Talk:Wikimedia Apps/Team/Future of Editing on the Mobile Apps

App and website

I think the native source editor is important and that more attention should be placed in it. I've transitioned to using mobile web more lately, but that has more to do with how app functionality is very limited. I feel like having Visual Editor being an option and the default would do so much for the app's usability. I know I'm not the only person who feels this way. Feel free to ping me if you want more input... I'm less in tune with everything about the app nowadays but I do still care. Clovermoss (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• In-app browser would be a lot smoother, but a benefit of redirecting to the web is that people only need to switch tabs to look for sources or go to another page to copy something over or check a policy, rather than switching app. Would be the best of both worlds for there to be tabs in the in-app browser and assistance in finding sources. Gonna plug en:Help:Find sources I don't know enough about this, I'd just note that editing requires having multiple tabs open (both on- and off-wiki, I currently have 34), and I wonder if there's a way to assist people in finding and accessing sources Kowal2701 (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

  @JTanner (WMF) Could you comment on whether the in-app browser would allow folks to better search for sources, or would it be relatively the same? Sohom (talk) 12:57, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

  (Replying here on behalf of Jaz) Thank you for raising this, @Sohom Datta! I've definitely also found in my own editing that working across multiple tabs is a core part of editing, especially for sourcing, and that's currently difficult to support well in the app.

  One question we are considering is whether it'd be better to open a browser window within the app or to send the editor to their phone's browser app (e.g. the Google Chrome app). The in-app browser could make it easier to open and review sources without leaving the app, but it would likely still be more limited compared to a full browser when it comes to managing many tabs, and this is exactly the kind of trade-off we're trying to understand better — what can be meaningfully supported in-app, and where mobile web may still be the better environment.

  If you have a preference between staying in-app vs. switching to a full browser while sourcing, it would be great to hear. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 03:37, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Clovermoss! Thank you for sharing this, and for continuing to stay engaged, even if you're using the app less lately. It's good to know that you think the changes we're considering for accessing VE through the app would be helpful.

We also definitely know that the source editor is important, and we're thinking through how we can best support it. One question we're still thinking through is whether it'd be best to send editors who open the source editor to mobile web as well, the same way we are considering for VE. If you're open to it, it would be valuable to hear more about which parts of the source editing experience in the app matter most to you, and where it currently falls short. (More generally, you can ping me anytime you have thoughts about the app, as I am now part of the Apps team!) Sdkb-WMF ^talk 03:34, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

I added a section heading to make discussion easier, feel free to edit if this isn't s suitable heading. ClaudineChionh – enwiki 23:13, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I would love to see, at the very least, additional support for adding sources/citations, perhaps even in wikitext editor to begin. We should be showing that citations are a significant part of creating content here. JuxtaposedJacob (talk) 23:00, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I think the way the folks on the team see it, the non-native VE editor will allow folks to actually add citations (and do a whole lot more) than with just how buggy the Mobile App editor which has issues even with normal text parsing. Sohom Datta (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Help desk and Teahouse – namespace issue?

As an ENWP mentor and en:WP:Teahouse helper, I was shocked to learn that the Help Desk and Teahouse can't be accessed from the apps. Is this because they're in the Wikipedia: namespace? Can the apps only access the article and Talk: namespaces?

Also, is there a list or summary somewhere of what is missing from the mobile apps, aimed at experienced editors and mentors who are unfamiliar with the apps? (Yes, I can try one of the apps myself, but that will then lead to days or weeks of fighting with iOS to stop sending links to the app, grrr.) ClaudineChionh – enwiki 23:21, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @ClaudineChionh! My understanding is that the Teahouse and Help Desk can both be accessed from the apps. Clicking the "ask a question" button from them opens the phone's browser, though.

