[00:08:54] Visa excitement keeping me awake. [00:08:57] That, and hunger. [00:15:48] * Emufarmers gnaws on DGarry. [00:58:28] * James_F waves. [00:59:53] * AnnaKoval waves back :) [01:00:04] * marktraceur particles [01:00:07] Shall we begin? :) [01:00:17] Sure. [01:00:58] So… [01:01:07] I did an office hours about 6 hours ago. [01:01:16] I don't think the log is up yet, sadly. [01:01:36] Welcome everyone to this office hour on VE :) [01:01:44] But mostly it was just me answering questions - there wasn't a "big reveal", this is just our regular monthly round of these. [01:01:45] it is [01:01:50] Actually I believe it is :) [01:01:54] * marktraceur cracks the topic whip at James_F [01:02:06] thanks Jan_telco1 :) [01:02:21] marktraceur: s/ext/ow/g done. [01:02:28] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-12-02 <- afaik [01:02:28] Bah [01:02:32] Aha. [01:02:34] You've topicappended it [01:02:40] * marktraceur OCDs all over James_F [01:02:43] Well, awesome. [01:02:52] Yes. Thanks. :) [01:02:58] marktraceur: Better? [01:03:00] OK, anyway. [01:03:04] Any questions for James_F on the topic of VE? [01:03:07] Everyone can go and read that log if they want. [01:03:20] Or not and just ask questions. :-) [01:03:32] And eel free to private msg me and I'll keep track. [01:03:46] Since then, we threw the switch to enable VisualEditor by default ("opt-out") for the 102 Wikipedias that were in "phase 3". [01:03:50] oops^feel not eel [01:04:02] * werdna eels [01:04:06] freely, of course. [01:04:11] cause that's the wikimedia way [01:04:38] But other than that, we've just been plugging away. [01:04:44] So… questions? [01:04:48] James_F: Yrrrrs [01:05:08] James_F, lacking specific questions, why don't you talk more about the switch flipping today? :) [01:06:00] Err. [01:06:03] Well, not much to say. [01:06:13] For those wikis involved, of course it's a big change. [01:06:31] The largest of them (by far) was Portuguese, but there were 101 others. [01:06:59] We also enabled opt-in testing of VisualEditor on the Swedish Wiktionary, and on the Swedish chapter's wiki, by request. [01:07:14] Which is the first time VE has been enabled on a non-testing, non-Wikipedia public wiki. [01:07:21] So feedback will be very helpful. [01:07:46] Any feedback yet? [01:08:23] So far, no, but it's only been a couple of hours. [01:09:07] You can see e.g. ptwiki VisualEditor edits here: https://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?namespace=&tagfilter=visualeditor&title=Especial%3AMudan%C3%A7as+recentes [01:10:01] Anyway. [01:10:11] * James_F watches the dustbowl. [01:10:19] No questions at all? :-( [01:10:20] thanks :) [01:11:29] Dragonfly6-7 had an interesting question in your earlier office hour... [01:11:36] So, what's your favorite pizza topping? [01:11:49] I'm sort of curious about how everything's going in general, but I haven't read any of the project updates so I feel like I'd just be asking you to type them out over and over again. [01:11:52] Mushrooms. And goat's cheese. [01:11:57] werdna: :-) [01:12:00] capers, each one is a little mystery [01:12:01] outstanding choice James_F [01:12:13] My only problem is [01:12:19] I add all these toppings to my paper [01:12:22] pizza* [01:12:27] and there isn't mush room for anything else [01:12:43] Anyway. [01:12:46] lol werdna :) [01:12:47] So, status-wise. [01:12:53] Really? No questions? [01:13:03] Right now VisualEditor is in the middle of a period of fixing bugs and improving performance. [01:13:07] Besides' werdna's. Sorry. :) [01:13:14] :P [01:13:19] We're working on new features a bit, too, but not as much as just improving things generally. [01:13:22] How so, JamesF? [01:13:30] what is your game plan wrt enwp? [01:13:56] when is VisualEditor going to support WikiText ;) [01:14:01] Also "missing" features that people expect, like rich pasting from external sources (coming to MediaWiki.org on Thursday!) or image option editing (not on Thursday!). [01:14:06] \o/ [01:14:42] One thing I'm wondering about – I'm sure it's been suggested before – is allowing power users to type simple syntax in themselves and get what they expect out – particularly links. [01:14:53] James_F: actual question, when does vertical editing go live? [01:14:54] I'd much rather type [[User:Werdna|that asshole]] than click through the link dialogs. [01:15:12] but maybe that's a power user thing that you're not targetting, I dunno. [01:15:47] werdna: So we've discussed that at length, and we've essentially decided that a mark-up based system (even one which magically converts it to HTML) is MediaWiki's job, and is not the right fit for a rich editor. [01:16:15] mmmm, I think it would be neat if you at least had keyboard shortcuts for linking [01:16:26] werdna: There's some possibility of some very limited exceptions to that, but I don't think we want to get into the habit of magically replacing what users type with what we "think" they wanted us to do. [01:16:47] for me, in Flow, I actually switched off VE because there was too much mousework involved in doing basic stuff that you have to do in every post. [01:16:53] I mean, I don't