Special characters

Why is the Insert:Special_character glyph an Ω symbol. Ω is not available as a special character, nor is any of the Greek alphabet for that matter. I just started an edit in VE on the basis that I would be able to do this and then find I cannot complete it. How annoying. SpinningSpark 01:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not an uncommon choice for that icon: it's the same symbol Google Docs uses, for example. Which character were you looking for? The list of the available ones is customizable on a per-wiki basis. Best, Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:20, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I was looking for lowercase lambda, but that is beside the point. The whole greek alphabet is needed, along with all the accents and breathings. How am I supposed to write electrical engineering articles without Ω? It is the symbol for ohms. Oh, and by the way, Google Docs does have Ω.

Are you saying the available symbols are controllable by local admins? If so, where? Another consideration, if all the symbols currently available in the standard editor were to be put in VE, would they all have to go on the same page? Currently, they are spread across several pages through a drop down menu. Google docs, which you seem to like so much, does the same. SpinningSpark 12:41, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The character inserter is not in its final form yet (there are previous discussions about it on this page as well). There's more information at VisualEditor/Special characters. HTH, Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I have tried to make the common problem of misformatted changes be more obvious in the help page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

This is called a false promise. Nnemo (talk) 08:32, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Problem with parameters of zh template

I recently used VisualEditor to add a zh template to w:en:Confucius Institute in this edit. I selected the "s" and "p" parameters, but for some reason VisualEditor added the parameters "simplified Chinese" and "pinyin" instead. These parameters are evidently not supported by the template, so it didn't display correctly until I used the source editor to change the parameters to "s" and "p". I would appreciate some help understanding what went wrong. Thank you! Mr. Granger (talk) 17:45, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It should be a bug in Visual Editor that puts the explanatory full names of the parameters instead of the usable names. Two ways to fix this: either VE changes to use the short names only or the template itself changes to support full names. Lyuflamb (talk) 01:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It appears that the TemplateData is backwards on that template. (I hope that's not a common problem.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:00, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Ouch. I see.

Any fast lane for fixing it? Lyuflamb (talk) 02:09, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing fixed it with this edit; it should now work fine. I hope! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:01, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It will only work if an admin has made a null edit, or the system has caught up on its own. If it's still not working, then please let me know, and I'll go beg a favor from an admin. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:48, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks for fixing it! Mr. Granger (talk) 20:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Better Tagging: Shortcuts to add common templates asking for improvement (proofreading templates)

Although Visual Editor is a huge step in user experience for Wikipedia, it only benefits authors, or at least conceptually so. Most readers who only need introductory information have little to no incentive to engage in editing. But these are people Wikipedia should rely on in finding minor bugs, spelling errors, missing citations, etc., in general proofreading. But current barrier on proofreading is still too high for general public to participate.

The current minimum steps for a Wikipedia reader with no editing experience to add a "citation needed" template to a sentence are the following:

1. Know the template system
If registered:
2. Open Visual Editor
else:
2. Search for template:citation needed
3. Insert the template

The first step is the biggest barrier under the assumption.

My ideal proofreading mechanism is proofreading as reading. I want to select any part of the content and choose from a list of proofreading templates right away. Such UX can also serve to teach readers that Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, and to cultivate their habit of critical reading. Lyuflamb (talk) 01:50, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a good idea. It would help the general improving of the articles. Nnemo (talk) 08:30, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not at all clear that having novice editors apply templates to articles is a good idea, let alone a high priority. For example, the documentation page for the citation needed template has a large section titled "When not to use this template"; novice editors can't be expected to read (or fully understand) all the documentation pages for all possible templates.

Which raises a more general issue: How many different templates could be applied when doing proofreading? If you take a look at this page, you'll see dozens and dozens of possible templates, and those are just for "cleanup". Do we really want to show all these templates to a novice, and expect him/her to understand which one to use? How would we do that in a compact way, since the full page is so lengthy?