Regarding a list, @Clovermoss has one at w:User:Clovermoss/Mobile editing. But I'd also encourage you to try the app yourself! Encouraging readers to download the apps is an important priority for the foundation, since (among other benefits) they're an environment we more directly control, which means we can engage them through features like push notifications that aren't available on mobile web. Having more editors using the apps and giving us feedback will make it easier for us to collaborate with you all as we work to improve them! Sdkb-WMF ^talk 04:12, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

@Sdkb-WMF: I'm taking one for the team and have re-installed the iOS app on my phone, and taking notes at en:User:ClaudineChionhDemo. For context, I'm a wikidinosaur (I joined in July 2001), prefer the command line and (syntax-highlighted) plain text everywhere, and find WYSIWYG interfaces immensely frustrating. But I also want Wikimedia projects to be usable by as many visitors as possible, so I'll do my best to give constructive feedback. ClaudineChionh – enwiki 02:17, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

I really appreciate it! Definitely feel free to let me know (either here or at the en-wiki discussion I just started) anything you observe, positive or negative, and we'll be able to look into it! Cheers, Sdkb-WMF ^talk 08:36, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Visual Editor is not great on mobile phones

Careful assuming that the Visual Editor on a mobile phone will work just as well as Visual Editor on a desktop computer. My experience editing on my Android phone in Firefox for Android using Vector 2010 in both portrait and landscape mode, with desktop mode on, trying to use Visual Editor, is that it is difficult and buggier than using Visual Editor on a desktop computer. It might be a mistake for your team to spend a bunch of time getting Visual Editor to load in the mobile app for editing, just to discover that it's got a bunch of bugs and issues that you didn't expect.

Try this experiment. Put your smartphone in landscape mode, turn on the browser's desktop mode, load up Wikipedia with a skin that isn't Minerva, and click on Random Article a couple times until you get an article with a table. Go into Visual Editor and try to edit that table. I think you'll find it more difficult than on desktop. Double clicking on a cell doesn't work as expected. Swiping right and left doesn't work as expected.

Then visit a large article, such as w:Covid-19 pandemic, and try to Visual Edit it. Type "test" somewhere. There is a bunch of lag just waiting for the letters to type. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:00, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae, I think in this context, they do exclusively mean "on the minerva skin". I don't think the plan is to load the full-fat desktop version of VE that other skins have but rather the reduced/mobile optimized one that Minvera has. Sohom (talk) 14:32, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Interesting. I didn't know VE had a lightweight version. Anywhere I can read about this? Did a quick check of Extension:VisualEditor and didn't see it, although maybe I missed it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:46, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Novem Linguae! There are some more details at VisualEditor on mobile. Cheers, Sdkb-WMF ^talk 06:55, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

but still we dont have default skin for mobile version. read and skin seems to be made keeping mobile version and users in mind. perhaps i will try it one day ? কল্কি (talk) 17:23, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately, even on Minerva it's... Not great.

For one, if you try selecting some text and typing something in place of it (without erasing first), the result is often a horrible mess you can't clean up from mobile.

Another one: Gboard (or perhaps Android?) has the feature where you can select text and press Shift to change it to title case, or twice for all caps. This also tends to produce horrible mess, if I accidentally do this I usually just give up on the edit altogether. Amberkitten (talk) 02:16, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Amberkitten I agree that there are a multitude of quirks especially due to a multitude of more inputs possible on mobile, however, I think overall the mobile editor (even VE) is better than the app native source editor which has multiple documented glitches in basic functionality (@Clovermoss has a pretty comprehensive essay about it in here userspace). Sohom (talk) 12:55, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Yep, w:User:Clovermoss/Mobile editing. I plan to add more detail about what mobile web lacks sometime in the next few months, it almost exclusively focuses on the app. Clovermoss (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Navigating in the app source editor

So, to give my own perspective, I do almost all my editing on desktop, where I have all the customization I wish for. I am however a big reader on the app, and really appreciate its reader focus. I never do major edits on mobile because that is not what I am comfortable doing, but as a big reader I obviously quite often encounter small things that would be easy to correct or improve. I edit exclusively in source editor, so I am not bothered by the lack of VE (even though I agree that its implementation should be the number one priority for the future of the app, for all the obvious reasons). However, where the process stumbles for me is that no matter how minor and localized the edit I want to make is, I have to open the entire page in source editor, and then try to find my way back. While the search function helps somewhat, being able to edit sections, or to keep the shortcuts of the table of content while in the source editor, would go a very long way. Many times have I felt the itch to improve a thing and then decided not to because it was a too big article to navigate in source. Choucas0 (talk) 10:43, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Choucas0 heavy usage of app for adding full bibliographic citations ! I have to open the entire page in source editor can you please share article or update in T413351 if it resembles your issue. কল্কি (talk) 17:12, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this, @Choucas0! The lack of section editing in source mode on the apps is definitely an understandable frustration, and I hope someday we'll have the capacity to improve it.

