Extension talk:StructuredDiscussions

Any questions about the StructuredDiscussions extension.

Some older comments can be found at Extension talk:Structured Discussions/Archive. See also Talk:Structured Discussions.

I don't get the Parsoid installation requirement. Parsoid should be bundled since MW 1.35? I'm asking, because I'm unable to get it to work with VE.

A thread on the mailing list that may be interesting. Probably beyond 1.40 since a community member shared a working configuration.

1. In LocalSettings.php, explicitely load Parsoid like so: wfLoadExtension( 'Parsoid', "vendor/wikimedia/parsoid/extension.json" );
2. Apply the patch

After upgrading from 1.38.4 to 1.39.0 VisualEditir does not work at Flow (Structered discussions) talk pages having following error:

[Y48AWn@IyD2bEpG6yTCgxAAAAgY] Exception caught: Conversion from 'html' to 'wikitext' was requested, but core's Parser only supports 'wikitext' to 'html' conversion

Previously I had such problem but the patch helped to resolve the problem, but now it doesn't help.

Any ideas how to resolve the problem?

Damn ! I'm definitely looking forward to a solution as well. Did you try asking the developers of the patch ?

Flow works properly on this wiki and it's 1.40.0. Is there a way to access the code base to see what fix they applied ?

I think you can see the configuration of Parsoid for this wiki here https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/operations/mediawiki-config/+/fa477a5521e8acc290a02e7cf8f9219ebd2d5cf5/wmf-config/CommonSettings.php#2653. Though, I am not sure whether this can help you.

I can confirm the same issue, the patch mentioned does not work anymore. Working with version 1.39.1 and not even the REL1_39 on GitHub is working.

@Tinss: Flow works properly on this wiki and it's 1.40.0. Is there a way to access the code base to see what fix they applied ?

It says this MediaWiki instance is running the version 1.40.0-wmf.20. So in theory, the version listed as such on the extension's GitHub is the one featured here. If you happen to find anything, please share here with us, because apparently we can't expect the developers to prioritize the users of MediaWiki as much as they prioritize Wikimedia's projects.

It's been more than 2 years of this issue, still unresolved for most of us, except, well, Wikimedia.

Is there a phabricator ticket for the issue ? Maybe we could try kindly asking the VE development team to look into it.

Flow is indeed very popular in enterprise MW.

I haven't made tickets for the issue at phabricator. I would appreciate if there will be one.

Since there's a demand for it, I created a ticket for this issue (still unresolved on my end)

Thank you! Hope there will be a solution of the issue soon.

We received a reply, more than a month later basically confirming my suspicions related to this extension developers' priorities:

apparently we can't expect the developers to prioritize the users of MediaWiki as much as they prioritize Wikimedia's projects.

This turned out to be true, as can be seen by the comment of this developer on the issue:

I'm afraid we don't offer much in the way of StructuredDiscussions maintenance/support, other than fixing issues that are highly disruptive on Wikimedia wikis. [...] Also, given that StructuredDiscussions does work on Wikimedia wikis, this seems an issue with the configuration, not the extension; the linked patch is about supporting a zero-config setup, but you probably wouldn't need a patch if it is correctly confiugred.

So what they are saying is – it's the fault of the users, not the developers for not documenting the configuration needed, or for focusing exclusively on Wikimedia projects.

So yeah, we can only rely on the users to fix that. If any of you ever find anything, let us know, I'll certainly do the same.

I was sort of expecting that kind of reply. Maybe the original author of the patch (@Lens0021) could lend us a hand ?

Unfortunately, I am not using zero-config VisualEditor anymore (or never). I am sorry I've forgotten what was the issue after that patch merged. Here are my current configuration and the comment I've written.

# Disable "zero configuration" VisualEditor
# zero-conf VisualEditor assumes that all the services are served as the same host. ('/' for
# MediaWiki, '/rest.php/<domain>/v3/' for Parsoid and '/restbase/<domain>/v1/' for RESTBase)
# It is not our use case, we are serving those services behind the orchestration tool, Docker or
# Nomad and a variety of addresses are used.
$wgVisualEditorParsoidAutoConfig = false;

$wgVirtualRestConfig = [
	'modules' => [
		'parsoid' => [
			'url' => 'http://' . ( getenv( 'NOMAD_UPSTREAM_ADDR_http' ) ?: 'http:8080' ) . '/rest.php',
		],
		'restbase' => [
			'url' => 'http://' . ( getenv( 'NOMAD_UPSTREAM_ADDR_restbase' ) ?: 'restbase:7231' ),
			# https://github.com/femiwiki/femiwiki/issues/266
			'domain' => 'femiwiki.com',
		],
	],
	'global' => [
		'domain' => 'femiwiki.com',
		'restbaseCompat' => true,
		'forwardCookies' => false,
	],
];

(original code:

https://github.com/femiwiki/docker-mediawiki/blob/408fbdf64fbcbc02c4ca96671f97b40fab7b5701/configs/LocalSettings.php#L357-L380)

Does anybody resolved the issue or not?