Personally, I'd rather novice editors work on wording, and adding information, and adding citations. We already have plenty of templates in Wikipedia articles, in my opinion. John Broughton (talk) 01:13, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree with you, but I am not talking about novice editors here. If we can have a common ground, I propose we define novice editors as people who are interested in editing, but are without experience (such as myself). Whereas I aim this feature to those who "have little to no incentive to engage in editing".

It is indeed important that we do not show "all these templates to a novice". But that is what we are already doing, thus this underwhelming proofreading experience. What I expect is a case-by-case evaluation on the limited several templates regarding proofreading in the lightest sense, and surely with limited options, or even with only a fixed default. The "When not to use this template" section can be summarized into a plug-in reminder shown to the users of this feature.

I accept your advice to novice editors. I want more readers to become novice editors, but I see a gap between them that is currently bridged only by enthusiasm. Such is my intention to introduce "proofreader" as an intermediate role, to ease the transition, and to remind our readers not to take Wikipedia for granted. Lyuflamb (talk) 05:59, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps we're talking about different things. Can you please provide a list/links of three or four templates that an editor would use when doing proofreading? I ask because I've done lots of proofreading/copyediting myself, and I don't apply templates, at all - I just fix the problems I find.

I will say that if you're talking about templates like "This article needs more inline citations" or "Needs citation" (at the end of sentence), then I very strongly disagree with you that Wikipedia needs more of these templates. For example, there are literally millions of articles that need more inline citations, in just the English Wikipedia; if someone spends hundreds of hours adding this template to articles, then (a) he/she will not have used that time to actually add anything of value to readers (that is, citations), and (b) he/she will have increased the probability of someone else adding citations by about ZERO percent. In other words, wasted time. John Broughton (talk) 21:21, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I am talking exactly about "Needs citation" at the end of sentences. The general "This article needs more inline citations" is better off left to experienced editors who can really judge that. I'd probably limit the selection within the "Inline cleanup templates", and come up with a set of seven to ten that's both easy to understand and cover a reasonable ground. Try a situation like this:

"I am looking for some material in Wikipedia for my homework today. Oh hey, this sentence is different from what I've learned, but no citation to prove it. I have to finish my homework first, but I better flag it. But how?"

I believe that's how a lot of people use Wikipedia, get interested in changing its contents for the first time, and Bam! right into a brick wall.

I have to disagree with you on the value of these tags. I feel that your (b) is counter-intuitive. Even if it is true, I think a more complete image of how many citations are missing is better than leaving them unmarked.

On your (a), I think the tags offer value already in prompting critical thinking. The problem you are worried about is that currently adding these templates takes time from actually improving contents. I'd like to point out that more often than not, not adding the templates does not mean the time would go to improving contents. It most likely goes to the homework. Lyuflamb (talk) 11:10, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Defect with Google Japanese Imput（Google日本語入力使用時に不具合発生）

大変申し訳無いのですが、日本語での書き込みについて失礼致します。 日本語版ビジュアルエディターを「Google日本語入力」で文字入力をする際、漢字への変換がされないばかりか文字入力時に強制的に確定され、ひらがなでの文字入力しかできません。 使用環境は、Mac OSX10.9.4、Google日本語入力 1.13.1880.1、Google Chrome 37.0.2062.124です。 8F02E (talk) 23:20, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for leaving a message. I am sorry that VisualEditor is working incorrectly in Japanese.

User:Shirayuki and User:Miya, can you help us? User:DChan (WMF) is the most relevant developer. I'd like to be able to give him an accurate description of this problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Adding a link to an image caption

I seem to be unable to easily add a wikilink to an image caption using VisualEditor. When I open the "Media settings" window to edit the caption, I can click the "Link" button to add a link, but then the program doesn't seem to think I've actually made any changes to the caption, because it won't let me click the "Apply changes" button. Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug? Mr. Granger (talk) 18:55, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

User:Mr. Granger, what's your OS and web browser? Is this still a problem today? (There's been a software update since your message was posted.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Yep, it's still happening. I'm using Mac OS X 10.9.5, and the problem occurs in both Firefox and Safari. Mr. Granger (talk) 01:18, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

User:Mr. Granger, thank you. This is now tracked as bug 71065. It's on the list for the next round of work, and it's assigned to Moriel, who is awesome, so I think you can expect that to get fixed soon (plus the usual two weeks for new code to reach the Wikipedias).

