All,
[I am re-starting sending these to this list as requested at Wikimania;
hope they are useful.]
As before, the regular
update<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/status#2013-08-15_.28…
about
progress on VisualEditor (this covers the three week period over Wikimania):
VisualEditor was updated as part of the wider MediaWiki 1.22wmf13 branch
deployment <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.22/wmf13> on
Thursday 15 August. In the three weeks since 1.22wmf12, as well as
presenting their work at Wikimania, discussing and planning improvements
and new features, the team worked on some changes to how VisualEditor
integrates with MediaWiki, a few minor feature improvements and improving
the performance of the system, and fixing bugs and stability improvements.
Firstly, on the integration, the "edit" and "edit source" tabs and
section
edit links can now be configured more flexibly (which has been taken
advantage of on the English Wikipedia). The labels for these "edit" and
"edit source" tabs and section edit links (however they have been
configured for a given wiki) will be consistent on all pages, even those
that cannot yet be edited with VisualEditor like templates (bug
50402<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50402>)2>).
These labels are applied before the page is sent to the user, so they no
longer "flash in" for some users (bugs
50542<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50542>
and 50692 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50692>).
Further, the section edit links both appear at once, rather than only one
appearing until a user hovers over the heading (bug
50540<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50540>)0>).
We also made a more prominent welcome notice that appears the first time a
user opens VisualEditor (or every 30 days for logged-out users), warning
them about VisualEditor being in beta (bug
52366<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52366>
).
In terms of new features, you can now edit references that are defined
inside a <references> block (bug
51741<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51741>)1>),
references defined in templates and image captions will also display (bug
51289 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51289> and bug
52427<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52427>)7>),
and nested references now display correctly (bug
50749<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50749>)9>).
We also made some changes to the link inspector to make it faster and
simpler to use - you no longer need to press enter twice to set a link (bug
51065 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51065>) or click as
many times (bug 51523 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51523>),
and you are warned more clearly that the title you've entered is invalid (*
e.g.* "Foo{}bar") and so won't let you set it (bug
33094<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33094>)4>).
We made some major performance improvements to deleting text (bug
52013<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52013>)
and scrolling pages (bug
52014<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52014>)4>),
which should be visible on long pages.
You can now add and edit <code> (code) and <s> (strikethrough) annotations
in experimental mode on
MediaWiki.org - coming to production wikis soon
(bugs 51590 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51590> and bug
51610 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51610>), as well as
<tt>annotations with the same code (bug
52352<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52352>)2>),
and a more general solution for use with similar pairs of annotations built
out too (bug 52477 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52477>).
We added a keyboard shortcut for the "Clear formatting" tool: Ctrl+\or ⌘ Cmd
+\ (bug 51507 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51507>).
VisualEditor now uses the same kind of post-edit feedback message that the
wikitext editor uses, for increased consistency between the different
editors (bug 39632 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39632>).
Finally, we fixed the last known issues with Opera and so un-blacklisted it
(bugs 37861 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37861>,
47793<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47793>
and 50813 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50813>; tracked
by bug 36000 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36000>).
On the bug front, we fixed a number of issues. Firstly, we correct a
problem where an ugly error was shown to the user on changing a template if
there was an API issue (bug
52483<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52483>)3>).
We now strip leading whitespace from paragraphs, so as to avoid users
creating accidental <nowiki>s (bug
51462<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51462>)2>).
A bug that made it impossible to save multiple consecutive references is
now corrected (bug
52228<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52228>)8>),
as is one that sometimes didn't get you a new edit token if your current
one had expired (bug
51915<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51915>)5>).
We also quickly fixed an issue where VisualEditor would crash on loading a
page with a <nowiki> in it (bug
51948<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51948>)8>),
and a corruption issue which led to categories getting duplicated (bug
52238<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52238>
).
Adding a link on an empty selection no longer crashes (bug
51404<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51404>)4>);
if you press enter too quickly it still works (bug
51415<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51415>)5>);
and the link inspector no longer aggressively picks a link for you in cases
where there's only one suggestion (bug
52420<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52420>)0>).
The save dialog briefly attached to whichever dialog you had most recently
opened, rather than the main toolbar; this is now fixed (bug
52317<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52317>)7>),
as has the toolbar floated to the top of the screen over the user's
personal tools if a dialog had been opened (bug
52441<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52441>)1>).
The link describing wikitext in the warning notice about not inserting it
now opens in its own window (bug
52093<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52093>)3>),
as does the link to the user guide (bug
52475<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52475>)5>).
Embedded buttons' inspectors now display correctly, used in the forthcoming
equation editor on large equations (bug
52845<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52845>)5>).
Further, once you save the page, we re-enable the wikipage content
handlers, so gadgets like those that make tables sortable will work again (bug
51565 <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51565>).
Finally, the Google Summer of Code work progressed well; early versions of
the Math extension editor and tool for setting text language details are
now available for testing on
MediaWiki.org, and that for the
SyntaxHighlight extension will be soon.
A complete list of individual code commits is available in the 1.22/wmf13
changelog<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.22/wmf13/Changelog#…or>,
and all Bugzilla bugs closed in this period are on Bugzilla's
list<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&am…
.
Ahead of the normal schedule, this will be pushed to all wikis where it is
enabled on Tuesday 20 August. If you have any questions, please do ask.
Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
Product Manager, VisualEditor
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
jforrester(a)wikimedia.org | @jdforrester