Forum:Rich text editor sitewide release

Good morning!

We plan to roll out the new Rich Text Editor early next week (15th June onwards) to be available for use on all English-language Wikia wikis (with a few exceptions*) for users who edit using the Monaco skin.

The editor will be available to all users, and can be switched on and off via user preferences. If you are an established editor, you will only see the Rich Text Editor if you have previously edited on a wiki where it was already enabled. Once the change goes live, new editors will see it enabled by default. In most cases, if you previously used the new editor, you should continue to see it; if you didn't use the new editor, this should also stay the same.

If you spot any issues with the new editor, please let us know in the Central Wikia forums. We are dedicated to making wikis easier to understand and edit, and we welcome all suggestions and feedback.

Thanks!

19:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

* The exceptions are wikis which heavily use HTML comments or especially complex code, where the new editor would rarely show even if enabled - I have posted notes on these wikis.

Marvel?
Hey there, I was under the impression that Marvel and DC Database wasn't going to get this editor. Was I misinformed?

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 20:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * If thoses wikis are not on the exception list, the thing was not that any wiki wasn't going to have this since Wikia tech made this specially to be used Wikia wide and if some wikis got it early, it was only for testing purpose.
 * Otherwise said, they wanted to test things out before giving it to many wikis.
 * — TulipVorlax 01:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Where is the exception list?
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 14:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Marvel is indeed on the exception list, as noted on (perhaps I should have chosen a better word than to say you've been "excepted" ... sounds rather like "accepted" I guess!). DC can be as well if required!  16:19, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's see how bad DC breaks before we '(ac/ex)cept' them. ;)
 * Thanks for the link!
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 19:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Inserting headings
The new editor will be nice to use for both experienced and inexperienced editors, but the number one complaint I would have about it is the fact that it only lets you insert two types of headings. Why can't we have at least one more button for headings, or even a drop down menu for the type of heading? Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 04:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * At the moment, this is because we want as little complexity in the editor as possible - a previous release had this, but it made for a rather complex menu. Having said that, I do agree with a reasonable need for at least an H4 heading, and it's something we're looking into. 16:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 06:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Setting it as the non-default editor?
Is there a way that admins can set this to not be default editor. My experiance is that most newcomers are confused by it. If not, might I suggest this as a feature for future versions. --EightyOne (talk) 18:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That's a possibility we may consider after the rollout is completed - however, I find it surprising to hear newcomers to your wiki are more confused by the new editor than by wikitext. Is the topic of the wiki in question fairly technical? 10:29, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Not at all. It was the Gears of War Fanon Wiki. A lot of the people asked questions about how to use it, and how they could use the normal editor. For example: On the talk pages they give you an easy and simple edit screen. When I trying making a Article, it's pure hell. People also have a lot of trouble putting infoboxes and other template in articles. I personally find that the whole process is far slower and more complicated when it comes to links, titles, etc. I also have another concern. I'm sure this has been thought of, but I can't shake the feeling that this will lead to a "dumbing down" of editors. By that I means that many people will now never even learn basic wiki code, let alone the more complicated stuff.


 * Personally, I think the people who will be really confused are the regular editors. Casual users and future regular users will find it much easier to start editing with something like the new editor. The process is slower in my opinion, but from the point of view of a new user, it is easier to do than randomly filling out fields they do not understand. You do have a good point about the "dumbing down" though. Users who actually have proficiency with basic wiki code might become a minority eventually. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 16:03, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I completly agree with you; I find the Rich Text to be far slower and less efficent than the normal editor. However, I'm not sure that it is significantly eaiser to use even for the total novice. The editing tips that appear by default to the left of the edit box explain how to do the basics (and some people might never even need or desire to learn more). In some ways, the Rich Text hinders more than it helps. I learnt all my wiki code from the editing tips box, looking at other pages (especially templates), and liberal use of the preview button. I fear the rich text editor will inhibit this process for others. --EightyOne (talk) 19:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Going live...
This is a quick note to say the new editor rollout will be in occurring in the next few hours. 10:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Notifcation (lack of) & loss of functionality
'Good' to have (no) advance notification of this latest 'Improvement'. Not impressed by starting editing and then getting the new 'wonder' interface & a lack of Predictive Links (list of link options) in the main edit area, which makes for more errors on pages (as it fails to offer previously used options. So if you type alink with 2 words and the second word is spelt with lower case instead of a capitalised first letter you get a red link.