mind if it's not a magic replacement [01:16:55] werdna: perhaps someone could write a gadget for this? [01:17:02] werdna: No mouse is needed… [01:17:05] werdna: there are keyboard shortcuts iirc... [01:17:10] well, I haven't figured out the keyboard shortcuts yet :D [01:17:25] you could do smart hints like I had in LQT (yes, I am using LQT as a *positive* example :o) [01:17:27] werdna: Hover over the buttons. The shortcuts display themselves in the tooltips. :-P [01:17:46] if somebody types [[User:X|Y]] you could have a popup that says "Psst? Want to make a link? Try Ctrl-K or whatever" [01:17:50] * James_F refuses to listen to the crazy person that thinks LQT is a positive example. :-) [01:17:55] :D [01:17:55] lol [01:18:15] It looks like you're trying to make a link [01:18:18] would you like some help? [01:18:18] Well, we could do that - right now we put up the wikitext warning box, which isn't ideal. [01:18:21] nod [01:18:22] legoktm could you share a link to those shortcuts please? [01:18:22] Yeah, clippy. [01:18:24] * James_F sighs. [01:18:24] well, that's a start. [01:18:38] AnnaKoval: [05:17:27 PM] werdna: Hover over the buttons. The shortcuts display themselves in the tooltips. :-P [01:18:44] yeah - ideally everything in VE should be fast and keyboard-accessible. not everything is yet, but the basic functions are. [01:18:48] i have no idea what they are off the top of my head. [01:18:59] templates are still a nightmare, but I think they'll get better soon ;-) [01:19:06] I'm not trying to second guess your design, it's just that this was a pain point for me – I was used to being able to link and so on very quickly just using mystery markup that nobody knows [01:19:10] thanks legoktm. i'm still sorta new here. :) [01:19:15] :) [01:19:27] That's good to hear, Eloquence! [01:19:38] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Portal/Keyboard_shortcuts [01:19:46] But there's some new ones I've not added yet. [01:19:54] Superscript is Ctrl+, [01:20:00] Subscript is Ctrl+. [01:20:12] Save will be coming soon as well. [01:20:13] Etc. [01:20:16] Thanks, James_F! kaldari asked an actual question earlier: when does vertical editing go live? [01:21:23] So VE currently supports languages which are LTR (e.g. English) RTL (e.g. Arabic), obviously. [01:21:51] But we also support TTB languages too, like Mongolian. [01:22:22] TTB is "Top To Bottom" - i.e. instead of going across the page and then down, they go down and then across. [01:22:59] Right now you can't make selections of text TTB or RTL, but support for that (what we call the "language inspector") is coming very soon for in-line selections, and slightly-less-soon for block selections. [01:23:17] We'll roll that out as a Beta Feature opt-in tool for testing at first, of course. [01:23:27] And get feedback from the community [01:23:43] I know that some wikis are particularly keen to get it ASAP, like Hebrew. [01:24:29] Good to know. [01:24:33] James_F, werdna asked: what is your game plan wrt enwp? [01:24:36] Then there's a wider question about whether we want to expand language direction support in MediaWiki, given that we now have a sane way to edit it. :-) [01:24:51] Yeah. [01:24:55] So… enwiki. [01:25:09] We don't have a particular "game plan" for the English Wikipedia. [01:25:33] Right now we're busy fixing and improving VisualEditor, and rolling it out to additional wikis. [01:26:08] Obviously at some point soon we should start discussing the grounds for re-enabling it by default on the English Wikipedia, as that's an important wiki to us, but it's far from our only concern. [01:26:27] There's also German and Dutch Wikipedias, of course. Let's not focus only on English. [01:26:56] Good point. [01:27:08] Just wanted to acknowledge the question. :) [01:27:09] James_F,. before you even consider enabling by default in any of these wikis, you need to have it good enough that it can be equally prominent as wikitext editor [01:27:13] James_F: make it so good that enwiki begs for it back, right? :) [01:27:14] So… not much of an answer. [01:27:15] Hi Risker :) [01:27:15] and it's not close yet. [01:27:23] * Risker waves at AnnaKoval [01:27:27] Risker: That's, of course, a subjective judgement, however. [01:28:06] I'm hoping the new citations UX will be a big win for enwiki users [01:28:10] Risker: There's no magic device that will go "ping" when VisualEditor is "good enough". [01:28:12] well, until tables and references are as easy on VE as they are on Vector [01:28:17] you're not there yet [01:28:25] Risker: On Vector? [01:28:35] Risker, work on citations is underway -- and very high priority :) [01:28:40] Vector using wikitext.....the references are tons easier to do [01:29:04] Risker: You mean the toolbar gadget that enwiki wrote and didn't share with other wikis? :-) Yeah, as you know well we've been working on that for a while. [01:29:28] It's a cool gadget, shared or not. [01:29:30] you mean the toolbar gadget that nobody else bothered to borrow? [01:29:38] And sets a high bar of usability to follow. [01:29:45] We're nowhere close yet, and it's important to acknowledge