Forum:New Visual Editor: Problems and Suggestions/archive

Feature Request: Edittools
I didn't see the Edittools availabe in the new editor. If you shouldn't add it to the new editor, please do so. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 17:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * In source mode, that could be possible. I'll note it down. 12:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Where is the new editor?
I don't see the new editor neither when I edit text on all Wikias nor in my preferences. Is it enabled everywhere and for everyone?--G.E. 13:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Try here. This site has the new visual editor on by default. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 14:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * At the moment it is only available for use on newer wikis. We plan to roll it out further, but it won't be enabled by default for established editors. 11:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Bug in numbered list properties?
If I make a numbered list, right-click and select Numbered List Properties. You get the bullet list properties (Circle, Disc, Square) instead of 1., a., i. (not sure exactly what would be available). -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 12:54 PM PST 27 Apr 2009


 * Good spot - will pass it on. 20:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * As I realised later, that kind of option doesn't make any sense for wikitext anyway, so I'll get both removed. 12:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Visual Editor Bug Report
I encountered the same bug and I found others too. Edits made by an anonymous editor: diff

The bug converts all wikilinks into broken external links. It's pretty annoying.--MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 02:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * We know of it, we'll try and get it fixed ASAP. 12:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The same bug BUT in different ways
I've already built up a script to clean up the mess screwed by the visual editor.

However the visual editor seems to have found new ways to screw up a lot of links in DIFFERENT WAYS. This bug is critical in that it often screws up all links in our pages once in a while.

Go to: for details.

Bug: Mismatch Links
Read this:
 * niefeng (Stat at Lv6: HP 71 // Speciality: ~Speciality~@fierce brute@, Net // Weapon: Broadsword, Mammoth's Bone)

* niefeng (Stat at Lv6: HP 71 // Speciality: ~Speciality~@fierce brute@, Net // Weapon: Broadsword, Mammoth's Bone)

Note how the links are pointed to the wrong places.

~Speciality~@fierce brute@ The page "fierce brute" is pointed to the page "speciality". It should be simply just fierce brute but the visual editor screws it up.

Bug: Broken Links
Read this:
 * ebur (Seems inactive. Stat at Lv7: HP 90, 3-3-6 // Speciality: 6th sense, shield, Extra-thick skin, Fierce brute // Weapon: None) Weak

* ebur (Seems inactive. Stat at Lv7: HP 90, 3-3-6 // Speciality: 6th sense, shield, Extra-thick skin, Fierce brute // Weapon: None) Weak

All links are replaced by the weird "http:///wiki/" this time.

Bug: Internal Links converted into external links (Undesired!)


Read this:
 * Arena (active. Stat at Lv10: HP 89, 5-4-7 // Speciality: Bomb, Cry of the Damned // Weapon: Lance, Knife, Broadsword, Hatchet, Bumps)
 * Arena (active. Stat at Lv10: HP 89, 5-4-7 // Speciality: Bomb, Cry of the Damned // Weapon: Lance, Knife, Broadsword, Hatchet, Bumps)

It should be simply just Speciality, but the visual editor converts all links into external ones: Speciality.

Do you have any clue why it happens? Could we do anything to avoid this mess? --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 03:39, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the individual reports, I will pass them on. 15:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Obviously the same goes for interwiki links. My suggestion, on paste if a [http//*.wikia.com/wiki/** ???] is found then it's converted to a wikilink, if the subdomain is the same as the wiki it's made internal, otherwise it's made into a w:c: interwiki link. Similar things should probably be done with Wikipedia links. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Jun 2, 2009 @ 17:24 (UTC)

How to reproduce the link switching bugs
Setup:

Create two sections (you can actually use 1 section but read on anyway) Sample text:

Section A

 * gen (Stat at Lv2: HP 71, 2-3-4 // Speciality: Extra Thick Skin, Net // Weapon: None)

Section B

 * punching-bag (Stat at Lv2: HP 77 2-2-4 // Speciality: None // Weapon: Knife)

Steps:

Make sure you turn on rich-text editor! 1) Edit Section A. Cut a statement with external &/or internal links. Save it. 2) Edit Section B (or re-edit Section A). Paste the statement. Save it.

Result:
 * All links are screwed up.

