Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor
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Design follow-up on visual editing for newcomers
[edit]Hi all! Following the RfC consensus to make VE the default for new editors, the Editing team would like to share the design we're considering for the user experience meant to increase the likelihood that editors learn about source editing once they've had a chance to familiarize themselves with VE. This design is not yet final — we're eager to learn what you think!
Per the RfC, the intention is to Give editors VE initially, and show a prompt (such as a pop-up or guided tour) once they become autoconfirmed asking if they want to try out the source editor.
After some exploration, the approach we think might work best for the prompt is to use the same pulsating blue dot we already use to help teach newcomers about the linking and citing functions in the VE toolbar. You can see what these dots look like by opening an article in VE in an incognito window. In the preliminary design, this dot will appear over the editing switcher once an editor becomes autoconfirmed if they have not yet tried out the source editor by that point. Clicking on it will open up the dialogue in the mockup below:
After switching to the source editor, a "You have switched to source editing" notice akin to the one we currently use when someone first switches will show. (For the switcher itself, we are exploring a change to switch the pencil icon to an eye for VE and the brackets icon for source editing. This is technically a separate change, but we're happy to hear input about it here.)
Overall, the goal is to strike a balance where we are informing editors who might find source editing useful about its existence while not interrupting their workflow if they are focused on just completing their edit. The blue pulsating dot also establishes a consistent visual language between this and other moments in which we try to teach newcomers about the editing interface.
What do you think of this design? Thanks as always for your collaboration! Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF talk 21:39, 3 September 2026 (UTC)
- This is amazing! I love this UX flow, it's a great way to introduce users to the source editor.However, I think the transition would be even more seamless if you enabled the syntax highlighting (CodeMirror) by default, to help them navigate the huge block of monospaced text we just presented them. If you just look at the preliminary design you shared above, the wikimarkup would be much more legible if, for example, the blue links that were in the VE would stay blue even if the source editor. This change is at the very least harmless and at most very helpful to aid users during the transition. FaviFake (talk) 21:59, 3 September 2026 (UTC)
- Enabling syntax highlighting by default for newcomers is right around the corner! See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 231 § Enabling syntax highlighting by default for newcomers and T288161. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF talk 23:32, 3 September 2026 (UTC)
- I don't object to a subtle "hey, wanna look at this" signal, but I still think that a feature to deliver a talk page message at a specified moment would be more fruitful in getting new users to know about the wikitext editor, and give them some motivation to try it, beyond "why is that blue dot pulsing over there?". (Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive.) isaacl (talk) 23:58, 3 September 2026 (UTC)
- Lovely. I believe the symbols need to be switched, and should portray the destination page, rather than the current page. That is, give the destination symbol for code editor when people are in VE, and a pencil to go back to the visual editor when you're in source mode. The eye gives 'preview' vibes, which makes it much more likely people get lost in this environment. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 06:48, 4 September 2026 (UTC)
- Thank you for sharing @Femke. Using the destination icon makes sense for Buttons or ToggleButtons since it represents the action that will happen. However, the proposed change here is to keep the existing dropdown menu and simply replace the current edit icon in the trigger with the icon of the selected mode, so the icon always matches the selected mode. This icon change will be implemented in T423169. BMartinezCalvo (WMF) (talk) 17:02, 9 September 2026 (UTC)
- I think this would be good, but I think that the source editor should support collasping ref tags. The only reason that I use the visual editor is ref tags. Velocifyer (talk) 17:32, 4 September 2026 (UTC)
- @Velocifyer, this would be a feature for syntax highlighting, which already supports some other types of collapsing. My colleague @MusikAnimal (WMF) would be the person to chat with further about that! Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF talk 20:55, 8 September 2026 (UTC)
- Deployment scheduled: Hi all! Based on the discussion above, we are planning to proceed with this design and to deploy the RfC result on Thursday, 17 September. I'll post again once we have completed the deployment. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF talk 18:43, 10 September 2026 (UTC)
Table fix question
[edit]Let's say that I have a table built in source that has five columns, but one or more of the rows, the table doesn't have five columns defined. Is there any way in VE to have the table made whole by adding cells for the missing entries? I'm not talking situations where there is a rowspan, but rather where the editor simply forgot to put a | after the last column with information in it.Naraht (talk) 15:08, 13 October 2026 (UTC)
- @Naraht, yes, this can be done most of the time. Look in the last column for a "missing" cell (the border will be missing/faintly colored). Click where the cell should be, and the visual editor will try to add the missing cell. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 17 October 2026 (UTC)
Syntax highlighting... did it suddenly get turned on for everyone?
[edit]I go to edit an article this morning and I see color plastered all over the place. For me it makes things harder to edit and I've never had it on before. Low and behold I go to preferences and see two items with check boxes: Enable syntax highlighting for wikitext, and Enable syntax highlighting for code. I unchecked them and things look like normal. Was this some system-wide change that ticked those boxes? Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2026 (UTC)
- It's a bug that is being fixed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:56, 16 October 2026 (UTC)