For edits made using VE, one advantage of sending editors to mobile web is that they will be able to take advantage of recent improvements to section editing there that make it easier to transition from editing a section to editing the full page. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 07:10, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

An experience that is less vulnerable to uncertainty about editing interfaces, and that works both for editors who switch between mobile and desktop and for those who are never on desktop (but still want to note a change that they can't easily make):

- highlight text or tag section

- type or say the desired change

- have that show up as an edit prompt (along with other suggested edits, a la Suggestion Mode)

- let editors see the feed of their own suggestions; w/ other views for other editors to work through the backlog.

Sj (talk) 13:04, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

VisualEditor should be the default

On apps, VisualEditor should be the default. Logged-in users should be able to switch, of course, and have the app retain memory of which they most recently chose. But VisualEditor is so much more intuitive for new editors that it should be preferred. Relatedly; for years there have been efforts to get syntax highlighting enabled for editors by default, but this has not happened. Let's make it happen. English Wikipedia found consensus for it a while ago, I believe. Ganesha811 (talk) 00:46, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@Ganesha811 What would the default syntax highlighting be? The default set-up for the gadget is pretty overwhelming, with different colours for everything. I just have one pale colour highlighting templates, tags, and external links Kowal2701 (talk) 22:15, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm happy to defer to experts on that - I'm sure consensus could be found. It's not like it's something new, it's very common in all kinds of systems. Ganesha811 (talk) 22:54, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

@Ganesha811, btw there's Help:Extension:CodeMirror Kowal2701 (talk) 14:56, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I have it active on English Wikipedia. It should be turned on by default for all editors, with the ability to turn it off or change the scheme, of course. Ganesha811 (talk) 23:30, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

@Ganesha811, fully agreed on all this! Currently, there is no default for the app because VE isn't available in it at all. By sending editors to mobile web, we hope to give them access to VE features without having to rebuild VE from scratch for the app (which we unfortunately don't have the capacity to do at the moment).

Regarding syntax highlighting, I believe the discussion you're referring to that found consensus is this one, which I started in my volunteer capacity. The implementation was put on hold for a while to allow for the upgrade to CodeMirror 6 (a complete overhaul of the syntax highlighting system), but that upgrade was just rolled out! Cheers, Sdkb-WMF ^talk 07:27, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

my response

• What are the most critical editing workflows or community spaces that need to be accessible (even via redirect) from within the app? teahouse for asking questions
• If the mobile web editor was accessible from the app, should the Mobile Apps eliminate the native source editor altogether? why. if there is strong community consensus eliminating is good. but, app description and fact that app is intended for reading only and for enthusiastic users as a tool for mobile web editor.
• For editors who have tried editing on the app: at what point did the experience fall short, and would access to VisualEditor / mobile web have changed that? adding reference, its kind of buried in templates, need to fill details manually and it requires reading and understanding citation template docs ! i am biased here, expanding or adding reference would be nice.
• Are there aspects of the handoff from app to mobile web editor that would be most important to get right? not fully understood. skipping.
• What should that transition feel like? A prompt, a redirect, a clear explanation of where the user is going and why? no toast messages, a clear explanation in window with proceed/next button at bottom, basically without tapping proceed/next button nothing should happen (lets just pray users have infinite patience to read and understand).
• For editors who guide newcomers: how often does the app come up as a first editing environment, and what problems follow from that? skipping, not relevant to my use case.

কল্কি (talk) 02:42, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

I think the core point is that the mobile source editor will not be eliminated. The native source editor will be eliminated, but it is to my understanding more buggy and less accessible to the mobile source editor (which I assume will be available). Sohom (talk) 12:51, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

whats the difference between mobile source editor and native source editor ? i am still intimidated for terminology used for editors. visual editor or edit and source editor (both of them correct) ? কল্কি (talk) 14:01, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Hard to describe in words, but I've taken screenshots of the three different editors being described below. Sohom (talk) 05:50, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

• 
  The in-app editor
• 
  The mobile source editor
• 
  The visual editor

Thanks for raising this, কল্কি, and for sharing the screenshots, Sohom; it’s helpful to know where the terminology isn’t clear!