Is it helpful for you to pin which part is causing problems? How long could you fix it? This bug is really critical and annoying which affects us on a daily basis. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 05:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Aha, this is a cutting and pasting issue? That's one I managed to reproduce fortunately, will pass this on. Thanks for the extra info! 16:20, 1 June 2009 (UTC)


 * A quick update on this: we are working on various fronts to prevent this issue from occurring. At the moment, part of our solution (which is live) is to prevent copying and pasting in situations where such breakage would occur. The explanation of why is fairly long, but a quick summary would be that if you imagine different parts of the page code are numbered: when you copy sections it is possible these numbers will show up twice on the same page, confusing the editor. 17:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Critical tags and magic words on "Main_page" are corrupted by the new editor
Using the new editor to add to the Contents section links to half a dozen articles created in the first couple of hours after creating a new wiki yielded alarming damage to some very important magic words and tags used on that page.

This is best illustrated by viewing this history comparison of the vsk.wikia.com main_page.

Very important tags and magic words were mysteriously replaced by text from the article links being added in a completely separate section of that main page:
 * mainpage-leftcolumn-start
 * SITENAME
 * NUMBEROFARTICLES
 * createbox
 * mainpage-endcolumn
 * mainpage-rightcolumn-start
 * NOTOC
 * NOEDITSECTION

Once again the expedient fix is to add the magic word __NOWYSIWYG__ to that page to guard against future disruption but that is not as good as figuring out why the new editor is being so disruptive in the first place.


 * This could very well be related to the copy and paste known bug mentioned a few posts earlier.

I support the idea of a WYSIWYG editor but in it's current form it is generating extra clean up work. najevi 04:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That is extremely odd, and certainly shouldn't be happening. Do you have any idea at what point during editing the magic words got corrupted? 14:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The lines I'd edited (on a freshly created new wiki main page) before noticing this bug were:
 * 1) (fill in topic)
 * 2) (Month) (Year)
 * 3) the table of "Add link to article here" within Contents section

I used the "Insert/Edit link" tool from the new editor toolbar to insert the internal links for about ten articles. I do recall discovering that if I left the "Link text" input box blank then the default text that would appear when I next checked the article link properties was (of course) the article title. Whether that is significant or not I do not know. najevi 14:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the steps - we haven't been able to reproduce it so far, unfortunately. 11:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Article with section edit links requires NOWYSIWYG magic word in each section
The magic word __NOWYSIWYG__ is supposed to suppress the new rich text editor and instead use the WML source editor by default. That does work if the page is opened for edit but not if only one section of that article is opened for edit.

A clumsy workaround is to add __NOWYSIWYG__ in every section but I doubt that this is desirable. najevi 05:49, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Certainly not desirable! As far as I recall a NOWYSIWYG magic word anywhere on the page is supposed to affect section edits. It's possible this functionality broke during development - I will bring it up. 14:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Translate to Dutch
Hi,

If required, I'd like to translate the visual editor to Dutch. Just leave me a message if I have to do it. Tedjuh10 - Talk 16:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

"Wikitext source" problem in IE8
In IE8, I click the "wikitext source" button, and it displays HTML, not wikitext. -- LordTBT Talk! 23:03, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This issue should now be fixed. 15:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

What's this? I seem to see HTML in the bottom box while on Firefox. And it appears to me that they have two editors. ~Joey~ ^Talk^  17:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This has been fixed now, but any wiki with WikiED will have some problems with the editor. A fix is shown on that wiki's JS. ~Joey~  ^Talk^  05:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The issue is fixed, however when it is in wikitext source-mode, the icon still says "wikitext source" in the tooltip...shouldn't it say "return to visual editor" ? -- LordTBT Talk! 19:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Good spot, I've passed it on. 16:00, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Occasional access to the new editor for user who prefer the old editor
I tried for a few days to use the new editor but found I was wasting too much time fixing anomalies that it injected into the page. I also noted that the new rich text editor takes longer to load than the old source editor. So I went into preferences and disabled the new editor.


 * From time to time I think it might be a good idea to see how a page will handle being opened and edited by a contributor using the new editor.

At the present time I cannot do this without laboriously opening my preferences and re-enabling the new editor. Trying the edit and then revisiting my preferences to disable the new editor again.


