Topic on Extension talk:VisualEditor

Problem was the web-interface at git.wikimedia.org not descending into sub-modules.

I have a private server on which I want to run MediaWiki with VisualEditor. I am testing this with XAMPP and MediaWiki on a Windows 7 machine. Everything seems to work except VisualEditor, which does not load.

When I click on the "Edit" tab for VisualEditor, nothing changes except the underline at the "Edit" - VisualEditor does not load. (Trying the VisualEditor on mediawiki.org works fine, BTW).

This is my setup:

• Windows 7
• XAMPP win32-1.8.3-4-VC11
• MediaWiki 1.23.2-0
• VisualEditor refs_heads_REL1_23
• Parsoid REL1_23
• Firefox 31 (Tried Google Chrome Version 36.0.1985.143 m as well, did not work either)

I tried using VisualEditor-refs_heads_wmf_1.23wmf22 and VisualEditor-refs_heads_wmf_1.23wmf21, but no luck.

Parsoid is running (by now) at port 8000 without problems, as it seems.

I have now installed:

• Mediawiki core-refs_heads_wmf_1.24wmf17
• VisualEditor refs_heads_wmf_1.24wmf17

However, I am not able to install the current Parsoid - parsoid-13c31fc815749a6239dd357672d39de0a51d51ce - from the git repository.

With VisualEditor enabled, but no Parsoid installed, the behaviour is the same: VisualEditor does not load, and no error message.

Can someone point me to a better describition of how to install Parsoid? This one here talks about node.js and what not, and I have difficulties understanding what to do to install Parsoid.

Please help, these setup-thingies with cryptic error-messages (or no error-messages!) are driving me insane...

The documentation to get Parsoid up and running on a Windows system was a horrible mess, it contained omissions, unclearities and despair-inducing pitfalls. After briefly considering suicide to lessen the pain caused by this unhuman horror, I decided instead to fix the most glaring problems of the documentation in the vain hope that others might be spared this dire fate.

I have now Parsoid up and running - testing it on localhost:8000 shows me the Parsoid interface.

However, VisualEditor is still a no-show on my system.

As I have 1.24 version of the MediaWiki software, I have not installed the Parsoid extension - is that correct? And do I need to set something like "require_once" for the build-in Parsoid extension?

I fear I'm going to die alone and unloved, never having seen VisualEditor working on my system...

BTW, this is what I get in the access logs when I press on "Edit" to invoke the VisualEditor:

127.0.0.1 - - [20/Aug/2014:15:58:03 +0200] "GET /mediawiki/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=Base64.js%7Ceasy-deflate.core%2Cdeflate%7Cext.visualEditor.base%2Ccore%2Cmediawiki%2CviewPageTarget%7Cext.visualEditor.core.desktop%7Cjquery.uls.data%7Cjquery.visibleText%7Cmediawiki.api.edit%7Cmediawiki.feedback%7Coojs%2Coojs-ui%2Crangy%7Cunicodejs.wordbreak&skin=vector&version=20140820T135418Z&* HTTP/1.1" 200 335850 "http://127.0.0.1/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0"

Ok, VisualEditor is now running on my system!

And I found the problem:

If you download the VisualEditor via the web-interface at http://git.wikimedia.org/branches/mediawiki%2Fextensions%2FVisualEditor.git then you will *NOT* get any submodules, like e.g. lib/ve/.

The problem is, that the web-interface for git at git.wikimedia.org can not handle git submodules. If you download an archive of VisualEditor (e.g. REL1_23) then lib/ve will be missing. If you try to access a submodule like lib/ve, then the web-interface will give you an error message.

If you download VisualEditor via https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ExtensionDistributor/VisualEditor then everything is fine.

If you manually download VisualEditor via git commandline, and do a "git submodule update --init" afterwards, then everything is fine.

What is really annoying was the lack or error-messages.