Why has MediaWiki still no WYSIWYG editor?

1

After almost 10 years, MediaWiki still has no support for a WYSIWYG editor. The metapage explaining various info about this topic states that

The problem is that any WYSIWYG editor would have to know wikitext grammar, and no full grammar for wikitext exists - the "parser" doesn't parse, it's a twisty series of regular expressions.

So - is it technically impossible, or no successfull effort has been made to specify the grammar?

user45971

Posted 2010-09-04T20:43:09.133

Reputation: 263

Question was closed 2010-09-05T00:29:40.537

Well, for one thing, it's near impossible to make one that would understand any markup language more than a human can. Another that when you think of it, better formatted source makes for better formatted results. Think of Daring Fireball vs. a typical Blogger blog. – digitxp – 2010-09-04T20:47:34.273

1I don't understand what you're saying here. – user45971 – 2010-09-04T20:51:55.817

3Ok, try playing around with Google Sites for a few minutes. If you start making a table and make a list in it, or something else equally complicated and long, it starts to slow down. If you see the HTML source, the source is as heck as spaghetti-y. This is all solved if you are forced to make everything good from the source. – digitxp – 2010-09-04T21:22:30.317

Answers

3

Nothing (well, almost nothing) is technically impossible, it is more than likely that the majority of people who do the editing know the commands off by heart and simply do not need it, therefore, the cost/time of development does not outweigh the benefits of having it.

William Hilsum

Posted 2010-09-04T20:43:09.133

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Asked: 2010-09-04T20:43:09.133

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Active: 2010-09-04T20:47:33.090