Wiki visual editor

[Julian]

Just stumbled upon this ...

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=VisualEditor:Welcome&useskin=vector

I looks like wiki media are developing a visual editor, whereby you can click Visual editor mode and type directly on to the page.  Won't work in IE at the moment, but will in most other browsers.

In edit mode there's a (currently) limited tool bar at the top of the page for basic formatting, and in normal edit mode you appear to get formatting buttons you can click with a mouse.

All looks rather promising to overcome the complaint that people don't understand how to put a page together and hence don't contribute.

There's a test page here if anyone wants a play ... https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor:Test

I thought I read some where that it didn't work with all skins, but I can't for the life of me find it again, sorry!

[Julian]

Found it, there was a note on the test page as follows ...

Note: The "VisualEditor" button ''only'' works with the [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering|Vector or MonoBook skins]]; see [[VisualEditor/Feedback#Only_works_with_vector|note]].

Means nothing to me, but I'm sure it will to Tony.

[Tony]

I'm occasionally (when I find the time) putting some work into blending the forum and wiki skins so they merge seamlessly (it looks ace but still has a few issues that need fixing at the moment).  So to include the visual editor I'm sure would add extra time and effort to this work - but without starting it, it is hard to know how much.

Really depends on whether we see any benefit from a visual editor - does that make it more accessible than, say, someone producing the text, and someone else more familiar with wiki formatting tidying it up - which seems to be how we've done a few pages.