The Signpost

Technology report

Second Visual Editor prototype launches

Second Visual Editor prototype goes live

The visual editor allows for the easy addition of wikilinks, among other things

A second prototype of the "Visual" (what you see is what you get) editor being developed by the Wikimedia Foundation went live to MediaWiki.org this week (Wikimedia blog), seven months after the first prototype (see previous Signpost coverage). The project is being assisted by developers for the wiki farm site Wikia, many of whose wikis use an existing, less powerful WYSIWYG editor at present.

Work on the editor had been delayed by a late decision to switch the "behind the scenes" framework used to power it; as such, despite the passage of time, developers aimed only for "feature parity" with last December's prototype, though the newer version does add the ability to save articles after editing, the potential for mobile editing, and integration with browser spell-check features. It is further hoped that the newer framework should allow for all remaining features – including tables, images and reference sections – to be rapidly integrated from now. Nevertheless, publication of details of the new live test version has already provoked a long string of bug reports. It seems likely that the deployment of the visual editor to its first live wiki will be pushed back further, possibly until the late northern autumn.

Just like the first prototype, the most significant limitation with this second demonstration version undoubtedly surrounds its inability to understand potentially difficult wikitext constructs (manual override mode has been limited to administrators during the testing period for precisely this reason). Indeed, it has been this concern over backwards compatibility that has long been seen as the major challenge for developers of WYSIWYG editors. The difference this time, developers say, is that the introduction of the radically improved new parser will make all the difference when it comes to the provision of a truly comprehensive editor. Even so, its deployment will almost certainly be accompanied by the "phasing out" of particularly complex wikitext structures.

In brief

Signpost poll
Git and Gerrit
Change on 3 months ago: optimistic down 21 percentage points; cautiously optimistic up 21; some concerns unchanged; very concerned down 2. Significant "other" category not shown. You can now give your opinion on next week's poll: Which of these best sums up your view about the recent Visual Editor prototype?

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for several weeks.


















Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-06-25/Technology_report