 * It might be a good idea to have a button added to the source editor that allows the user to switch to the rich text editor however, if adding this feature will only cause the source editor to load as slowly as the new editor loads then I'd rather not have this convenience.

najevi 14:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a great idea. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 14:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We're adding some parameters that you can attach to the page URL to quickly switch modes, which may aid you here. 15:53, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The parameters are now live -  - add one of those to the end of an editing URL (this will only work on namespaces where the new editor is already enabled). For example,   would force it into using the old editor.  12:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Transcluded Template Bug from Central
While in the editor mode of a page that has a template trasncluded from Central, when you hover over the teamplate and scroll to the bottom you get a few lines of text that say ' NewPP limit report Preprocessor node count: 5/1000000 Post-expand include size: 0/2097152 bytes Template argument size: 0/2097152 bytes Expensive parser function count: 0/100 --> '. Examples. :) ~Joey~  ^Talk^  16:48, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Very good spot, thanks! 12:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Unsupported placeholder type bug
This bug occurs once in a while. Here's the example. The code looks like:

Before

After

Does the development team realise this bug? Do you know what causes it?

I will file a detailed bug report if no one report this before. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 16:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We have seen it before, but the cause of it then was fixed. I've reopened the bug, for it to be looked at again. Do you have specific steps to reproduce? 13:05, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Line hasn't been changed is marked as "changed"
OK take a look at this diff.

The user is using new visual editor to edit.

Note the first colored line. There is no change at all. Still the color highlight is present on that line.

That diff is simple so it's okay. Imagine if the user takes a lot of changes in one go and there are so many false positives appearing when you are checking the changes some anon made. It becomes a headache. It makes checking for diffs difficult, especially if we are working with tables. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 18:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Understood. As far as I know, it's due to differences between "types" of spaces - the new editor makes them more consistent, even though you might not notice anything in the text (or even when viewing the page in source mode). The main way they get introduced is via copying and pasting from other sources. I am not sure that this is a solvable issue, but I will bring it up. 12:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Can't right-click cut, copy, or paste in new editor
I am using Firefox 3.5

OK, I finally tried to do some editing in the new editor. Up to now I have been clicking the Wikitext Source button to edit in the wikitext editor.

In the new editor I selected some text and a wikilink. When I tried to right-click and cut out that text and wikilink in order to paste it elsewhere I got this message in a dialog box:


 * Your browser security settings don't permit the editor to automatically execute cutting operations. Please use the keyboard for that (Ctrl+X).

It's funny. I am able to right-click and copy that dialog-box message and paste it here, but I can't right-click and copy/cut/paste inside the new editor.

I am able to copy/cut/paste from the browser edit menu though. Keyboard commands also work. Ctrl+X works for cutting. Ctrl+V works for pasting.

I can't figure out what in my security settings could be causing the right-click problems in the new editor.

Trying to right-click paste produces this dialog box text:


 * Because of your browser security settings, the editor is not able to access your clipboard data directly. You are required to paste it again in this window.


 * Please paste inside the following box using the keyboard (Ctrl+V) and hit OK.

But I can paste into that special dialog-box window by using the browser edit menu. I can also paste directly into the new editor by using the browser edit menu. --Timeshifter 23:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Adding points and spaces
Another known and annoying bug with this thing, it likes to magically add spaces for no apparent reason by itself. And now, it also decided to start adding (*)s to multiple lines by itself. From that link, all I did was add "test" to one parameter and "foobar" to another, but the editor completely changes the page. Please fix these issues, thanks. ~Joey~ ^Talk^  01:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm it also seems to have changed the format of the template I changed, by separating it onto lines with each parameter numbered. Grr, that's not how I changed it, so I am not happy when I see this happening on multiple pages and someone has to 're-edit' every page a RTE user edits :( ~Joey~  ^Talk^  01:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This happened on my user page on Avatar Wiki, to the point where I simply used the magic word to disable it for the page because it was adding spaces in the most random places possible. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 09:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the report - I'll pass this on and get it worked on quickly. 12:15, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Undo fail - blanking
The editor appears to have difficulties undoing edits, which is a serious bug. As seen here, you'll notice The 888th Avatar and I both undid the same edit, yet because he had the editor enabled, his undo actually blanked a lot of content. Both his edits there demonstrate a bug with undos and the editor. Thanks. ~Joey~ ^Talk^  07:58, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, the bad memories... yeah, I've noticed in general (not just this case) that undos stuff up a little. When it works, it adds things that were never there. Also, when it works it is quite slow to save the page, and the edit often shows up on the recent changes feed before the article is actually loaded in my browser again. When it doesn't this type of error happens. :( Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 09:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, the slowness of the loading happens to me without the editor, it's something different. <font color="Green">~Joey~  <font color="Green">^Talk^  09:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the report - the techs have fixed the table removal issue (which was due to the indent). I've asked for it to go live as soon as possible. 12:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Joeyaa: I know what I'm saying, the slowness was only happening for me with the new editor. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 12:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The speed of the editor is something we're working on. Part of the issue is waiting for the next release of the editor it is based upon, FCKeditor (soon to become CKEditor for possibly obvious reasons). 16:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