The Category buttons lists of previously used items had got better after the Cat button was introduced, but in to me recently the in-text edit window links appear to stop updating after the first word which makes it useless for links to pages like list of ...... Now with this new feature it appears as if you get non at all !! - Great improvement that is (not). Forcing you to go the the search window to find correct titles for links, then type them in manually. Also the Supper new edit window now 'nowiki' tags any 'wiki code' you use during typing slowing down input as you then have to highlight the text and press a button when just typing [ was far quicker.

Selecting the 'Old editor' option we appear to not get back the list of common codes section so it appears selecting Old style interfaces you have lost more functionality.

- The I'm Not impressed by this Improved interface - BulldozerD11 13:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The editor is designed so that you don't have to touch wikitext. However, we plan to make changes so that some of the simpler wikitext markup can be typed into the editor without it being interpreted as "WYSIWYG" text.
 * I understand the issue about LinkSuggest, I'll ask about the status of that in the new editor. 13:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Update on LinkSuggest: it's working from the "insert link" window, as intended.


 * I'll try it (WYSIWYG) again latter, I've turned it off for now in preferences.


 * The LinkSuggest (in the old editor) I'm sure was more predictive than is bee lately. thats partially why i've added comments now. Before I'm sure once you started typing it carried on refining the suggestion past the first word (like in the search box & the Category editor) till recently (it sometimes stopped working when pages were taking ages to load).


 * Another point is the new (separate) category (edit) section means that when copying pages the categories are not transferred. Does the new interface handle this better ? Note: I do think the new category tool generally makes it easier to add categories to pages.


 * Thanks for reply BulldozerD11 15:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, interesting - LinkSuggest should certainly still be working beyond the first character. Can I ask where you're seeing this, and what browser and OS you're running? Regarding category copying - unfortunately we do not have support for copying categories yet, but it's something we're aware of, and would love to find a simple solution to. 15:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * LinkSuggest stops updating at the end of the first Word not Character.
 * AS an example;
 * * the typing of a link begining [[test gives a list of 9 items from Test > Test Creation for createwiki UI localization.
 * * And adding F to form TestF offers [[TestFoundry as expected ,
 * * but typing a space and C on the end giveing [[Test C it offers nothing, instead of Test Card, Test Creation.... etc. That are visible with 'Just' [[Test input.


 * My OS is Windows XP & Browser Mozilla Firefox 3.


 * if that helps - BulldozerD11 19:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, you are correct - I misread your original text. Yes, I am also seeing that it stops after the first word. I will pass it on. 19:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi - Kirkburn I have found if you type the link as Firstword_ (Firstword of link then a Underscore character) it the works suggesting other possible links ! if that makes sense, so must be the reverse of when you copy some links and paste them you got a _ between each word. Must be something to do with that parser thing. (IIRC on wikipedia there was a BOT cleaning up items that had a format_like_this_after_ being pasted in to pages). - BulldozerD11 00:51, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Opinions
It sucks. I'd prefer a hybrid, the categorizer of the RTE with the simplicity of the wikicode editor. Until then, it's slow, bloated, breaks wikicode, and fails to work on most main pages. Our wiki is highly urging users to NOT use it. -- Zapwire the tubes are clogged! 19:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments
Using Chrome, I don't get the editor at all. Using IE, I have 1 of 2 things happen. I click edit, and I get a bunch of "unknown toolbar item" error boxes, than I'm stuck with a spinning ajax. Or, I click to edit, I get a bunch of "unknown toolbar item" error boxes, and the editor loads. Either way, I'm getting error boxes, and this is a problem. Also, what happened to option in my preferences to disable the category select feature? I'm now forced to use that. One more comment - isn't writing an article with wikicode really the "wiki way"? Doesn't using a visual editor totally detract from it? -- LordTBT Talk! 19:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Chrome and Opera are not supported at this time. We know of the IE issue and it'll be fixed as soon as possible.
 * The category editor is fairly strongly integrated with the new editor (plus it makes no sense to have a WYSIWYG editor with uneditable category code within the text), so they currently have to come together
 * Finally, we don't believe wikis are defined solely by being wikitext - it's scary to newbies and can take a while to learn all the little nuances. We're not going to stop people editing in the old editor, but we firmly believe that WYSIWYG is the way forward for the masses. 20:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * You should mention the supported browsers at Help:New editor. --Justme2 20:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Mass rollout before all browsers are supported is not a good idea
I came here from Wikipedia, so I was used to wikis having wikicode - specifically MediaWiki wikicode (as I've used other wikis that work differently).