In simple terms:

• The in-app editor (native source editor) is the one built into the app today.
• The mobile source editor is the version on mobile web (in the browser), which tends to be more stable and better maintained.
• The VisualEditor is also on mobile web, and provides an editing experience more like a word processor.

In this discussion, when we refer to improving access to editing, we’re mainly talking about helping users reach the mobile web editors (both source and VisualEditor), rather than relying only on the in-app editor. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 07:33, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Editing by paragraph in the app

Using the app, my main issue when editing an article on my Androïd phone is that I can’t edit just a single paragraph. The entire article is in edit mode.

This makes it difficult (scrolling) to find the error I want to correct or the update I want to make (the only edits I done on mobile).

TCY (talk) 06:48, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree with TCY proposition, and I also think an editor would be able to edit on each sub-section of an article. Sometimes the section are long, and positionning on the good position requires a lot of time and energy. So editing on sub-section will be faster. GPZ Anonymous (talk) 12:03, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

+1 to this! Editing by paragraph and by section / sub-section would make the experience much more easier for all: new, casual and experienced editors. Señoritaleona (talk) 17:19, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this! I replied to a similar observation by Choucas0 above. Cheers, Sdkb-WMF ^talk 07:40, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Feedback

im not convinced redirecting people from the app to a browser will make a smooth editing experience tbh (tho I really appreciate this is being taken seriously by the teams involved), my thoughts are:

1) the app and browser versions are more different than you might think, so transitioning might not be so smooth for first time editors 2) whenever I try to edit in a browser I have to go to the desktop version NOT the mobile version for correct functionality - has this in-browser difference been taken into account

3) even if I'm in the browser, there's often lots of switching where the app seems to over rude the browser e.g. you start to edit in browser and you get flipped to a reading version of the app!

4) can there be a separate, stand alone visual editor app? That would probably be the smoothest transition for new editurs (but I expect expensive for WMF)

5) focussing on new articles - even if I do it all in the desktop browser on my mobile, some of the features that make an article complete and published don't appear, or are hard to find - so even if I draft everything on a phone, I've found i still have to use a laptop to mop up bits e.g. on the article for en:Pool Bridge Farm

I'd be very happy to be involved for testing, the pipeline for getting more people reading & editing us very important, and I think the focus on readership is really good. Lajmmoore (talk) 14:39, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this feedback, @Lajmmoore!

the app and browser versions are more different than you might think I presume you're talking about differences in the display of articles to readers here, not the look of the editors? Could you share more about the specific differences you're concerned might impact the transition?

whenever I try to edit in a browser I have to go to the desktop version NOT the mobile version for correct functionality I'd definitely be interested to hear more about what functionality you're seeking that the mobile version doesn't currently support. We're currently working on revamping the mobile web toolbar, so there should be additional functionality (e.g. headings) within a few months.

there's often lots of switching where the app seems to over rude the browser Hmm, is there a specific point at which this tends to happen?

can there be a separate, stand alone visual editor app? Unfortunately this is beyond our capacity at the moment. We're investing in improvements to the mobile web VE (like the toolbar refresh I just mentioned), so the hope is that by sending editors there they'll be able to take advantage of those improvements without us having to rebuild all of them specifically for the app.

some of the features that make an article complete and published don't appear, or are hard to find Could you specify which features you're referring to? Are you talking about things like categories?

Overall, this is very helpful! And yes, we'll reach out once this project gets to the testing phase! Sdkb-WMF ^talk 07:57, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Let's make citations easy on the mobile apps

Citations in the mobile app are currently very inconvenient, because you must do it with the source editor. Citations (at least in my experience) are one of the most challenging things to do in wikitext in general, especially in a small screen where you have to use your fingertips and type a lot of code (and do it correctly). The citation tool in the visual editor works great most of the time, and it will be awesome to have it in the app as well, or at least to have it at hand via an in-app webview. Señoritaleona (talk) 17:33, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

I regret to say, given that if you change the citation type, all previous metadata of the citation will be gone, visual editing of citation still has a long way to go and is not ready for app presentation. MilkyDefer 18:08, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

@MilkyDefer, there are definitely improvements to be made to the VE citation tool. But compared to typing out a citation manually in the app's source editor, we hope that it will be an improvement, particularly for newer editors. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 08:01, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Comment

The current source editor in the app could also be made easier to use. The simplest way to do it is to make it use a monospaced font. Accurately placing the pointer on a phone screen is always a bit of a nuisance, and on WP you additionally have to deal with thin elements such as { and |. A monospaced font helps a lot.

