VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive/2017/01

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Why can't the page title be selected or edited in Visual editor?

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While editing a page in Visual editor, the page's title is grayed out and cannot be selected or edited.

Editing the title may sound extreme, but I actually saw real users trying to click the title in order to rename a page (or, as we say, move it). Having such an option, maybe with some kind of a confirmation dialog, actually makes sense to me.

But what I could really never understand is why isn't it possible not being able to select it, for example for copying to clipboard. I often find myself wanting to do it, and I cannot. I could just create a Phab task for it, but I'm asking here, because it has been so since the start, and there was probably a reason for this, but I'd like to try to understand it discuss before creating a task. Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} 18:39, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T89811 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T126368 ? Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

There have been multiple requests to deal with the "you can't move the page here" issue. But I don't remember noticing that you can't select/copy it. That'd be kind of a pain if you're writing about something with a long or complicated title. (Highly experienced people might remember that they could do {{subst:PAGENAME}} to get around that, but we need a solution that works for >99% of us.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

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Why can't the footnotes be edited where they are and must be edited by clicking their number?

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When I watch new users editing with VE, I very often see them trying to edit footnotes (a.k.a. "references" or "citations") where they are. Of course, this is impossible because they can be only be edited by clicking the reference number, but is there really a good reason for it?

It actually makes a lot of sense to make them clickable and editable right where they are:

• In general, they are just content like any other, so it should be possible to click them and edit them.
• While editing wiki syntax, their text can be clicked and edited where it is seen on the screen.
• While reading an article, you can click the little arrow near a reference, and the article will scroll to where its number appears in the text, so it is easy to go from a footnote's number to its location in the text. But this link doesn't work while editing in Visual editor: Clicking a footnote just selects the whole corresponding references section. Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} 18:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

This one should be in Phab though, it's like one the first tasks ever filed for VE I think :) Elitre (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't surprise me, but go find something in Phab :/ Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} 18:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

... Also, if it's a FAQ, it's not listed as such :) Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} 20:22, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Isn't this https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T54750 ? (also, I didn't say it's a FAQ, although we do get that request from time to time.) Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:42, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

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Menus

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I think more comfortable would be sub-toolbars instead of menus. Or option to expand on toolbar most popular buttons (as classical editors have). wargo (talk) 20:16, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Wargo, I want to make sure that I understand this idea. Are you talking about drop-down menus like the one for list formatting? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, list, insert and maybe saving... wargo (talk) 21:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Basically, it sounds like you want those to be displayed as a horizontal menu instead of a vertical one. Is that right? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, and without need to click to open these. Or consider ribbon? wargo (talk) 18:19, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you'd have to click the menu open; otherwise, some people would see only the expanded menus, and have no room for editing articles.

Are you suggesting a Microsoft-style w:en:Ribbon (computing) approach as an alternative? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:28, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Toolbars or ribbon. Option can be configurable, so, if someone needs more space, can choose default option. wargo (talk) 10:10, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

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שימוש בכלי התרגום

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User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/55.0.2883.87 Safari/537.36

URL: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9C_%D7%98%D7%A1%D7%9C%D7%94?veaction=edit

האם אפשר להשתמש בכלי התרגום בזמן עריכת ערכך קיים? הנפח (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

לא עכשיו. אולי בעתיד הרחוק Amir E. Aharoni (WMF) (talk) 14:49, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

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Jeg ønsker å endre sidenavnet

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Brukeragent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/55.0.2883.87 Safari/537.36

Hvordan kan jeg endre navnet på siden til M-Brain Norge? (Skal være stor bokstav i Norge)

URL: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-brain_norge?veaction=edit Oyopperud (talk) 07:25, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

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Text keeps disappearing while editing

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User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:47.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/47.0

I have been trying to enter a quote, but it keeps disappearing after it is entered. My cursor also jumps down to the "External Links" box

URL: https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Fidel_Castro&section=3&veaction=edit&oldid=2213059&wteswitched=1 CoalCanary (talk) 05:48, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi @CoalCanary, looks like you are using an out of date version of Firefox, so I wonder if that's related. Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:21, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that's Windows 8.1.

@CoalCanary, are you manually typing or copying/pasting the quotation? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:37, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

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VE edit tab broken on zh-yue.wp

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As titled. Clicking on the "Edit" tab (改) on e.g. w:zh-yue:大倫敦 does not bring up the VE edit interface. Please ping me to let me know what's going on!