that. [01:30:00] There is a lot left to do, indeed. [01:30:44] Just wanted to post a link to the log to today's earlier office hours [01:30:46] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-12-02 [01:30:58] I am still extremely confused about how the team is defining its target user group. [01:31:22] Risker: The target user group is everyone, still. Why? [01:31:52] well, that contradicts above, where people who want lots of shortcuts and technical tweaks aren't the target [01:32:02] I didn't say they weren't the target. [01:32:18] * James_F is lost. [01:32:31] "everyone" is not a target group. [01:32:48] And yet it's the exact same target group that the wikitext editor targets. [01:32:52] what editor group was VE desiged to accommodate at first blush [01:33:02] *designed [01:33:04] I'm not sure meaningless product groups are a worthwhile focus. [01:33:12] James_F, Risker, Eloquence: Actually there are a few wikis that have ported the RefToolbar gadget [01:33:24] doesn't surprise me, kaldari [01:33:24] kaldari, awesome :) [01:33:32] kaldari: 31, IIRC. Or, in other words, 870 haven't got it. [01:33:38] Risker: It's designed to be used by humans with computers who want to constructively edit a wiki. [01:33:53] It's a great gadget - invaluable for content authors [01:34:17] It's an impressive tool of its time, yes. [01:35:00] Any other questions for James_F et al? [01:35:01] James_F, I'm really sorry that I'm having a hard time making myself understood here. [01:35:21] And I'm sorry I interrupted you, Risker. [01:35:36] Risker, you can contrast VE with something like Google Docs -- Google Docs doesn't target "new users" or "experienced authors"; its limitations are primarily technical in nature (documents of certain lengths, certain features missing) which somewhat constrain the use cases to which it can be put. [01:35:53] well, that's why I don't use google docs. They're crap. [01:36:05] In authoring Wikipedia content, there's a very long tail of features that we ultimately must support, and in prioritizing, we obviously ought to focus on the most widely used and most important ones. [01:36:08] heh, Risker. I disagree :-) [01:36:17] everytime someone from the WMF sends me one, I give them a hard time [01:36:23] I think Google Docs is an awesome product, if proprietary. But that's a matter of opinion. [01:36:29] Indeed. [01:36:30] they're the only people who use it [01:36:36] lol, that's ridiculous :) [01:37:04] Other questions about VE? [01:37:20] Or James_F's favorite foods? [01:37:49] Oh. [01:37:55] Apparently no Risker. [01:38:07] :-( [01:38:07] Rubber tortoise? Am I the only one confused by that? [01:38:12] :( [01:38:16] AnnaKoval: No, it's a bit random. :-) [01:38:17] Anywy. [01:38:27] Yeah, if there's no questions.... [01:38:29] Any other questions, assuming Risker can't re-connect? [01:38:34] James_F can go get pizza... [01:38:37] Ha. [01:38:40] Or a salad. [01:39:08] No questions? None at all? [01:39:50] Well, if there's no questions... [01:39:59] Sounding the 5 minute warning... [01:40:18] (Could be 5 long, awkward minutes...) [01:40:26] Maybe the 5 second warning. ;-) [01:40:33] ;) [01:40:57] All righty then, folks... [01:41:05] Thanks everyone. [01:41:08] I'd like to thank you all for stopping by. [01:41:09] James_F: Actually, I have one. Do we* give support to third parties for VE? [01:41:20] Or not... :) [01:41:23] In other words, is it a first-class citizen like mw itself? [01:42:17] Coren: Yes, VE is for third-party users as well as MW users, though in practice I don't think there are any non-MW re-users yet. [01:42:33] Coren: Which reminds me about some slides I need to write for a presentation next month… [01:43:04] Thanks, James_F. [01:43:42] So there is the intent that there will be a release cycle for VE? [01:44:04] (And with that I'm done) [01:44:15] Well, thanks, folks, and if there are no more questions, then we're gonna call it a night/day/whatever it is where you are! :) [01:44:23] what about mid-afternoon? [01:44:28] Coren: Yeah, something like that. Longer-term consideration. [01:44:37] Works for me, werdna! :) [01:44:42] werdna: 12:45 isn't mid-afternoon. [01:44:55] heh, considering I woke up at 10:30, you're probably right [01:45:04] James_F: Coren's last question? [01:45:45] Thanks everyone. [01:45:48] AnnaKoval: I think "something like that" was suitable handwaving in that direction. I.e.: we intend to, but not now. :-) [01:45:56] AnnaKoval, Coren: Yeah. [01:46:02] All right. [01:46:11] We'll work out a release cycle once we've got a non-pre-release. [01:46:33] Take care, everyone. See you at the next VE office hours, time still tbd. :) [01:46:53] I'll post the logs shortly... [01:47:01] Thanks. :-) [08:34:12] hi zeljkof [08:35:51] Nikerabbit: hi [08:36:21] why are you pinging me in the office channel? am I in trouble? :) [08:36:30] zeljkof: hmm sorry [08:36:53] Nikerabbit: no problem, I am just not used to this place :) [08:44:50] * Emufarmers sends zeljkof to the principal's office. [08:46:18] * zeljkof hides in the gym [08:46:42] you're not in trouble yet, but feel free to confess any sins you might have committed