Not on my end. As I do not have MW 1.39 deployed on my test setup, could you give a look at the Parsoid and Flow configs used by Wikimedia for this wiki to see if replicating them fixes the issue ?

It appears that Flow is not finding Parsoid so this points to a configuration issue indeed.

will this thread help? Topic:W9nbm08t1cg25lop

This is the patch that used to work but no longer does.

No idea how to implement that. For now I am stuck - wanted to update to 1.39.3, but faced with problem. But if I have success, then I want to implement DiscussionTools extension, which, as I understand will be developed. And if I am not mistake Structured discussions are no longer supported, right?

StructuredDiscussions is only getting security fixes. Other type of support has halted. I suspect support will be entirely dropped, but not until there is a migration tool because some wikis (this one at least) are still using StructuredDiscussions.

@Fokebox, did you get a chance to replicate these configs on your installation ? The bug here does seem to be related to the zero-config setup.

@Tinss, @Fokebox I don't know if you saw my complete thread, but there, in addition to the patch, is also a summary of the variable:

$wgVirtualRestConfig['modules']['parsoid']['url']

I tried this to connect parsoid php to visualeditor and from visualeditor to flow, it really worked for me, I don't know if you have tried this configuration

Well, I decided to drop off the extension as it is not maintained no longer and change it to DuscussionTools. I have not too many Flow pages to be changed, so I decided to resolve the issue this way.

@Fokebox,@Tinss I was finally able to make it work, by the glory of Lenin. Here is what I had to put in the LocalSettings.php:

wfLoadExtension( 'Parsoid', "vendor/wikimedia/parsoid/extension.json" );
$wgVirtualRestConfig['modules']['parsoid'] = [
    'url' => $wgServer . '/rest.php',
];

I followed the instructions of the Parsoid/PHP setup. It recommends to manually declare Parsoid as an extension and to configure it, then just override the url parameter of $wgVirtualRestConfig['modules']['parsoid'] with your situation.

It's where you access the rest.php from. If you input the rest.php location correctly in your url, it should return a JSON catching a 404 error. You should see the same thing as https://en.prolewiki.org/rest.php

The URL of access of the rest.php is what you should put in the url parameter of that configuration.

Thanks, but I decided to change the extension to Extension:DiscussionTools

Wow, thanks. Can't wait to try it.

@Tinss this might interest you. I still had a problem when doing the above. The problem was we have a private wiki, so I should also forward cookies:

wfLoadExtension( 'Parsoid', "vendor/wikimedia/parsoid/extension.json" );
$wgVirtualRestConfig['modules']['parsoid'] = [
    'url' => $wgServer . '/rest.php',
    'forwardCookies' => true,
];

But doing only the following also worked for me:

wfLoadExtension( 'Parsoid', "vendor/wikimedia/parsoid/extension.json" );

When also applying the patch everybody uses.

You guys are awesome, I owe you both a virtual beer.

Anyone thinks this should be added to Extension:StructuredDiscussions#Troubleshooting ?

In header page is warning, which @KHarlan (WMF) copy from old page (2022-03-07 13:59:35). And @Pppery removed string "for now" (3:59:3). But I see, that is develop (changes in git repository) continued. Really "deployments have been suspended", or not?

Deployments to new wikis are suspended. Bug fixes for critical issues continue to be merged and are deployed via the release train.

As far as I understand it, the Extension:StructuredDiscussions (Extension:Flow) turned out because is impractical and complexity. But the extensions which I mentioned should probably not be affected.

Ok. Thank's. What replace it, please? I use MediaWiki 1.35.5 for now, but my plan is upgrade to next LTS, but first I must solve alternatives for used extensions. I not use exactly Extension:StructuredDiscussions, only Extension:Echo and Extension:WhoIsWatching.

On Wikimedia wikis, it’s replaced by Extension:DiscussionTools.

It's not usable for me, because my wiki not use VisualEditor, but I'm sure that there be someone who could use it. Thank you.

How can I disable it?

The main page of your wiki ?

You need to revert the content model of the page to that it was. See Help:ChangeContentModel.

Does this help ?

Seach was experimental and has now been removed from the code base. Discussions are underway here to get it working again.

How do you search an archive of structured discussions?

Hello,

There is a configuration parameter named $wgFlowSearchEnabled which defaults to false because it's is still experimental.

Sadly, integration with Elastic has been removed in some recent commits.

If you give it a go tell me about it because we could petition the dev team to put it back in.

Thanks. I'll start a discussion.