style template gets autoremoved
See http://guildwars.wikia.com/index.php?title=RTE_bug&diff=1488721&oldid=1488720 for a demonstration. Would it work to turn the RTE off with a keyword in the template? Probably not, right? And have a look at http://guildwars.wikia.com/index.php?title=Ranger_skills_quick_reference&action=history, the anon is myself trying to edit the page, which fails spectaculraly, and then trying to revert my edit, which fails as well; and the first edit was in source mode, too, so even that doesn't help. -- ◄mendel► 12:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I can confirm the template removal issue, and I have passed it on. Thanks! 13:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

line breaks around div tags go away
The RTE eliminates linebreaks near div tags, which implicitly removes p tags, which breaks formatting. -- ◄mendel► 23:45, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I noticed this the same day as you - I was doing some testing on other stuff and noticed it occurring when switching editing modes. It shouldn't be happening, and a bug has been filed. Thanks! 16:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

more bugs
See : The RTE still removes some newlines around div tags, but adds up to 4 linebreaks near others. It also removes hotlinked images, i.e those that were added by simply writing the image URL into the wikitext.

I am sorely disappointed that after more than 10 days after deployment (this wasn't a beta) I still have to revert bugs like that. -- ◄mendel► 09:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've reproduced the image removal issue, we'll get that fixed. The linebreak addition/removal is still being looked into. 14:13, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: for image URLs, make sure not to include the release name, asthose links are temporary. Instead of, use    15:33, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Bugs in code handling, cell properties, mouse pointer (arrow key navigation)
Take a look at this edit.

The first bug  The second bug I tried to select the whole column, right click and select cell properties, change the cell color of the whole column.
 * Before: <section begin=pet_detail1 />
 * After: &lt;section begin=pet_detail1 /&gt;
 * Bug: The visual editor interferes the existing codes stored in this page, and nullify them.

However the visual editor does it wrong and put this code for every row instead: Note the !. It is to indicate that this is the header row. It shouldn't use ! for cells which are not headers.
 * !bgcolor="#ffff00"|20

The third bug It happens when you try to navigate a table with headers by arrow keys.

Step: Actual result: The mosue pointer loses focus and will jump outside of the table. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 17:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Move your mouse pointer to the header row, as an example
 * 2) Press the down arrow to go to the second row


 * First one: definitely a bug. Will report!
 * Second one: not a bug, to be honest. When you select the column and click properties, it takes the properties of the first box selected and puts those in the options. If you do the same edit again, you'll see it selects "Cell type: header"
 * Third one: I cannot reproduce this one, unfortunately. What browser is this? If I'm reading right, I should just place the cursor in the header row and press down? That worked okay for me in the pet template.
 * 12:54, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Templates - non display of (non existant) template place holders
It now appears that we can nolonger get a red-link for templates that are placed on pages ready for template creation. In the past when was added to a page you got a 'link' ready for the template to be created and then displayed. Now it no longer displays you cannot see which pages have them included in readiness for there creation. (thus reducing the chance of others creating them). Another backwards step from the new Visual editor implementation by the look even if editors have opted out in preferences!

Note: this action is with the Visual Editor turned off. (i'm not wasting my time on it till it works in a usable manner that does not slow down editing and add more errors than my poor tying already creates) !! Having to do umpteen mouse clicks instead of typing a few {{ or [[ to add links and templates is not productive (like predictive text on mobile phones giving completely useless rubbish).

