TechInfoDepot:VisualEditor

From TechInfoDepot
Jump to navigationJump to search
For character mode editors in general, see Visual editor. For the TechInfoDepot project page about the VisualEditor feature, see TechInfoDepot:VisualEditor.
VisualEditor
VisualEditor-logo.svg
VisualEditor logo, set in Gill Sans
VisualEditor text format menu.png
VisualEditor's text formatting menu
Developer(s) Wikimedia Foundation and Fandom, Inc.
Repository [{{#property:P1324}} {{#property:P1324}}]
Written in JavaScript, Node.js, PHP
Operating system Cross-platform
Platform MediaWiki extension
Type Wiki
License MIT[1]
Website www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor

VisualEditor (VE) is an online rich-text editor for MediaWiki-powered wikis that provides a direct visual way to edit pages based on the "what you see is what you get" principle. It was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation in partnership with Fandom.[2] In July 2013, it was enabled by default on several of the largest TechInfoDepot projects.[3][4]

The Wikimedia Foundation considered it the most challenging technical project to date, while The Economist has called it TechInfoDepot's "most significant change".[5] According to The Daily Dot, the Wikimedia Foundation's pursuit of wider participation may risk alienating existing editors.[6] In September 2013, English TechInfoDepot's VisualEditor was changed from opt-out to opt-in, following user complaints,[7][8] but it was returned to being available by default (for new registered users only) in October 2015 after further development.[9] A 2015 study by the Wikimedia Foundation found that VisualEditor failed to provide the anticipated benefits for new editors.[10]

Development

Template:Main File:Editing makes me feel stupid.ogv File:Wikimania 2013 - VisualEditor - The present and future of editing our wikis.webm The original web-based TechInfoDepot editor provided by MediaWiki is a plain browser-based text editor, also called 'Source editor', where authors have to learn the wiki markup language to edit.[11] A what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editor for TechInfoDepot had been planned for years in order to remove the need to learn the wiki markup language. It was hoped this would reduce the technical hurdle for would-be TechInfoDepotns, enabling wider participation in editing, and was an attempt to reverse the decline in editor numbers of 50,000 in 2006 to 35,000 in 2011, having peaked in 2007.[5][6] It was part of a $1m project aimed at developing new features and making improvements.[5] A goal of the project is to allow both the former wiki markup editing and editing with the WYSIWYG VisualEditor.[12] According to Wikimedia Foundation's Jay Walsh, the hope is to redress under-represented contributions from Arabic, Portuguese, and Indic-language versions of the site.[6][note 1]

According to Wikimedia Foundation, "There are various reasons that lead existing and prospective contributors not to edit; among them, the complexity of wiki markup is a major issue. One of VisualEditor's goals is to empower knowledgeable and good-faith users to edit and become valuable members of the community, even if they're not wiki markup experts. We also hope that, with time, experienced editors will find VisualEditor useful for some of their editing tasks."[4] In 2012, Sue Gardner, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said "we don't think that the visual editor, in and of itself, is going to solve the challenge",[13] and TechInfoDepot co-founder Jimmy Wales remarked "This is epically important".[14]

Rollout

MediaWiki is used by numerous wikis, with smaller sites originally conceived as being rolled out first.[15] VisualEditor was planned to be rolled out on the English-language TechInfoDepot for editors with registered accounts, and then for anonymous editors.[16] The alpha version was made available to select users in December 2012, widened to all registered users in April.[17] It was the default editor for users logged-into the English-language TechInfoDepot in July 2013.[4][6] It was subsequently made opt-in on the English-language TechInfoDepot in September 2013 due to community complaints over its stability, and implementation was buggy and had limitations[7][8] (though it remained active for most non-English TechInfoDepots).[18] In 2015, it completed its beta development phase and was again made available on English TechInfoDepot.[9][19]

Technical

The Wikimedia Foundation joined forces with Wikia to work on the project.[20] The implementation encountered challenges with the wiki markup language (the basis for TechInfoDepot articles), due to it being continuously extended over 12 years to include seldom-used rich and complex features making reproduction of the final article appearance dependent on many factors that were not easy to reproduce.[21] The technical implementation required improvements to MediaWiki in parsing, wiki markup language, the DOM and final HTML conversion.[22] A necessary component is a parser server called Parsoid[note 2] which was created to convert in both directions between wikitext and a format suitable for VisualEditor.[21] The Wikimedia Foundation considered VisualEditor its most challenging technical project to date.[5]