Cool, please cc me or give me link here so I can subscribe.

wikidata:Wikidata:Report_a_technical_problem#Search_of_structured_discussions

In mobile mode, only the wikicode is available which is problematic as most users are not versed in wikicode edition. Below is a patch to enable the visual editor in mobile mode.

There is however one bug that I cannot solve: searching users to tag them does not work, the exact user name has to be entered.

In extension.json

Above "ext.flow.visualEditor":

"ext.flow.mobileVisualEditor": {
	"scripts": [
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/mw.flow.ve.Target.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/mw.flow.ve.UserCache.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/ui/inspectors/mw.flow.ve.ui.MentionInspector.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/ui/tools/mw.flow.ve.ui.MentionInspectorTool.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/ui/tools/mw.flow.ve.ui.MWEditModeTool.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/ui/contextitem/mw.flow.ve.ui.MentionContextItem.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/ui/widgets/mw.flow.ve.ui.MentionTargetInputWidget.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/mw.flow.ve.CommandRegistry.js",
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/mw.flow.ve.SequenceRegistry.js"
	],
	"styles": [
		"editor/editors/visualeditor/mw.flow.ve.Target.less"
	],
	"dependencies": [
		"ext.visualEditor.core",
		"ext.visualEditor.core.mobile",
		"ext.visualEditor.mediawiki",
		"ext.visualEditor.mwwikitext",
		"ext.visualEditor.switching",
		"mediawiki.editfont.styles",
		"oojs-ui.styles.icons-editing-advanced",
		"ext.flow.visualEditor.icons",
		"mediawiki.api",
		"mediawiki.util"
	],
	"messages": [
		"flow-ve-mention-context-item-label",
		"flow-ve-mention-inspector-title",
		"flow-ve-mention-inspector-remove-label",
		"flow-ve-mention-inspector-invalid-user",
		"flow-ve-mention-placeholder",
		"flow-ve-mention-tool-title"
	],
	"targets": [
		"mobile"
	]
},

In "ext.flow.visualEditor.icons":

"targets": [
	"desktop",
	"mobile"
]

In extensions/Flow/modules/flow/ui/widgets/editor/mw.flow.ui.EditorWidget.js

Comment out !OO.ui.isMobile() in

mw.flow.ui.EditorWidget.static.isVisualEditorSupported = function () {
	/* global VisualEditorSupportCheck:false */
	return !!(
		//!OO.ui.isMobile() &&
		mw.loader.getState( 'ext.visualEditor.core' ) &&
		mw.user.options.get( 'flow-visualeditor' ) &&
		window.VisualEditorSupportCheck && VisualEditorSupportCheck()
	);
};

Replace line modules = [ 'ext.flow.visualEditor' ].concat(

with modules = [ OO.ui.isMobile() ? 'ext.flow.mobileVisualEditor' : 'ext.flow.visualEditor' ].concat(

Is Flow being discontinued next year?

Development on Structured Discussions ("Flow") was cancelled in 2015.

Are there any discussions about how to migrate to comment streams?

I had not heard of Extension:CommentStreams before; I think you should ask on that talk page, but probably not.

How about migration to the new talk page system in use on the English Wikipedia?

MediaWiki version 1.37.2

I have installed all dependencies and checked special:version to ensure all of them have been installed successfully. But it seems that Flow isn't applied. And no warning no error, just like I haven't installed Flow. I cant figure it out and really upset.

Is there any configuration to pay attention to? Thanks for any help.

Did you add $wgNamespaceContentModels[NS_TALK] = 'flow-board'; $wgNamespaceContentModels[NS_USER_TALK] = 'flow-board'; to your LocalSettings.php?

This patch has resolved the problem. I hope that the solution will be deployed in future versions of extension

Hi team!

When I add text at Discussion pages with VisualEditor (not source editing) I have an error (see screenshot).

When I post messages with source editing then everything works perfect. How can fix the bug?

What version MW? What version StructuredDiscussions? Check your Special:Version page and share the version info of the pertinent software.

I have:

MediaWiki	1.35.3
PHP	7.4.21 (cgi-fcgi)
MySQL	5.7.34
ICU	57.1
Lua	5.1.5

Flow:

Flow	1.2.0 (28ad95e) 22:21, 22 July 2021

This patch helped as in the topic below.

Hi! I have updated my wiki to 1.38.0:

Продукт	Версия
MediaWiki	1.38.0
PHP	7.4.28 (cgi-fcgi)
MySQL	5.7.27-30
ICU	50.1.2
Lua	5.1.5

Flow:

Flow	1.2.0 (74ffd17) 08:41, 26 May 2022

And the problem is back again. When I have a message made in VisualEditor I have error again. The patch I used to have (linked above) doesn't work, i.e. now it makes discussion pages with error. How to resolve the problem?

This patch has resolved the problem. I hope that the solution will be deployed in future versions of extension