I assume from some of the earlier discussions / posts the new Editor thing must be why I've had several of IP editors recently adding blank lines to pages, were as previously the odd IP one removed extra blank lines from some sections. (note they are not adding any other content) so must be opening the page and then on close the 'Wikia system' is adding the extra characters.

Can this new editor be turned off (completely) for all users of a individual wiki by default ?

- (A not impressed by this new 'feature') - BulldozerD11 13:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you can do so via Special:Contact. However, the template issue is because you are trying to type wikitext into the WYSIWYG mode of the editor - currently we don't support that, and the templates get wrapped in nowiki tags. You can do it using wikitext by switching to source mode (the icon at the far right). However, it's something we are looking at changing for very common pieces of wikitext, such as links, bold, etc. {{User:Kirkburn/Sig}} 14:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reply Kirkburn, But NOTE I have the editor turned OFF, but nolonger get the which exist are hidden which is fine and logical as its code is designed to show information from other sources (If its present).


 * I'll see if the other users are using the new WYSIWYG (or the what wikia thinks you need) Editor, as my preference would be to turn it off on the Tractors Wiki, till it is Functional as learning basic wiki Codings not hard, just look at a page and try it out with preview & a bit of C&P works for basic templates. if 100's of thousands of wikipedia editors can learn it, its not that hard. Creating complex templates is different matter.


 * Tables are the feature most usefully 'automated' But the reports of problems above are enough to convince me to steer clear till its fixed as cleaning up 'Bad' tables is a pain & most of my common tables are placed on templates and transcluded into the page (after the parser update fixed some of the wikipedia template import issues i had before) a handy edit button set in the corner linking to the table for editing. So a Copy & Paste from a blank sample creates one in the required format after clicking on the handy RED link left in the article to the template page.

PS: I note while editing this the Wikia spotlight adverts are acting up and appearing over the edit page on the edit quick links bit following using prewiew button, rendering the links unusable - BulldozerD11 16:47, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I misunderstood the first time about the redlink template issue: I agree, this is broken - the links literally are missing from articles, which should not be happening. We'll get that fixed. {{User:Kirkburn/Sig}} 16:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like this template red link bug is now cleared - thanks BulldozerD11 21:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Visual editor user talk page problem
Since the new visual editor appeared signatures are not dispalying on user talk page See here and : indents not functioning. Note: both User:Scoty6776 & I are NOT using the Visual Editor, but posts were fine prior to this being released. Is this another Bug in the 'Magic' WYSIWYG (not) editor ? (strange but my posts work fine on central ? ) - BulldozerD11 20:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Not a RTE issue, there was a &lt;nowiki> tag hidden in the page text. -- ◄mendel► 23:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Apologies for me missing the obvious, should have used the full pair twice then - OOPS - thanks for fix, thought it odd my sig worked on here on here, - BulldozerD11 10:07, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

When the RTE chokes, content disappears.
I can't cite the exact situation anymore (I wish I'd thought to check for this thread when it happened), but when the RTE finds some wiki text that it can't understand, it takes huge portions of content out of the page. I didn't know it was doing this at first, but the last time it happened I opened the RTE two or three extra times just to make sure. After that I found the setting in preferences and turned it off just so I could edit that page - and I'm not turning it back on for a long time, except maybe to report the bug. That won't be happening just yet, though; I have something else I came to the forum for (if I can just remember what it was...). --Jesdisciple (talk) 19:54, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That sounds very odd. For future reference, for us to reproduce such errors it's useful to know: what wiki, what page, what the edit was, and what browser you're using. 14:02, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

