Talk:VisualEditor/2018

Previous discussion was archived at Talk:VisualEditor/Archive 1 on 1 September 2015.

Force Line Breaks in VE

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T177102

Is there a way to force line breaks in the VE? The editor does not place any space after a bulleted list and it does not look very good. Konjurer (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

No, empty linebreaks will be removed by Parsoid no matter where they are in the document. Line spacing should be the responsibility of the skin's CSS, not the user. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 20:07, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Parsoid is no longer removing line breaks. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

VisualEditor Error: Could not connect to the server

I've just installed MediaWiki 1.30 on Ubuntu 16.04 32-bit, and I've successfully installed Parsoid and RESTbase. The 8000 port for Parsoid and 7231 port for RESTbase are all accessible and can return the correct pages. But when I try to edit or create pages using Visual Editor, the message shows up: Error loading data from server: Could not connect to the server. I've read through the docs in MediaWiki and googled my problem, but it seems that no one has met this problem before.

Do anyone know how to solve this problem? Thanks for your help. 65.49.133.47 (talk) 05:02, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

You need to make sure the VE can talk to RESTbase by setting $wgVirtualRestConfig['modules']['parsoid'] in LocalSettings.php (see here), and also that RESTbase can talk to Parsoid using config.yaml (although it sounds like that is working if you can access pages on port 7231). ESanders (WMF) (talk) 20:01, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Insert Media (and other) doesn't work

I installed mediawiki 1.30 with visuael editor. The editor starts, edit works: I can add text.

But when I choose "Insert -> Media" nothing happens. The same when I click on the "link" Button or when I choose "bold" for a selected text - there is just no reaction.

Can anyone give me a hint on how to fix this problem? 93.204.109.221 (talk) 21:51, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't know how to install this. However, most people seem to ask about installation problems at Project:Support desk or on Extension talk:VisualEditor, so perhaps it would be worth looking at those pages. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I try it there. 2003:C0:BBD9:CB00:FE70:9E8:9183:F663 (talk) 12:11, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Parsoid/RESTbase working for Main Page but 404ing for sub-pages

@Christian 1234567 @Williams

thanks in advance

i have installed visual editor 1.30 with restbase ,parsoid and nodejs and visual editor is working fine for first page

for example: Mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page -working

but it is failing 404 for subpages

for example: Mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page/subpage -failing Arshiya1234 (talk) 06:01, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Modifying toolbar

Where can I find documentation for modifying the toolbar in a standalone installation of the VisualEditor? Specifically I'd like to add new styling/formatting options Virgobowl (talk) 13:31, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I wonder whether VisualEditor/Gadgets would be useful to you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Can you remove tools/gadgets from the toolbar?

My wiki doesn't require all of the tools/gadgets in the default Visual Editor toolbar, is there a way I can the remove tools that are not needed? Josh Harry (talk) 11:31, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Which tools do you want to remove?

I think that some of them automatically disappear if not installed on the local wiki (cite.php, maps, heirolyphics, etc.). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply

Here is a list of the tools I (probably) want to remove:

From the Format Paragraph tab: Sub-headings 3 and 4, Preformatted, Block Quote and Page Title

From Structure: the increase and decrease indentation opitions

From Insert: Comment, Hieroglyphs, Musical Notation, Signatures, Gallery, Chem Formula, Math Formula, Map, Code Block, Graph, Ref List

From Style Text: basically all apart from Bold and Italics

and the Cite tab (but you already mentioned that won't appear if not installed) Josh Harry (talk) 18:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

I think – but note that I'm neither omnsicient nor a dev – that Hieroglyphs, Musical Notation, Chem Formula, Math Formula, Map, and Graph (and the ref items) will automagically fail to appear. I think that those are all controlled by extensions and that they're meant to "fail gracefully".

That leaves Comment, Signatures, Gallery, Code Block, and the character stylings that will probably need direct intervention. I'd encourage you to keep the "Language" item in the character stylings menu; otherwise, if anyone ever posts an Arabic or Hebrew character, it could get a bit messy.

I'll ask around and see if I can find out more about how to do this. @Deskana (WMF) and I were talking about adding an item the other day; maybe he will have some ideas about how to remove one. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:07, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Almost anything is possible in code, so yes, it would be technically possible for you to do this. That said, you'd have to change the JavaScript code in VisualEditor yourself, and given that it's not designed for menu items to be swapped in and out arbitrarily, it probably won't be very easy for you to do so. Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:47, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

mediawiki.notification API z-index issue?

Hi, I have a bit of javascript that I run in Common.js that uses the command "mw.loader.load( ['mediawiki.notification', 'mediawiki.api'] );" on any page open for edit to define a standard mediawiki pop-up notification. It is immaterial, to the question but the purpose of the pop-up notification is to alert the (enterprise SSO immutable session) user that their session may be expiring and to save their work..

The script works great for action=edit, and action=formedit urls, but with veaction=edit urls the pop-up notification window is "behind" the VE editor elements such that the user can not interact with it.

The script is benign and effortless to test.

I am running:

• MW:1.30 and
• VisualEditor: 0.1.0 (61f161a) 14:07, 2 October 2017

The link to my javascript is:

• User:Revansx/Session Notification of Renewal

As you can see, I set the z-index value to an extremely large value so I have ruled out the easiest of fixes.

Can someone take a peek at this and help me identify if the problem is a deficiency in the javascript, or if it is an issue with the way VE elements are stacked.

Thank you in advance.