I think that Wikia's long term view, that being able to edit pages without skill at wikicode is the right view. There are other wiki-farms out there and if Wikia is not 'better' then people can go somewhere else.

But I also think that is a mistake to do a mass rollout while some fairly large browsers are not yet supported. That is not really a 'Web 2.0' attitude if it is going to force users to switch to a particular type of browser to get the wiki to work as expected.

If Wikia and other wiki-farms go down this 'user friendly' route, I can see potential editors seeing a message that unhelpfully says: 'This website uses rich text editing, which your browser does not support. Please switch to another browser that supports rich text editing. The major advantage of wiki-code is that it works with all browsers, and I can't see Wikia ever being able to afford to put in support for tons of minority browsers. So I can't really see the rich text editor concept being something that is ever going to be totally universal.

The old system, is also a lot friendlier towards people with accessability issues. One of the frustrating thing about fancy dancy web features (like Java applets, embedded YouTube videos, Flash movies and that sort of thing) is that they shut out people like blind people. If rich text editing is an opt-in feature, then you can be sure that Wikia (and all of its wikis) are as easy for all people to use. But if the rich text editing is dumped on all new users (because they are assumed to be too stupid to cope with wiki-code), then you are suddenly creating a problem where any blind people (or people in a similar situation) are going to be forced to get someone else to turn off the undesired fancy features.

I logged in recently, and saw a message inviting me to click to switch to the new system. But there was no option to click to switch back. I was told I would need to go through the preferences if I wanted to go back. So it seems like Wikia are thinking of this as a thing they really want to push onto people. I think that is the wrong approach.

I think that this system should be here. And I think that it should be expanded and developed. But I really do not think people should be press ganged into using a particular interface. Wikia should be giving people an extra choice - not making that choice for them. David Shepheard 22:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Look, everyone that has been around for a while is a veteran at the original wiki coding, and we're all used to it. However, one of the major problems on wikis - that is, "why don't the people edit?" - is that they click edit, only to find out that there's this immensely complex system of coding that they simply do not understand. Those wikis include Wikipedia, who despite its tens of thousands of page requests in a few short moments only has a core editing base of a few hundred editors.
 * I don't see it as "dumping on people"; the majority of new editors on Wikia will not be like you and will not have had Wikipedia experience. It is therefore unreasonable to expect that they will know wiki source straight off. So I definitely support having the rich text as a default for new users, but I also strongly support continuing support for the original editor, because it is much faster for the experienced. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 23:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Erm, I'm not exactly sure how this is a reply to my comments as I never said that Wikia was dumping on its users. I did actually say that Wikia should be making this sort of editor. But the truth is that the system is not ready yet and I think that the mass rollout should wait until the system works.
 * And I do think that a RTF default is something that is going to cause problems for blind users who decide they want to edit. A 'click here if you want RTF editing instead of wiki-code' option would be something that would be easy enough for newbie editors and would not stop blind people from using the system. David Shepheard 00:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We understand the issue of not supporting all browsers - currently we do not believe it to be "broken" on Safari, Chrome and Opera, but for safety's sake, we want to ensure Firefox and IE are working first as they account for more than 85% of our visitors (especially as the team is not huge and editing has so many edge cases). As it's such a major change, any issues are big issues.
 * I believe it will not be long until we switch it on for Chrome, Safari and Opera, assuming we spot no issues. 16:09, 22 June 2009 (UTC)