RTE is second-guessing us again and fails
RTE removes several line breaks, putting &lt;h2> and &lt;/h2> tags on the same line, which in turn makes the parser insert an additional level of &lt;span> tags (why on earth...), which breaks our .css and makes the headline disappear. -- ◄mendel► 15:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This is one clear example of page that needs a __NOWYSIWYG__ tag. In my opinion, not a bug, because is complex formatting. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 18:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Interesting, I've never seen headings done multiline like that. The space_after issue is fixed, and we're looking into the line break part. 13:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "never seen like that" &mdash; what a nice way to put "overly complex" ;-) -- ◄mendel► 13:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The New Editor.....Not Working
I'll just add here in disapproval of the new editor. I'm having to fix about 50% of the new edits because most of the time the edits are not set for wiki at all, and everytime they do a headline or a link, it sets up a "   " around it. I'm getting tired of deleting them, and the users get annoyed as much as I do. Devilmanozzy 13:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * We have some fixes for the nowiki stuff coming up - several types of wikitext formatting won't get those tags. The current list we're planning on supporting are:


 * Headings
 * Bold, italic, strikethrough, links, signatures
 * Templates (simple ones)
 * Magic words
 * That will hopefully make life much easier :) 14:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "Headings"
 * "Bold, italic, strikethrough, links, signatures"
 * If so, I'll be happy. Devilmanozzy 14:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This will be arriving today: Forum:Rich Text Editor and Monaco skin updates - July 15th. 09:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Auto de-wiki is not good
I find that the visual editor will de-wikify most (all?) wiki symbols or HTML symbols. Examples include ==== 4th heading ====, &lt;ref&gt; ( source ) &lt;/ref&gt;, &lt;references/&gt;, to name but a few. The visual editors treat all such inputs as PLAIN TEXTS. Other visual editors like the blogging editors, forum editors work in the opposite ways. They all accept typing some HTML codes (blogging) or BBCodes (forums) in the visual mode. The codes will still be rendered when sent.

Your visual editors couldn't contain all features in the toolbars. Manual insertions of some codes are inevitable. Think about it. You have to keep toggling back and forth just to put a 4th heading, or a source, or a reference list and so on.

Change the behavior of visual editor so it doesn't de-wikify most or all codes by default.

Consider adding an icon for instead, so people can de-wiki the codes with 1 click when they really need it. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 20:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand what your saying, but your looking at it the wrong way. The idea is to not have people typing ANY code, what so ever, manually into the editor. If you know what your doing with the code, then switch to source mode and type in code. Headers, tables, templates, formatting, should all be done via the toolbar. Anything you actually type should be left as exactly as is. Its called "What you see is what you get" for a reason, if you see a link, you should get a [ and [ and link and ] and ], not a link. --Uberfuzzy 21:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikia introduces new paradigm into usability: We know how you want to use our features, it's the users who have to learn what to want! -- ◄mendel► 22:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * LOL! Nice put! Gonna give up. Apparently great but brings more headache than relief. Good examples: Table! Table is really hard to work with in source mode for novices and intermediates. Bad examples: 4th or higher level headings, horizontal line, simple formatting and style unavailable in the toolbar, template display and insertion.............. If the developer can transfer a few good features to the old editor, very happy to stay with the old one.
 * There are currently 3 modes, the visual mode, the wikitext mode (in visual editor), the old editor. The wikitext mode in the visual editor still causes some problems. Wanna work with old editor, except when I have to work with tables. I hope we can save two settings, one for visual table editing, one for the rest. Keep toggling is very tedious. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 07:23, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

My reply is as follows: Quote: <blockquote style="border: #5555EE solid 0.2em; padding: 0.8em"> The idea is to not have people typing ANY code, what so ever, manually into the editor. But we are far from it. I have yet to see any visual editor which can let us do all the effects via the toolbars. What are we going to go if the toolbars don't provide what we want? Visual editor is to help people to type fewer codes, but not prevent them from typing any code. People can't type code =/= People don't need type code.

Quote: <blockquote style="border: #5555EE solid 0.2em; padding: 0.8em"> If you know what your doing with the code, then switch to source mode and type in code. Well, in fact, most people who have to type a few codes are NOT experienced coders, including me. Many are still novices and visual editors do help significantly and encourage their participation. However the current behavior of the visual editor causes more problems than benefits. Hmmmm.............

The intention of visual editor is to encourage participation. Telling people to switch back to source mode just to type a few codes IS NOT user-friendly, and is going to discourage participation. They don't do it when they feel hard to do.

Quote: <blockquote style="border: #5555EE solid 0.2em; padding: 0.8em"> Headers, tables, templates, formatting, should all be done via the toolbar. Your toolbars only have ten something but there are over 100 styles and formatting people want to do. Let's say I want to make a 4th heading, or put a horizontal line, or change the size or color of the text, or put a reference, or put a gallery............... How to do?

