Topic on 2017 wikitext editor/Feedback

Yesterday, I was prompted by an Editing News update sent out by @Whatamidoing (WMF) to try out this editor. I'd not done so before, but soon had to disable it.

The first problem related to template alerts continually blocking much of the editing page. I'm pretty active at the Teahouse on English Wikipedia.there, where we have a template to steer users how to ask questions. Having to be manually dismiss this every time soon became very annoying.

The second problem might only be encountered by admins, but it's impossible to go to a previously deleted page and to click the links on the top left of the page to 'View or restore deleted edits' or the 'abuse log' link. Both links are visible, but are greyed out and non-functional.

I realise both issues are not going to be regarded by most users, but I'm afraid I regard them sufficient annoying that I would not want to try using the editor again unless I knew there's a way to avoid them recurring.

The first one bugs me at WT:MED. Click [Edit source], hit Escape to get rid of the edit notice, click back in the box (because the Escape button makes it lose focus), and now I can finally type something. One of the things that I like about the Talk pages project/replying project is that the quick Reply tool ignores those edit notices.

The second doesn't sound familiar. I'm not an admin, so I can't reproduce it. Could you please check it again in safemode, and ping me with a note about whether that makes any difference?

OK, so since posting, I've discovered that I didn't need to manually dismiss the template notice by clicking the 'x', and that a simple mouseclick anywhere else on the page cleared the notice - so that is far less of a troublesome issue than I had first thought. I'm OK to let that one go, and it seems to function in the same way in desktop view on a mobile

The admin issue is still present in safe mode. And the 'view or restore deleted edits' link is greyed out when using both Chrome and Firefox with the default Vector skin. It might be worth me noting that, as the page loads (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Broken_Drum_(pub)&action=edit&redlink=1&safemode=1) I initially see the two links coloured their normal, dark hyperlink blue for a fraction of a second, and then they grey out as loading finishes. If you feel it would be helpful to get further feedback, I could ask at en:WP:AN for other admins to check it out.

Oh, and another thing I've just noticed: I am unable to preview a page I'm about to edit (using my normal keystrokes of Alt-Shift-P) unless I have already made some kind of edit to that page. I regularly click 'edit source' and then immediately Preview the page before I start making any edits just to check how the page appears prior to me working on it. Having to add a space and then delete that space in order to activate page preview is quite unhelpful in my opinion. Can we get rid of that requirement?

I can also reproduce the issue with viewing deleted edits on the beta cluster and can confirm it is annoying. WAID: If you want I can give you admin rights there, just let me know what your username is there.

Also as a workaround I can use "Edit notices" dropdown to view deleted edits but it's an extra click, link to abuse log isn't there and it is confusing to have non-clickable text that looks clickable.

@Whatamidoing (WMF) As well as the issue added to my post above, I've found another thing, and this one's REALLY BIG for me, and I was unsure whether to start a new thread about it. I suspect others have already commented on it, though I haven't checked.

I've now been using this editor for a couple of days solid, today I was editing, tweaking and testing various welcome message templates in my sandbox. I found it SO irritating that I can't see the wikitext and the previewed content on the same page at once. Why not?

I can now no longer simply move the slider up and down to see the effect of my edits - which previously gave me the previewed text set directly above the wikimarkup text. My 'workflow' - as you WMF folk like to say - is made much more circuitous than in normal source editor mode. I now have to preview to see the potential changes, then (if I don't like them) I have to click left to go back to the previous screen, and I then have to actively cancel the 'Summary' screen (this one doesn't disappear with a mouse click) before I can see and edit the source code again. In source editor, I simply moved the right-side slider up and down to see the differences. I think this is going to be far more of a game changer for me than all the other comments above, and will force me to abandon the 2017 wikitext editor. But I will keep on trying and see what else I find, because I do think the mixture or source edit and visual editor potentially very interesting, and well-worth exploring further.  

Nick, this is not an uncommon complaint. Do you mostly need to check/re-check in articles, or when replying to a comment?

That's a great question that got me really thinking hard about how I work. Whilst I use page preview all the time (for articles, replies & template tweaking), I think it's actually when replying/interacting with other users that Preview Changes needs to be quick and slick. It's easy to mistype and thus cause miscommunication, so a hasty preview before publishing is invaluable. Despite that, I still rush at times, and then spot my error later - sometimes much later, or not at all.

So, typing Alt-Shift-P prior to tying Alt-Shift-S is a speedy way to check layout and content. Oh, the times I've missed a colon off, and my reply would have continued on the previous line, or I'd missed off my signature had I not Previewed Changes and spotted my sloppiness. Page Preview in source editor that is already one extra step that far too many people omit, and thus create accidental errors, so anything that makes us all more reluctant to check our edits is obviously a retrograde step.

Yesterday, I was tweaking templates and experimenting with simple coding in my sandbox with the new 2017 editor in VE(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nick_Moyes/sandbox2). Not being able to quickly compare by modified code with my work's appearance on the same page was pretty frustrating, to be frank (especially as I'm not very good at it). You can view my edit history, but I can assure you that for every one 'save' I must have made 5 to 10 Previews, with all the clicking left that this entailed. But tweaking templates is a minor thing, whereas being able to easily make clear, properly laid out replies to other editors is essential to the project. So it's replies where I think my concern would mostly lie.