems.

1: You can always mail me with whatever problem you have and I will make sure we at least have a ticket for it, an analysis of the problem and an idea of what would be required to fix it. The actual fix might take a while.

2: "how to make this tool in particular less mouse-click dependent" We strive for all tools to be fully keyboard accessible, but often we miss something, because we don't rely on this accessibility ourselves. Please DO tell us, it is important to us.

3: More mouse clicks are going to be needed, because the software gains ever more features and complexity and we can't put all that in a single window of course. Again, we try to make everything keyboard accessible, if you need something, please let us know either by mail or in phabricator. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 21:20, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Geekdiva,

Thanks for this note. I've filed a bug about the alt-shift-v problem.

For visual mode, I think that you might want to take a look at the keyboard shortcuts. They're at VisualEditor/Keyboard shortcuts – no, don't reach for the mouse: if you can't tab to the link in your browser, then Alt+⇧ Shift+f (or your usual meta keys + f; it's Ctrl+⌥ Option+f on my Mac) should take you to the search box, and then you can type the name without another mouse click.

There are also a few undocumented shortcuts in the visual mode that might interest you: {{ opens the template dialog, and [[ opens the link tool, which is handy for both avoiding cut-and-paste maneuvers and perhaps a little easier to remember for long-time editors than the official version, which is Control+k (for PCs; Command-K for Macs). And the reason that meta-k is worth mentioning is because there's a new shortcut for the citation dialog, which is Control+⇧ Shift+K (⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+K on a Mac).

I'd be happy to hear more from you about whatever you want to share, from the bad curb cut to the minor paper cut.

P.S. This message, including formatting, was typed in visual mode, entirely from the keyboard (except that I'll have to use the trackpad to click the reply button), because I share your POV on the subject. It's not possible to do everything without a mouse/pointer here, but it's pretty close.  :-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Cannot select the page title

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T156047

If I am in edit mode, the page title is greyed out and I cannot even select it to copy it. Ash Crow (talk) 18:32, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Same problem here: this is a problem for template edition, when I frequently have to copy-paste the title. As a workaround, I use the URL part that contains the title, but I have to manually edit it since it contains "_" in place of spaces and some special characters are in HTML coding. Being able to select the title is a must-have feature. I'll track the phabricator task for updates. Epok (talk) 18:08, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

The problem of the wikitext

Hello to all and to all !

Further to the announcement of the community to delete(eliminate) our expensive and soft bar(helm) of tool for the benefit of an other one at present in stupid man in the mode Wikitexte, I take advantage of it to make some complaints which(who) seems to me justified:

* We ask for the compatibility of the gadget DotsSyntaxHighlighter the new mode of wikitexte

* We ask for the compatibility of the gadget Quick Preview the new mode of wikitexte

* We ask for the institution of most of the features of ForceMonobookToolbar the new bar(helm) of tool of the new mode of wikitexte

Delete(Eliminate) our good old bar(helm) of tool to proceed to the transition on the long term for the benefit of the new mode of wikitexte : why not?! But we delete(eliminate) something so important for us the old dinosaurs of Wikipedia with nothing in return! I hope that these complaints shall not go unheeded! Épicure (talk) 17:03, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure which project you're talking about. You may be looking for Contributors/Projects/Accessible editing buttons or Contributors/Projects/Removal of the 2006 wikitext editor or another project.

It's okay to write in French on this wiki. Also, please give me links to these gadgets. They look useful. :-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

This is the NewEditor Feedback page, and their phrase "new mode of wikitexte" clearly refers to this project. The three bullet points are clearly complaining about how NewEditor breaks all wikitext editor gadgets and scripts. (I deliberately didn't include that point in my RFC to fix the NewEditor, but that point would be included in an RFC to roll it back from our end.)

I can pretty well interpret the rest too. They're definitely making the connection that you're removing the wikitext editor to push VisualEditor. They would support a new wikitext editor if it were an improvement, but you're removing our valuable flexible tools and the NewEditor gives zero benefit in exchange. They end saying not to ignore the community's complaints.

I noted the poster's use of "We" rather than "I". I did some searching on French Wikipedia. I'm not sure which specific discussion they were referring to, but yes, I found other people on FrWiki objecting to the NewEditor. Unsurprisingly, they were complaining about preview and that the new editor was unusably slow. On the latter point, one person particularly commented about developers living in a California-bubble, saying that people in the rest of the word don't have high power computers capable of running it. I think the NewEditor wouldn't work for them at all.

I'm pretty sure "dinosaur" was sarcastic mocking of WMF disdain for experienced editors. It's possible that their use of "stupid" was sarcastically mocking the WMF's view of VisualEditor for new users. I admit that my basis for interpretation there is a bit thin, however those particular words appear unlikely to be stray translation glitches and that interpretation fits the general theme of the message. Alsee (talk) 10:57, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Alsee, at the moment, the community at the French Wikipedia is primarily concerned about the plan to truly "delete" the 2006 wikitext editor, and to replace it with (literally) "nothing in return" (i.e., no toolbar at all).

As you have been told many times, the devs are not "removing the wikitext editor to push VisualEditor". They aren't removing wikitext, and they have promised that it will be possible to edit wikitext without using either VisualEditor (any part of it, including its new wikitext mode) or Javascript for the foreseeable future.

I have therefore asked Menthe to clarify his comment.

(As for updating gadgets: Gadgets and other user scripts are entirely the responsibility of the users who created them, and they are absolutely free to updated their scripts whenever they want, including to make them work inside either or both modes of VisualEditor. They don't need the WMF's permission to do that.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Page moving

Regular page moves works, but when the target already has a page and I click on the button to delete the target page to make space for the page I want to move... The page editor opens up, making me unable to execute the move without shutting the 2017-editor off.

Windows 7, Google Chrome, MonoBook. Sara4177 (talk) 02:28, 25 June 2017 (UTC)