We type directly in the past. It takes only 1-2 seconds. Fast and efficient. Tell us how to teach people to insert templates in the new visual editor without being so clumsy, slow or inefficient.

Quote: <blockquote style="border: #5555EE solid 0.2em; padding: 0.8em"> if you see a link, you should get a [ and [ and link and ] and ], not a link. At least many visual editors (blogging and forum) don't work in this way. I doubt how many times when people type link, they want link rather than link.--MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 07:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Can you please do not use blockquote when commenting sections of other peoples comments? i keep thinking those are examples due to the indentation they have in respect to your own comments.
 * Now about subject i prefer to use old editor because i already have tools that aid me also with the new editor i have to keep switching back to source because i need to edit something that the new editor cant do or im working with long complex templates and the new editor crashes changing modes--
 * So what should I do if I want to quote and reply (just like what I did in forums)? This seems the best way to do. Years have passed. The forum features of wiki is still the worst I have ever seen. I think the Mediawiki development team should just implement some open-source forum software into wikia.--MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 14:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well i remind you this is a wiki-page with a forum like interface (see Help:Forums. Thought there are phpBB forums but have to be request and are "experimental". For the open-source there is MediaWiki you can create an Extension and submit it and then ask for the addition to wikia --
 * That is it! A true forum rather than a pseudo one. The so-called wiki forum misses most of the basic forum features. Frankly it's pretty hard to read and reply in long discussions. I'm afraid I'm not skilled enough to create an extension for Mediawiki. --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 21:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, a couple of thoughts about the above notes: Thanks for your suggestions, and all your thoughts are appreciated. Please, add more! 11:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) This is intended as a Word-like editor, not a forum-like or wikitext-like editor. MS Word is what most people are used to. Though much of our audience is geeky, we do not wish to restrict ourselves to this group and scare off newbies.
 * 2) Lack of headings options below H3 - this is fair, but we don't want to clutter up the interface. Generally, once you're below H4, you're getting the to the point where the page should be reorganised or split up. I will make a note of this.
 * 3) References: we plan to support these in future. They're near the top of our list.
 * 4) Formatting: wiki article formatting should be simple. While some people like to design stuff with spans and div styles, you really should avoid it as much as possible, as it's complicated, hard to maintain and use. However, classes and IDs are more reasonable: but if you're advanced enough to use them, you're advanced enough to switch to source mode as and when needed. The editor is not intended to entirely replace the old editor, but to make the large majority of the tasks easier.
 * 5) Template addition: we are not entirely happy with the template usage flow at the moment, and it's also on our list to improve.
 * 6) Wikitext-in-WYSIWYG. This is currently top of our list of features to work on: we totally understand lots of people want to type link or ~ . It's simple and fast. Our intention is to allow you to type them and then convert them via a click.
 * 7) Stability: Cizagna, do you have any specific situations where crashes/breakage happens?
 * I will double check it as it was back in Nov or Dec when i made it crash a couple of times. --