As for whether to direct the user to the source editor in the app or visual editor in the browser, my idea is: you can ask the user and explain the difference. The first time a user clicks (taps) "edit", offer to either take them to a browser with VE or stay in the app with SE, with an explanation of what option is better for which purposes. Add a box asking if the users wants their selection to be the default choice from then on.

— Phazd (talk) 19:23, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I would second this. I understand the challenge of making mobile VE work, and I don't know that I have any meaningful input there, beyond allowing some level of user scripting on the app, which has its own host of issues. Making cursor placement easier should be a priority. Asukite (talk) 20:06, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this suggestion, @Phazd! I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about potentially handing off source editing to mobile web as well, given that the mobile web source editor has monospaced fonts and various other improvements compared to the app's source editor. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 08:05, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't use the mobile apps to edit, but...

I think phab:T282500 would be better, I don't know if we would be able to necessarily be able to ship PWAs in the App or Play Stores, especially because they execute arbitrary JavaScript that can't be reviewed by Apple/Google. Aasim 15:58, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at w:Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Seeking input on editing in the mobile apps

 You are invited to join the discussion at w:Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Seeking input on editing in the mobile apps. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 17:07, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

citations

I only use the app for simpler edits. By far the most annoying part of editing in the app today is adding sources/citations. I don't really have any preference to whether it's solved by upgrading the native editor or redirecting, as long as it becomes simple to provide sources for statements. Flygekorren (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

@Flygekorren Can you articulate why it is annoying ? —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 06:49, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Way more frustrating on mobile app

I wanted to share my experience with adding a single citation to English Wikipedia's article on en:Hayreddin Barbarossa:

1. I pulled up the Android Wikipedia app on my cellphone and found the article and citation needed tag.
2. It took me a bit longer to find the edit button since there is no visible "edit" link or pencil button. It's the 3 dots and then "edit" for the whole article.
3. So far as I can see, there is no way to get a form to fill out like Visual Editor or Source Editor, and no way to automate a citation.
4. I went to en:Help:Introduction, but it's written in a way that can apply to either the source editor or visual editor.
5. I tried asking the major LLMs. I told each one that I had a book and could use the LCCN (Library of Congress Catalog Number) or URL (link) for an online copy to auto-format a citation, but I couldn't see where to do so on the app. The LLMs variously told me to use the mobile site, use the desktop site, or gave me instructions that applied to the desktop site.
6. I went to https://citer.toolforge.org/ and gave that tool the URL from Google Books, which usually outputs decent formatting with citer/citoid. This gave me a solid start for the citation. I added the LCCN, page number, publisher, and actual URL (from archive.org), by hand-writing the parameters from memory.
7. I pasted this into the Wikipedia App and got ready to publish. It warned me that I was logged out. (I did pause after some frustration, so this logging out was across days and probably several different networks. That's fair.)
8. I tried to log in and see if it would keep my edit. I entered the username and password, but I got an error that just the CSRF token was invalid (not that the username or password was incorrect). I dunno what went wrong.
9. I went back and decided to just post the edit from a temporary account.
10. The app let me go forward.
11. Then, it said that temporary accounts were throttled. I was on a home WiFi network where nobody else was editing Wikipedia.
12. I gave up and just used Firefox Mobile and the desktop website.

I think there are several steps I would never have tried if I wasn't an experienced editor. I might have just tried to hand write the citation with title, date, author, and url. Overall it was far more frustrating than the mobile website, desktop website on a mobile browser, or desktop website with Monobook skin on a mobile browser (which is responsive unlike the default skin). Hope that helps, Rjjiii (talk) 13:42, 8 May 2026 (UTC) (Edit: ceaned up the above message.)17:18, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

A few more details. Clearing the cache didn't let me log in. Clearing all data in the app did. I don't know if this was clear in my original post, but part of the problem in the Wikipedia Mobile App is that any ways it diverges from the mobile/desktop source/visual editors are ways that it will also diverge from the documentation. Rjjiii (talk) 17:18, 9 May 2026 (UTC)