Extension talk:VisualEditor/2017/05

Please note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not provide support for installing VisualEditor on third-party wikis. However, if you have a question we may try to help.

Http Popup trying to Edit a Page

I just installed Paroid and Visual Editior and when I go try to edit a page. I keep getting a http dialog box popping up. 68.234.66.44 (talk) 17:39, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I had the same error (just a popup saying "http") and found the entry "Call to undefined function curl_multi_init()" in the apache error log. I solved the issue by installing php5-curl. 62.157.215.246 (talk) 12:31, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Dissable Wikimedia Commons Medias

Is it possible to disable Wikimedia Commons, so that only internal Images are shown in the Selection Box? 195.66.123.14 (talk) 08:16, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Is there a way to block the external ressources? 195.66.123.14 (talk) 06:32, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T165630

I don't think that this is currently possible. I've filed a request. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:43, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! 195.66.123.14 (talk) 13:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Categories

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T166521

Ist ther a possibility to show a list of existing categories in the Editor or categories selection box? Or is there an other extension which complete the categories handling? 195.66.123.14 (talk) 08:21, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

In VisualEditor? Bar with categories is also available in editing mode and you can click it or find in options menu. wargo (talk) 08:52, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

It won't give you a list of all categories, but it searches for available categories when you start typing. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:53, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I miss an overview of categories (our wiki has an relative smal number of categories) or some kind of categoriy-tree (as e.g. in fckeditor).

At the moment a user has to have an idea whitch categories already exist an beginn to type instead of simply choose some of the existing categories. 195.66.123.14 (talk) 06:31, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

thanks for opening a Task! 195.66.123.14 (talk) 13:51, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Can't get VisualEditor to work

Hello,

I'am using MediaWiki version: 1.27.0 and VisualEditor version: REL1_27.

MediaWiki runs on Windows IIS (Windows Server 2012 R2), Localhost points to C:\web\wwwroot\mediawiki.

Things i changed/added in LocalSettings.php:

wfLoadExtension( 'VisualEditor' );

$wgDefaultUserOptions['visualeditor-enable'] = 1;

$wgHiddenPrefs[] = 'visualeditor-enable';

$wgVirtualRestConfig['modules']['restbase'] = array(

'url' => 'http://localhost:7231',

'domain' => 'localhost', # matches the "domain" used above

'forwardCookies' => false,

'parsoidCompat' => false

);

$wgVisualEditorParsoidURL = 'http://localhost:8000';

$wgVirtualRestConfig['modules']['parsoid'] = array(

'url' => 'http://localhost:8000',

'domain' => 'localhost',

'prefix' => 'localhost'

);

Things i changed/added in config.yaml (parsoid)

uri: 'http://localhost/api.php'

Things i changed/added in config.yaml (restBase)

allow:

- pattern: http://localhost/api.php

...

- pattern: http://localhost:8000

...

paths:

/{domain:localhost}:

...

apiUriTemplate: http://localhost/api.php

baseUriTemplate: "{{'http://{domain}:7231/{domain}/v1'}}"

parsoid:

baseUriTemplate: "{{'http://{domain}:7231/{domain}/v1'}}"

I started both restBase and Parsoid. Parsoid is ok (http://localhost:8000/ i get welcome page), but for restBase (http://localhost:7231/localhost/v1/page/html/Main_Page) i get {"type":"https://mediawiki.org/wiki/HyperSwitch/errors/unknown_error%22,%22method%22:%22get%22,%22uri%22:%22/localhost/v1/page/html/Main_Page%22}.

If i try to create page with VisualEditor, VisualEditor starts but when i try to save it says something went wrong and console error: POST /api.php 500 Internal Server Error.

If i try to edit page i get console error: GET /api.php?action=visualeditor&format=json&paction=parse&page=Aplikacije&uselang=en 500 Internal Server Error

Can someone please tell me how can i resolve this problem?

Best regards! Oxyphedox (talk) 10:13, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I got restBASE link (http://localhost:7231/localhost/v1/page/html/Main_Page) to work so it doesnt show error anymore Oxyphedox (talk) 13:09, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

VisualEditor not working on iPad

Our mediawiki VisualEditor installation does not work on iPad, in that it won't save and the drop down menus don't work - I notice that on wikipedia itself the dropdown and popups are hidden.