In the meantime, it appears that the temporary workaround is to make some other change in the caption. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia lead section editing

When the "edit" button of the lead section is clicked, instead of directing to the "section 0" VisualEditor page, it is directed to "section 1" instead. I understand that whichever edit button (whether it is "section edit" or "entire page edit") you click, you can still edit any part of the article.

However, the edit summary is default to /* Name of first section */ following edits after the lead section (i.e. section 0) edit button is clicked. Is there any ways to solve?

Also, I see that most of the Chinese instructions in VisualEditor are incorrectly translated/need to be copyedited. Are all users allowed to change user interface of local VisualEditor? HYH.124 (talk) 09:58, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, User:HYH.124.

• The edit link for the lead section is a local gadget. It should be corrected to match the behavior of the one at the English Wikipedia. They recently found and fixed this problem at en.wp.
• Translations are done both locally and non-locally, and the answer depends on which thing exactly you want to change. If you can give me an example (or a screenshot with the problem circled), then I can help you figure out what would be most useful. We are always interested in finding good translators! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Cancel button

Hello, I'm experienced wikipedian. But when I tried VE last time I couldn't find some Cancel (editing) button. I think it's very important because of average internet users. Not everybody knows it could be canceled by clicking to Article link. Reloading is useless. So some people could be pushed to saving it. Dominikmatus (talk) 16:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, also if you use wikitext editor, there is no cancel button. I don't think that it's needed. Users can just click the "article tab" or alternatively click the cancel button in the browser. Stryn (talk) 19:08, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes there is. There's even one on this edit window right now. There is no cancel button in the browser. That doesn't even make sense, how would the browser know what "cancel" means in this context? 101.160.157.71 03:04, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Not a "button" though. Anyway, in August User:Jdforrester (WMF) commented on Bugzilla, "We just removed the Cancel button because user testing showed that it wasn't helpful. Any link out of the editor leaves the editor…" Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:58, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

The technicality of if it is a "button" or link is irrelevant to the user. Clicking it does a thing either-way. And quiet buttons (which the VE one was) look identical to links. 121.214.105.200 04:27, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

In what way is a cancel button "not helpful"? Is it deemed to be harmful in some way? I understand that it is not necessary, but that can be difficult for a new user to grasp. It is not self-evident that navigating away from the page is the way to cancel the edit, and besides, that seems to me like crashing out of a program to stop it - a bit of a kludge, not very clean, and counter-intuitive. SpinningSpark 23:47, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Apparently nobody actually used it (except me, because I cancel a lot of sandbox edits when I'm sorting out bug reports). Also, I think it was removed several weeks before anyone said anything about it. It's been gone for a couple of months, and this is only the second or third time anyone's mentioned it (except me). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:14, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Do you suppose that everyone who uses VE comes here? or even knows about this page? 2 or 3 seems quite a lot when measured against the traffic of this page. Anyway, that did not really answer my question. SpinningSpark 15:47, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with SpinningSpark.

There is a Cancel link here, in the wikicode editor. And removing it is a bad idea.

There exist some other ways to cancel an edit, but these do not advertise themselves. The user has to guess them. And the user cannot be expected to guess them. Furthermore, nothing tells the user that just going away from the visual editing would cancel it. There could be draft auto-saving... Like on the Stack Exchange sites. More and more sites have draft auto-saving.

Removing the Cancel link is like removing the Off button from a hoover and saying that the user can always pull the plug ! Nnemo (talk) 13:30, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, the user (in the shape of the en.wiki community) did pull the plug, largely as a result of the developers failing to listen. Despite some terrible shortcomings VE was made the default despite howls of opposition and it took a long time to get it removed. This is a shame because VE is fundamentally a great idea.