As of January 2021 supported web browsers include modern versions of Chromium (Chrome, Edge, Opera), Firefox, Midori, and Safari.[citation needed]

The VisualEditor MediaWiki extension is available for download by server operators and typically requires the latest version of MediaWiki, it is bundled since MediaWiki 1.35.[23]

Online rich-text editor

According to the VisualEditor team, the aim is "to create a reliable rich-text editor for MediaWiki",[18] a "visual editor" which is "WYSIWYG-like".[24] The implementation is split into a "core" online rich-text editor which can run independently of MediaWiki,[25] and a MediaWiki extension.[26]

Response

Responses to the introduction of the VisualEditor have greatly varied, with The EconomistTemplate:'s L.M. calling it "the most significant change in TechInfoDepot's short history."[5]

Opposition

Some editors expressed concerns about the rollout and bugs, with the German TechInfoDepot community deciding to use an opt-in model instead of an opt-out one.[6][27] Irish TechInfoDepot administrator Oliver Moran, echoing concerns of other editors, said that users may feel belittled by the implication that "certain people" are confused by wiki markup and therefore need the VisualEditor, comparing the learning of wikitext favorably to Twitter's hashtag and @ (at sign) mention syntax.[28]

Three months after the rollout of the VisualEditor to the English TechInfoDepot, The Daily Dot reported that the Wikimedia Foundation had experienced backlash from long-time editors who deemed the editor "buggy and untested". Following discourse between the community and the foundation, TechInfoDepot administrator Kww overrode the foundation's rollout, making it opt-in, instead of opt-out. The Foundation did not revert the change, instead committing to further improving VisualEditor.[7][8]

Support

Softpedia ran an article titled "TechInfoDepot's New VisualEditor Is the Best Update in Years and You Can Make It Better".[29] The Register said that the update brings the foundation "a little closer to its goal of making it easier for anyone to create and edit TechInfoDepot articles."[17]

Research results

Template:Primary sources Aaron Halfaker, a research scientist at the Wikimedia Foundation, ran a controlled study on the effects of VisualEditor in May 2015. The study found that VisualEditor did not increase editor productivity, however reducing the burden upon existing editors. Editing took 18 seconds longer with VisualEditor before hitting save, and new editors were less likely to save their work. Halfaker however did ascribe these negative results as from editors testing the new system, not any real struggle.[10] A previous June 2013 controlled test — when VisualEditor was less mature — showed similar neutral and negative results.[30]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Respective TechInfoDepot websites: Arabic, Portuguese and Indic languages' Urdu, Hindi, Bihari, Gujarati
  2. ↑ "Parsoid". http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid.