- User:revansx (Rich) Revansx (talk) 15:48, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't see this problem on my local testing wiki (using latest Git master of MW and VE, 1.32-alpha).

I ran your script and the notification displays on top of everything: https://i.imgur.com/njUs8xd.png after scrolling down, it repositions itself, but stays on top of the editing toolbar: https://i.imgur.com/YAwCWO3.png In both cases the links in the notification are clickable.

It is possible that the earlier versions you're using had some issue that caused this to not display correctly. I couldn't easily find the patch which might have fixed it, though :/ Matma Rex (talk) 21:44, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

hmm.. thank you for looking at this. I'm glad it worked for you. I'm not in a position where I could simply upgrade and see if that solves the problem. I'm really hoping to figure this out for my current setup. I'm currently inspecting and tinkering with elements in the developers console hoping to figure out what is on top of what. Revansx (talk) 23:57, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Note that I've tried this using my user js on a 1.27 wiki and couldn't reproduce @Revansx's problem. ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 15:43, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Workaround/Fix - From the browser developers tools, I found that the problem is related to the CSS parameters "pointer-events:none; opacity:0.5;" appplied to the element .ve-loading #content > :not( .ve-init-mw-desktopArticleTarget-loading-overlay ), .ve-activated .ve-init-mw-desktopArticleTarget-uneditableContent

I was able to functionally solve the problem by adding #mw-notification-area { pointer-events:initial; opacity:1.0; } into Mediawiki.css.

Clearly this is not a correct solution to the root cause. If anyone can imagine why the notification is being styled this way, please let me know. thanks! Revansx (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

thanks @Matma Rex and @MarkAHershberger Revansx (talk) 18:22, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Visual Editor does not seem to be compatible with drag and drop or copy and pasting images?

I'm talking in the context of this feature https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T40031 AslanFrench (talk) 07:21, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

VE has problems with editing link

VE does not understand if the ref is linked to another ref later. Example:
Line 1: <ref name="XYZ" />
20 lines later: <ref name="XYZ">This is a reference!</ref>
If i edit Line one, VE will not edit the origin.
Please see https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=EBuLa&diff=182549901&oldid=179684205 for more information.

Der Keks (talk) 18:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Reference to T208981 Der Keks (talk) 18:44, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Is there anyway to make the "Add Templates" feature use "subst:"?

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T51904

I am aware you can use `subst:Template` when searching and it will substitute. My problem is that I want TemplateData to still be able to function. Hoefsldyla (talk) 21:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

To try get around this i created a template called "Template:Subst:TemplateName" which should work however the Template inserter upon clicking "Insert" just loads forever and never insert anything and you are not able to cancel Hoefsldyla (talk) 20:03, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

VE doesn't load on custom skin

I've followed the instructions as posted on VisualEditor/Skin requirement both the current version and the ones in the history tab. After adding the three div's with their IDs to my skin, the problem persists; nothing happens when I either call the page with the ?veaction=edit parameter, or when I create a button doing essentially the same. The only clue I have is the class 've-not-available' being added to the page after it's loaded.

The VisualEditor works fine on the stock skins I have: Vector and Chameleon.

I'm using the following versions:

VisualEditor 0.1.0 (9da5996) 16 aug 2016 15:40

MediaWiki 1.27.1 (a52d35d)

My HTML structure looks as followed (note the added mw-content-text and content divs)

<div class="grid-x  grid-margin-x">

               <div id="content">

                   <div class="cell">

                       <div  class="contentbody" >

                           <div id="mw-content-text">

                           <?php

                           if( !$this->atHome) {

                               // do not display the HTML tag if the header is empty

                                   if ( $this->skinData->data['title'] != '' ) {

                                       echo '<h1 id="emmskin-pageheader" class="page-title">';

                                       $this->skinData->html( 'title' );

                                       echo '</h1>';

                                   }

                               }

                               //output the post-processed bodytext

                               echo $this->bodyTextHTML;

                           ?>

                           </div>

                       </div>

                   </div>

               </div>

           </div>

I've tried the following:

- Followed the instructions from the history pages of the Skin Requirements page, in which different names are used for the required divs

- Looking in the support section for someone with a similar problem

- Using the Vector/Chameleon skin HTML structure as inspiration, and trying to make everything in my skin look as close as possible.

I'm guessing this issue has something to do with either faulty configuration, or something lacking in my skin. I've found no clear way of debugging this so everything else I tried is largely trial-and-error to no avail. Marlonke (talk) 11:30, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

It was indeed faulty configuration. Through debugging (breaklining some of the VE scripts) I managed to find out that the custom skin wasn't seen by VE as a 'supported skin'. I remedied this by adding '$wgVisualEditorSupportedSkins ['mySkin'];' to LocalSettings.php Marlonke (talk) 10:13, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Also versions match between VisualEditor release and MediaWiki is very crucial. It would be nicer if more error messages would be displayed in case of failure to load. 2605:8D80:6A0:B9C:F14D:6ACA:754A:68CB (talk) 17:01, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

== Stop VE adding tags == Is there any way to stop VisualEditor from automatically adding the <nowiki><nowiki> tags. For example if I want to type <div> Something </div> it changes it to <nowiki><div></nowiki>Something <nowiki></div></nowiki> Hoefsldyla (talk) 19:59, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

No. VisualEditor is a visual editor and is not appropriate for manually inserting raw HTML. For that, use the wikitext editing mode. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 14:42, 1 January 2019 (UTC)