Skin: Vector; Browser & OS: Chrome 55 on Win7. Deryck C.^Meta 22:41, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Do you have user scripts, gadgets or browser extensions enabled ? If one of those has a problem, that might cause VE to be unable to start up. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 23:11, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Good point... I've reset all my preferences and it now works. If I stumble upon the preference that caused the crash I'll let you know. Deryck C.^Meta 23:57, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Please do let us know if you figure it out, or if it happens again. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:18, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

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VisualEditor does not load huge articles due to Restbase or parsoid?

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Apparently, VE gives up when it is fed a very huge document: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_named_minor_planets_(numerical)

This seems to be due to a deliberate constraint placed on these documents: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T120972

Steps: Load article using Chrome , e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_named_minor_planets_(numerical)?veaction=edit Expected: If document can't load, fallback to regular editor or show a more informative error message instead of "HTTP 413"

Actual: Dialog with error message: "HTTP 413"

Proof, popcorn action, etc (might be a good idea to save the results) : https://www.webpagetest.org/result/170130_7Y_Y0R/

Perhaps this is different for anon vs reg editors... 197.218.83.212 (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

P.S. That page has what can only be described as an insane amount of inline styling. It seems to make an older firefox 46 cough blood, and consume huge amounts of memory and cpu just to load the normal article for reading.

Someone should really teach wimipedians that excessive inline styling and linking not only makes editing a mess but also makes basic reading of an article a serious problem. 197.218.91.73 (talk) 18:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I get "Error loading data from server: HTTP 413".

What is your specific request here? Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:06, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, primarily more descriptive message, secondarily, a more intuitive fallback to reading mode.

That's what cancel means in most contexts, stop and go back to whatever the user was doing. "Error loading data from server" is uninformative. It could be a network error on the user's side, or a server error (it is the latter in this case). So one suggestion would be to improve the error message to something like "The editor cannot load (Error: HTTP 413).", or alternatively leave that message and add a header to the dialog box, "Editor loading error".

When it can't load the expectation would be to be sent back to reading mode, instead one gets sent to an alternative editor which may be confusing for someone who's never edited using wikitext. 197.218.91.192 (talk) 11:28, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

As a general rule, if an end-user has to use a search engine to understand an error message that is a good sign that it needs improvements. 197.218.91.192 (talk) 11:46, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

That there are limits should not be surprising, we have lots of them. :)

The error handling should indeed be improved here. When you press cancel, VE seems to basically stop everything it was doing and drops you into a confusing twilight mode between reading and editing, that is not very helpful to average users.

But also.. that page is insane. Lovely testcase, but insane. :) —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 16:06, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Limits aren't surprising, frozen browsers are, firefox did freeze before showing that dialog a couple of minutes later, and that is certainly a bug.

It would probably be prudent to store the insane nature of the article maybe in the parser limit report or somewhere else to prevent VE from even trying to load that article, and instead show a user friendly message before the browser freezes and dies. 197.218.83.53 (talk) 20:44, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

For webpagetest to even show that dialog in the screenshot the timeout limit had to be raised to about 100 seconds. Without it the tool would just give up. before showing the dialog. 197.218.83.53 (talk) 20:48, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

When I open that page in VisualEditor (visual mode) in Safari 10, I get the 413 error after about 12 seconds. Clicking the "Cancel" button drops me into VisualEditor's wikitext mode after a delay of about 16 seconds.

When I open that page on the same Mac in Firefox 50 (as a logged-out editor this time, since you're not logged in), it takes about 40 seconds to get to the error message, and about 20 seconds to get dumped into the 2010 wikitext editor.

I have no idea why Firefox 50 is so much slower than Safari 10. (I have more tabs open in Firefox; maybe that explains some of the speed difference, but it seems to be a general trend.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Also, what's your operating system? I've been considering a theory that it's faster on a Mac than on Windows. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:35, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

> I have no idea why Firefox 50 is so much slower than Safari 10.

Different browsers different technology or software. There may be optimizations Safari or Chrome has that Firefox doesn't.

>Also, what's your operating system? I've been considering a theory that it's faster on a Mac than on Windows.

Fedora core 22 (linux)

> have more tabs open in Firefox; maybe that explains some of the speed difference, but it seems to be a general trend.

More tabs consume more memory, so it is entirely possible that it becomes worse with more tabs open. In my case I opened just one only to see if the loading problem was specific to chrome. 197.218.81.64 (talk) 17:25, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

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