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)

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 latly. 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)