[Wikitext-l] Visual Editor / parser status update meeting notes 2011-10-26

[Brion Vibber]

Etherpad'ed notes from today's editor/parser status meeting:


2011-10-26

Attending:
* Visual Editor team
** Trevor
** Inez
* Parser team
** Brion
** Gabriel Wicke (skype)
* Integration
** Neil
* Managy people
** Erik
** Alolita

== Status check ==

How are we going to


   - Write a parser


   - Integrate it with the visual editor


   - Deploy the visual editor


Parser Status

   - Basic parser in place


   - Produces intermediate JSON object tree


   - Doesn't yet produce Wikidom as it's been defined


   - Considering if Wikidom should be changed


   - Still working on markup support (mixed HTML and Wikitext)


   - Written in JavaScript and is currently in the "ParserPlayground"


   - Using PEG for part of the parsing process (primarily tokenizing)


VisualEditor Goals

   - Get something working in the wiki environment so people can play with
   it


   - Ideas for places to integrate first


   - New page creation - Potential Use Case


   - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor/Task_management


== Decemberish test deployment? ==

Distinct stages that could be deployed on sites for testing:
* Visual editor in the wiki -> lets you edit but nothing else
** ''too early to advertise for anything but interaction testing''
** just need to actually plug it in
* Visual editor in the wiki and lets you save
** ''_could_ start to use as opt-in test for new pages''
** add API module to save, should be easy-ish
* Visual editor in the wiki and lets you load and save.
** ''this would be ideal place to start advertising for testers''
** combining the parser and reconciling the formats

== Visual Editor side ==

VE is in midst of core redo to make undo etc working (internal
representation changes)-- still stabilizing!

VE frontend todos for page saving:
* reintegrate serializers (in progress)
* undo/redo/copy/paste working (mostly there)
** '''Trevor and Inez are already working on this, but it needs to be
finished before we can integrate saving.'''*


Parser/VE integration todos (for page loading):
* parser & wikidom specs need to be resynchronized
** possibly needs a translator step
* support for more structures (lists etc)
** '''This is big work and needs a lot of coordination between VE & Parser
groups!'''*
** brion & gabriel: can start working with their existing spec -- let's at
least get that working
*** then we'll need to start figuring out if we need to do major changes
based on issues
*** parser & VE may need to evolve together for now!

Lots more front-end work needed in VE ecosystem; we expect to bring on
another hire in that area.

"WikiDom will be the fence between these two neighbors [VE & Parser groups]"

== Parser side ==

*Immediate parser work:*
* get it producing output compatible with VE's current wikidom input
** we do expect to have to evolve this over time! but let's get it together
with the VE first
* make sure there's a clean JS API for the parser so the VE can call it

*Next stages parser work:*
* start making sure tables, templates are all working as expected (fixup
stages?)
** at least properly nested templates..
* iterate as necessary
* make sure auto tests are running
** round-trip tests on wikipedia corpus already available
** need to test HTML rendering against MW's current internal parser

*Later stages parser work: (after December)*
* depending on what we've seen from auto test...
* ... redoing the PEG?
* ... redoing the wikidom?
* ... redoing how/when templates are expanded?
* make sure all structures really supported!
* add proper fix-ups similar to what tidy does right now

== Upcoming work ==

* Mediawiki extension for Visual Editor: Architecture is to be driven by
Trevor; Integration w Parser
* RL2 support
* Internationalization support

* Using underscore.js for js based parser functionality in the same
extension as VEd
** replace jQuery bits like $.each; underscore should be cleaner and is
easier to use in node for batch tests
* Unknown markup indicator
** at least black-box markers for extension hooks and such

Milestones!!!!!!!
* Trevor will check up with Howie
** various VE stuff on its way
* getting VE and parser into a common extension (separate code modules
loaded by it)
* parser integration may not make it by December, but we'll see what's ready
by then
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