@Kirkburn Here's my reply: After all, the real problem is, in case if you don't see, it makes it more difficult not only to experienced editors, but also to new editors. Simply put, your visual editor fails to satisfy both advanced editors and new editors. Yep! I am meant to say new editors too.
 * 1) OK. I want to stress that I want it to be a Word-like editor too. I'm also putting newbies in mind. We concur in this matter.
 * 2) However we have to realise our visual editor is still far from a proper Word-like editor. It would be great if it finally come out to be a true Word-like editor, but it isn't now. Number 1 difference is I don't have to switch in Word. The interface of Word provides everything (styles and formatting) I want. Tell me, how can I put a H4 heading in the visual editor? Your interface simply don't allow styles and formatting not listed in the toolbars. Word doesn't. We can do all styles and formatting without switching off the Rich Text Mode (Well! It actually has no such needs!).
 * 3) Well, it's initially a response to the above. It's because he says visual editor is meant not to type any code. I simply point out there are too many things we can't do in visual editors. His target hasn't been met. Heading is only one of the common examples.
 * 4) References: Good!
 * 5) Formatting: Well, one point of reminder, Wikia isn't Wikipedia. If it were Wikipedia, it might be true. It's Wikia, a site which host thousands of sites with very different purposes. Different sites can have very different styles. Don't you think there isn't "one size fits all" in the world?
 * 6) "The editor is not intended to entirely replace the old editor, but to make the large majority of the tasks easier." Yep! I agree. But if it's meant we should switch to source code mode just to put in  . That's not okay. Newbies knowing how to put  is nowhere near to wiki experts. ;)
 * 7) Template addition: Here's another example. Creating redirect pages can be a problem, for example. It's really dumb that we can't type the command #REDIRECT somepage directly in the visual editor. Please go and take a look at other visual editor. They always treat them as the code, not the plain texts.
 * 8) Wikitext-in-WYSIWYG: Why not just let us insert wikitext directly? I think it's pretty weird to think when people type wikitext, it's meant to be plain text, not wikitexts. Wikipedia full editor allow it. Tons of other visual editors allow too. It can solve most of the problems addressed above.
 * 9) Stability: I did encounter stability problems, but I'm not sure how it happens. I'm working with a few tables. All wikilinks and nowiki tags are broken when I press sent. I will give you an example when I found the link.

I do think visual editor is the right step to do and is not a bad addition. Thanks for your efforts. I appreciate it even if I left many criticisms. I'm doing it with the best of intentions. Hopefully you won't take it as offense. Keep up your work. See you! --MyBrute Resource Center@Ronga 21:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Previously, Wiki users mastered the learning curve towards advanced page design by copy & pasting other people's designs and then fiddling with them. This is pretty seamless if you start off with the source editor anyway (and you may have noticed some features by simplying doing beginners' edits, such as how templates are used), but if it requires a conscious decision to step away from the visual editor and thus abandon everything you have learned so far about wikiediting, it seems to be a huge break. I find that semiadvanced users are able to use simple classes on tables if they have examples (such as class=sortable). -- ◄mendel► 23:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Compatibility problems
The rich editor does not work at all for Opera, and there are several bugs on Internet Explorer 8; it's like a completely different editor.--D. (talk · contr) 15:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I can confirm a lot of bugs for Internet Explorer; the editor is a thin band of grey and weirdness compared to what it is supposed to be. It actually reminds me of the bad old Office XP. I don't have Opera though, don't know about that. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 15:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

It also does not work for Google Chrome: it simply doesn't appear just like for Opera. --D. (talk · contr) 15:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, Chrome and Opera are not currently supported browsers. It is entirely possibly they will become so in the future, but at the moment we are primarily aiming at Firefox and Internet Explorer.
 * Can you provide a screenshot of the IE8 issue? 16:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The new editor is completely non-functional for me in IE8 (it has the same behaviour in both normal and compatibility modes): I get a number of alert boxes saying "Unknown toolbar item...", and then there's just the loading animation, no editor appears. (Screenshot) --Onteron (talk) 17:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What Onteron says. You get bunch of alerts. The editor appears after all alerts have passed on Windows XP. The wikitext source makes the coding a huge mess. --D. (talk · contr) 18:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We can confirm this and will get it fixed as soon as possible. 18:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * You should mention the supported browsers at Help:New editor. --Justme2 21:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've added it to the end of the page. In other news, IE8 should now be fixed. Please let us know if you encounter any further such issues! 15:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes the editor loads for me now. Thanks --Onteron (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Template transclusion
On the Domo Wiki, we tend to use templates for tables, specifically when creating several rows. It's easier and shorter to type than the full wiki code. On the title article, when someone wants to edit it, this is what happens. This eventually renders the page incorrectly. When you view its wikitext source, the first row template is on a different line. If you switch back to WYSIWYG mode, it then renders like that. --D. (talk · contr) 21:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for bringing this up - I shall pass it on for investigation. 16:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

IE8
I use IE8 and for some reason when i use a wikia for awhile the New Wikia Look will stop working and the visual editor wont load for me anymore. but for some reason i can edit on a new wikia for a few days before it stops working and i have to switch back to Mono to edit again. my question is does the wikia load something onto my comp as preferences, history, or setting that would build up and then not allow me to continue to use that wikia?Poppaberry 18:14, November 18, 2011 (UTC)