Going back to the OPs comment "some people could be pushed to saving", that was actually my reaction when the cancel button was first removed; I was thinking I'll save it then fix it in the source editor. Of course, now I know I don't need to do that, but anything that could lead an editor to save something they know full well is wrong cannot possibly be a good thing. SpinningSpark 15:24, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

(Slightly off topic but possibly useful for several people, you don't need to "save then fix". The option to switch to source editing from VE retaining all changes has been arounds for months now, and in its current form you simply do this by clicking on the "other" edit tab while in VE). Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I've seen a few edits on ptwiki which really look like something that they would not really intentionally save... Maybe they just didn't find a way to cancel the edit mode. Helder 21:14, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I must not have been clear in my earlier reply. If memory serves, this is the first complaint about the removal of the Cancel button on this particular page. I read a lot of pages on several wikis, and I regularly talk to people who watch other wikis. To the best of my knowledge, about three complaints (including this one) have been posted in public on all of these wikis combined. This includes the pages that are reached from inside VisualEditor, which has a "Leave feedback" item in the Help menu (the question mark with a circle around it).

This doesn't prove that nobody notices or cares. It could be that everyone saw that someone else had already posted a question about it, and decided not to bother with saying "Me, too". Problems reported by a single person—or by nobody at all—can be a serious issue. But it does suggest (not prove) that its absence isn't seriously disruptive for most people. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:51, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Well on this page an archive search finds this edit with two people supporting a cancel button and this one with another person supporting and this one could be taken as supporting too.

Ok, this is not a major end of the world issue, but I'm still not getting an answer to my question: what is positively problematic about having a cancel button. The answer seems to be that the devs think we should all learn to do it a different way because that is more in line with the way the software actually works. What we really find most convenient or intuitive does not seem to be very relevant. SpinningSpark 23:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

It was removed because the toolbar was being too crowded. People who zoom in a lot or who have smaller screens end up with the toolbar wrapping into two (fat) lines, and it can eat half your screen real estate. The fewer items on the toolbar, the less likely this is to happen to editors. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

How can i get the VisualEditor extension for my companie's knoledge based system, which are based on MediaWiki?

How can i get the VisualEditor extension for my companie's knoledge based system, which are based on MediaWiki? 95.131.179.210 13:48, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

The basic instructions appear to be listed at Extension:VisualEditor.

Good luck! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Handling

<ref>

with trailing slash does not work correctly

Hi VE team!

On Polish Wiki we often use "Przypisy-lista" or "Przypisy" templates that work almost the same way to "reflist" template on English Wikipedia. A lot of our users (including me) group their source references in the bottom part of the article, inside the reflist-like template and refer to them using <pre>^[1]</pre> (with trailing slash) in the "body" of the article and "register" them fully using Cite web and similar templates. If I click in Visual Editor on such a reference, no information from the related reference appears, although full citation template is used in the reflist and the field translated as "Use existing reference" is grayed out. It is very misleading and prevents the users from adding another reference or even checking existing one when in edit mote. As coverage with sources is a critical issue on all Wikipedia projects, I'd like to see improvements in this area.

Note: "Odn" template (reference to a book in Bibliography section) works well. Standard <pre><ref></pre> fails.

Examples:

• Tinta barroca (VE) on PL
• Głuchowo (VE) on PL - check No. 3, for example Bonvol (talk) 20:05, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you have encountered this problem.

These are list-defined references that have been wrapped in a template. List-defined references do not work now, but probably will in the future (2015?). References contained in any template are effectively hidden from VisualEditor. I do not know if this problem is solvable. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:11, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Why has Ctrl-V suddenly stopped working?

Why have Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V suddenly stopped working? It was working fine earlier tonight. I've tried two different PCs with two different operating systems both logged in and logged out so I'm pretty sure its not me at fault. Browser=FF32. SpinningSpark 23:40, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

It's happening for me, too, so it's not just you.

This is now tracked as bugzilla:72164. Thanks for the report. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:06, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Any chance of a heads up on how this has happened? The current VE version is dated 9 October, that is, it apparently hasn't changed since this bug materialised. There would seem to be something seriously wrong with VE version control.