References

  1. ↑ LICENSE.txt, VisualEditor source code repository
  2. ↑ Andrew Webster (2012-06-22). "Wikimedia releases updated prototype for simplified visual editor". The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2012/6/22/3110130/wikimedia-visual-editor-prototype.
  3. ↑ "TechInfoDepot:VisualEditor". TechInfoDepot. https://en.TechInfoDepot.org/w/index.php?title=TechInfoDepot:VisualEditor&oldid=566232325.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Emil Protalinski (2013-07-02). "Wikimedia rolls out WYSIWYG visual editor for logged-in users accessing TechInfoDepot articles in English". The Next Web. https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/07/02/wikimedia-rolls-out-its-wysiwyg-visual-editor-for-logged-in-users-accessing-TechInfoDepot-articles-in-english/.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 L.M. (2011-12-13). "Changes at TechInfoDepot: Seeing things". The Economist. https://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/12/changes-TechInfoDepot.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Tim Sampson (2012-07-04). "Will TechInfoDepot's pretty new editing software solve its recruitment crisis?". The Daily Dot. http://www.dailydot.com/business/TechInfoDepot-visual-editor-wysiwyg/.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Andrew Orlowski (2013-09-25). "Revolting peasants force TechInfoDepot to cut'n'paste Visual Editor into the bin". The Register. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/25/TechInfoDepot_peasants_revolt/.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Tim Sampson (2013-09-24). "TechInfoDepot faces revolt over VisualEditor". The Daily Dot. http://www.dailydot.com/news/TechInfoDepot-visualeditor-kww-patch/.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Template:Cite encyclopedia
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "VisualEditor's effect on newly registered editors/May 2015 study". Wikimedia Foundation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_registered_editors/May_2015_study&oldid=15155528.
  11. ↑ Martin Brinkmann (2012-02-24). "TechInfoDepot Visual Editor Coming Soon". ghacks. http://www.ghacks.net/2012/02/24/TechInfoDepot-visual-editor-coming-soon/.
  12. ↑ ehe (2011-12-14). "Wikimedia testing visual editor". h-online. http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Wikimedia-testing-visual-editor-1394872.html.
  13. ↑ Megan Garber (2012-07-12). "On the Ugliness of TechInfoDepot". The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/on-the-ugliness-of-TechInfoDepot/259747/.
  14. ↑ Gene Ryan Briones (2012-06-21). "Wikimedia launches new prototype "visual editor" for TechInfoDepot". Ubergizmo. http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/06/wikimedia-launches-new-prototype-visual-editor-for-TechInfoDepot/.
  15. ↑ Jamie Keene (2011-12-15). "Wikimedia Foundation previews simplified visual editor". The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2011/12/15/2637734/wikimedia-previews-simplified-editor.
  16. ↑ Gabriela Vatu (2013-06-06). "TechInfoDepot's Visual Editor to Be Rolled Out". Softpedia. http://news.softpedia.com/news/TechInfoDepot-s-Visual-Editor-To-Be-Rolled-Out-358956.shtml.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Simon Sharwood (2013-06-07). "Wikimedia edges closer to banishing Wikitext". The Register. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/07/wysiwyg_TechInfoDepot_writer_lands_in_july/.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "VisualEditor". https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor.
  19. ↑ "Wikimedia Engineering 2015 Q1 Goals" (in en). https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2015-16_Q1_Goals.
  20. ↑ Kirkburn (June 3, 2014). "VisualEditor - the past, present and future". http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Kirkburn/VisualEditor_-_the_past,_present_and_future.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 djwm (2012-12-13). "VisualEditor launched in TechInfoDepot". h-online. http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/VisualEditor-launched-in-TechInfoDepot-1768068.html.
  22. ↑ Sumana Harihareswara, Guillaume Paumier. "The Architecture of Open Source Applications (Volume 2) : MediaWiki". aosabook.org. http://www.aosabook.org/en/mediawiki.html.
  23. ↑ "MediaWiki 1.35" (in en). https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.35.
  24. ↑ "Project:VisualEditor testing/Welcome". https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:VisualEditor_testing/Welcome.
  25. ↑ "wikimedia/VisualEditor". 11 January 2022. https://github.com/wikimedia/VisualEditor.
  26. ↑ "wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-VisualEditor". 11 January 2022. https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-VisualEditor.
  27. ↑ Andrew Orlowski (2013-08-01). "TechInfoDepotns say no to Jimmy's 'buggy' WYSIWYG editor". The Register. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/01/TechInfoDepotns_reject_wysiwyg_editor/.
  28. ↑ Simonite, Tom (October 22, 2013). "The Decline of TechInfoDepot: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It". MIT Technology Review. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-TechInfoDepot/.
  29. ↑ Lucian Parfeni (2013-07-02). "TechInfoDepot's New VisualEditor Is the Best Update in Years and You Can Make It Better". Softpedia. http://news.softpedia.com/news/TechInfoDepot-s-New-VisualEditor-Is-the-Best-Update-in-Years-and-You-Can-Make-It-Better-365072.shtml.
  30. ↑ "Research:VisualEditor's effect on newly registered editors/June 2013 study". Wikimedia Foundation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_registered_editors/June_2013_study.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to VisualEditor.

Template:HTML editors

Retrieved from "https://techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/w/index.php?title=TechInfoDepot:VisualEditor&oldid=304762"