Is there some iPad friendly setting that can be enabled? Tansaku (talk) 16:45, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

if you open the visual editor on wikipedia an ipad then you don't see any of the usual buttons for the visual editor, and when you save the summary/watch-this-page etc. popup does not appear

if I view out https://wiki.healthylondon.org site on ipad then we see all the dropdowns for hearing, font type, etc. but tapping on them does nothing, and when you save the popup with summary/watch-this-page appears but then clicking on it fails to save - it seems like wikipedia has some special ipad friendly mode for visualeditor which is not enabled by default I think ... but just guessing Tansaku (talk) 19:43, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm hearing from MatmaRex on irc that the main wikipedia site has https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend which displays a different skin for mobile views, and has slightly different VisualEditor integration than normal Tansaku (talk) 19:44, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

graceful visualeditor failure

we've got VisualEditor working on our wiki https://wiki.healthylondon.org but people using it behind firewalls or on slow computers often see failures where it just gets stuck.

Is there some way to have it timeout gracefully and switch to the default editor rather than getting stuck? Tansaku (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

example of visualeditor getting stuck on IE11:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/81lcvx9ck0tar0n/Screenshot%202017-05-15%2011.49.46.png?dl=1

in the console I do see this error:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q9v7htytm614bf7/Screenshot%202017-05-15%2011.52.35.png?dl=1

SCRIPT1004: Expected ';'

load.php (2,329) Tansaku (talk) 17:14, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I asked about this on IRC and was told

> 19:05] <tansaku> on a more general note, is there a way to have things fail more gracefully? so that if something like this happens the editor switches over to basic?

> [19:07] <+MatmaRex> tansaku: no. if you have a syntax error in your script (and effectively, that's how IE11 treats this), the whole MediaWiki script loading system goes out of whack. we really assume you don't have syntax errors. Tansaku (talk) 08:34, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

visualeditor popup feedback

I notice that the visualeditor includes a variety of popups like this one:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mo1sfn7p0q3r9dm/Screenshot%202017-05-15%2011.36.52.png?dl=01

The feedback I'm getting from our users is that these are kind of confusing - they don't have x's in the corner to dismiss them. I think the difficulty arises from people not really wanting to read stuff, and wanting to focus on the content, so there first impulse is to dismiss and they can't.

Also, for users who are new to wikis, the idea of two editors is confusing, and I wonder if there's a better flow that could be created here for the initial user that didn't involve a popup? Tansaku (talk) 10:39, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

the other thing is that popup comes up not just once but multiple times. I'm just testing with a new user and I saw it for first edit in the visual editor, and now I am seeing it again when clicking 'edit source':

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iedqjzlxt69ocrl/Screenshot%202017-05-15%2011.41.37.png?dl=1 Tansaku (talk) 10:43, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Do your users see one "Edit" tab or two ("Edit" and "Edit source")? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:31, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

VE is installed but not working

I'm setting up MW 1.28.2 and trying to get VE to work. I followed the manual installation and setup parsoid. It shows up in Version page as installed, but when I try the editor it keeps getting me back to the old editor. It's also missing with system messages so "Edit" is now "⧼visualeditor-ca-editsource⧽".

This is a link to a screenshot of how it looks like: https://s3.postimg.org/7mvjcvzoj/ckp.png CalNation (talk) 19:16, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

The screenshot link doesn't work. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Well I got it to work but it was a nightmare do so. It was more or less issues related to parsoid setup and all the weird and sparsely documented configurations.

From what I've encountered, from what I have heard from others, and also seeing how most wikis in the wilderness don't provide VE as an option, I think VE team has setup ppl to fail in installing their software. If parsoid is complex by its nature, why couldn't Wikimedia provide a public parsoid as a free service with resonable limits.

I do realize that WMF doesn't see it as part of their mission to provide an easy-to-use open source platform, but I can't help but think of how much potential they're wasting by not doing so. The platform as is is quasi-closed source. CalNation (talk) 19:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry that it was such a nightmare. (I've never tried to install any MediaWiki software, so I'm not much help.)

Someone suggested collecting solutions at VisualEditor/Recipes, and there's a #Troubleshooting section on the page. Is there anything you could add there, in the hope that it would be slightly less awful for the next person who is trying to install this? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Error: Parameter 1 to VisualEditorHooks::onBeforePageDisplay() expected to be a reference, value given in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\includes\Hooks.php on line 195

I am having this error when trying to run Visual Editor 28 or 27 on

Wikimedia 1.28.2

PHP 7.1.5 (cgi-fcgi)

SQLite 3.15.1

Both Chrome and IE

When I try to edit, it shows up a display box saying, "Error loading data from server: HTTP 500." I am not very familiar with PHP and therefore I am having a hard time with trouble shooting this. Does anyone have any ideas on a fix for me? Nteddm (talk) 12:28, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't know how to solve your problem, but Extension:VisualEditor#Troubleshooting gives a few things to check. Manual:Errors and symptoms#You see a Blank Page says (speaking in general) that this error message is normally caused by something timing out. If you figure out what's happening, then please expand the notes. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 29 May 2017 (UTC)