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. In July 2013, it was enabled by default on several of the largest Wikipedia projects.
VisualEditor logo, set in Gill Sans | |
VisualEditor's text formatting menu | |
| Developer(s) | Wikimedia Foundation and Fandom, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Written in | JavaScript, Node.js, PHP |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Platform | MediaWiki extension |
| Type | Wiki |
| License | MIT |
| Website | www |
The Wikimedia Foundation considered it the most challenging technical project to date, while The Economist has called it Wikipedia's "most significant change". According to The Daily Dot, the Wikimedia Foundation's pursuit of wider participation may risk alienating existing editors. In September 2013, English Wikipedia's VisualEditor was changed from opt-out to opt-in, following user complaints, but it was returned to being available by default (for new registered users only) in October 2015 after further development. A 2015 study by the Wikimedia Foundation found that VisualEditor failed to provide the anticipated benefits for new editors.