Scheduled outage to implement Rich Text Editor

Going live with WYSIWYG editing -- Testing and scheduled outage
IMPORTANT MESSAGE & GOOD NEWS FOR ALL WIKIEDUCATOR USERS

We're pleased to announce our long awaited migration to Rich Text Editing as well as important software updates for the WikiEducator website. This is a great way to start the new year!

In this message:


 * 1) Help with final testing of our Rich Text / WYSIWYG Editor implementation and software updates
 * 2) Scheduled (read-only) outage of WikiEducator site starting: Saturday 6 February 20:00 UTC, Sunday 7 February 09:00 NZDT, or for your region.

We need your help with final testing of the Rich text editor and software upgrades before going live
The WikiEducator technical team has been testing the Rich Text Editor and a number of important software updates. We are very happy with the performance and this will add considerable value to our project. To the best of our knowledge everything is working as it should. However, we would appreciate a little help from our advanced users for final testing and identification of any problems we may have overlooked.


 * 1) Please visit your favourite and/or more complicated pages on the test wiki site (http://we4.wikieducator.net/Main_Page ).
 * 2) Login with your existing Username,
 * 3) Click on the usual "Edit" tab
 * 4) Then click on the "Rich Editor" link to activate the WYSIWYG editor
 * 5) Test the functionality of the editor using your favourite pages (note that this is a test site and your edits will NOT be preserved. (Real work must be done on the live WikiEducator site)
 * 6) Please let us know if there are any user created templates which are not working, missing images etc.
 * 7) Report any problems you experience with the editor on the main WikiEducator list by Wednesday 3 February 2010.

With any migration of this size, we anticipate that there may be a few teething problems. WE will address these in good time. We will try to fix any problems before the go live date, but we may need to schedule some fixes according to priority after the go-live date. However, we feel that the advantages of Rich Text Editing outweigh any teething problems we may experience.

Known issues

 * 1) Templates for print-specific behaviours will not work with the wiki-to-pdf feature at this time because of changes Pedia Press have implemented in the wiki syntax used for this feature. We need to update these templates within the first weeks of the new installation. Any help from advanced users for these updates is well received :-)
 * 2) Using bold, italics and underline combined results in subsequent text being underlined. Temporary fix:  In the Rich Editor, highlight the remaining text you don't want underlined and click on the underline button until we get the bug fixed.
 * 3) Using subheadings within tables produces the edit link contained within the table in the published view. Clicking on the corresponding subheading edit link within the table, breaks the table. Temporary fix: Avoid using subheadings within tables --(Need to test whether forcing the subheading edit link  will avert this problem.)

Scheduled read-only access of WikiEducator site
We have scheduled a 5 - 6 hour period starting Saturday 6 February 20:00 UTC (Sunday 7 February 09:00 NZDT) or check the start time for your region when WikiEducators will not be able to edit on the WikiEducator site. (Users will still have read-only access during this outage.)

We have planned this outage to coincide with the weekend for most users around the world. In the event of any unforeseen problems the outage may be longer. However, we are aiming to complete the migration within the scheduled time frame.

Users with a more technical background and/or interest may want to:


 * join the #wikieducator channel on irc.freenode.net (or use "Web chat" link in sidebar of the English WikiEducator)
 * follow the !wikieducator group on identi.ca
 * watch http://tech.wikieducator.net/

This is an important Milestone in the evolution of our WE family. WE thank you for your support and understanding with this migration.

Happy editing!

Wayne and Jim OER Foundation.