It is extremely inconvenient. I use these keys all the time. Apparently, this same bug can cause random bits of the article to end up deleted so it needs fixing as a matter of urgency. SpinningSpark 20:39, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Ctrl+V is do not work in Visual editor in my firefox, explorer, chrome. Do not work drag and drop. I.Sáček, senior (talk) 10:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

User:I.Sáček, senior and User:SpinningSpark, this is supposed to be fixed now. Please check and let me know if it's working for you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Quick check, it's not working in either monobook or vector. Am I supposed to restart my browser or something? SpinningSpark 22:34, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The version is still showing as 9 October so presumably nothing has changed (unless this is more poor version control). I would copy-paste the full version info, but not even select is working in the help window, let alone copy-paste - not very useful. SpinningSpark 22:39, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The dates are the release dates, which take at least a week to get to the Wikipedias. Cutting and pasting is working for me in Firefox here at mw.org but not at en.wp. I'll tell James F; I believe that this was supposed to be released ahead of schedule. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Ctrl-V has started working again, but with a bug. If one immediately tries to backspace over the thing pasted a second copy gets pasted. Even worse, Ctrl-X is not working, and the "cut" function has stopped working from the right-click menu (that was working before so I at least had a workaround). This is such a mess for a very basic function that I need all the time that I am on the verge of giving up on using VE. This is just too flaky to be able to work efficiently. SpinningSpark 21:22, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Spurious edits to references and removal of "recommended" template

This diff (for "Tove Jansson" in the Swedish Wikipedia) illustrates a simple edit with Visual Editor gone horribly wrong. The only changes I consciously made were to correct the spelling of "Tuulikki" which was wrong in a few places. But the diff shows (1) the removal of two words and addition of a "clarify" link (line 89); (2) the removal of two references (lines 247 and 260); (3) changes within a reference (publisher, location, and ISBN) (line 279 in the new version); (4) change in a link (line 303); (5) ISBN of same (line 303); and finally (6) the removal of the "recommended" template (line 324). Several of these look like correct edits, but how did they creep in here? Several others are definitely wrong (can't make sense of the ISBN changes, for example). Eeera (talk) 05:07, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I copied the whole article to my sandbox and tried to edit it, and the result is just fine.

My guess is that without noticing (maybe a cache issue?) you edited an old version of the page (could be early September), thus "reverting" the article partly to an older version. User:Jdforrester (WMF) will tell us more. Elitre (WMF) (talk) 08:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Extreme lag in updating link suggestions

New articles seem to take forever to get on the suggested links list. I created an article last night and it is still redlinked in the suggestion list now, 6 or seven hours later SpinningSpark 08:56, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor can only supply what (old) Search gives it (at en.wp). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

VE help menu in ruWP

In ruWP use page "report an error in the article". VE panel has a menu "help" (?) -> Leave feedback. Anonymous user often confused and leave error message on the page "Leave feedback". Whether it is possible locally in ruWP add a new menu item "(?) -> report an error in the article" under the item "(?) -> Leave feedback about VE"? Sunpriat (talk) 13:48, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

You wouldn't need a new item, because Leave feedback is meant precisely to gather feedback about VE, not about random articles. You might try to create locally MediaWiki:Visualeditor-feedback-tool and adapt it. In my experience though that doesn't help much. Best, Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%A4%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BC/%D0%A2%D0%B5%D1%85%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9#.D0.94.D0.BE.D0.BF.D0.BE.D0.BB.D0.BD.D0.B8.D1.82.D1.8C_.D0.BC.D0.B5.D0.BD.D1.8E_.D0.92.D0.B8.D0.B7.D1.83.D0.B0.D0.BB.D1.8C.D0.BD.D0.BE.D0.B3.D0.BE_.D1.80.D0.B5.D0.B4.D0.B0.D0.BA.D1.82.D0.BE.D1.80.D0.B0 Sunpriat (talk) 18:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

syntax highlight geshi and visual editor