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Maniphest T162916

VE treats an empty line as if it has one extra invisible character
Closed, ResolvedPublic8 Estimated Story Points
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Description

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Start with a simple, multi-paragraph page:
Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2
  1. Place the cursor at the end of the first line/paragraph.
  1. Press the (right) arrow key to advance to the second paragraph

Expected results:
You have to press the arrow key once to get into the blank line, and once to get out of the blank line/to the start of Paragraph 2.

Actual results:
You have to press the arrow key once to get into the blank line, and twice to get out of the blank line/to the start of Paragraph 2.

Details

Related Changes in Gerrit:
SubjectAuthorRepoBranchLines +/-
Update VE core submodule to master (5cb0e8219)Esandersmediawiki/extensions/VisualEditormaster+9 -20
LinearArrowKeyDownHandler: Handle left/right in empty paragraphsEsandersVisualEditor/VisualEditormaster+32 -0
Customize query in gerrit

Related Objects

Event Timeline

• Whatamidoing-WMF created this task.Apr 13 2017, 4:28 PM
Restricted Application added a project: VisualEditor. · View Herald TranscriptApr 13 2017, 4:28 PM
Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald Transcript
Dvorapa subscribed.Apr 13 2017, 8:14 PM
Esanders subscribed.EditedApr 16 2017, 8:51 PM

Looks like this is an issue with the inline slug in the empty paragraph, pinging @dchan

Esanders added a subscriber: dchan.Apr 16 2017, 8:51 PM
Jdforrester-WMF renamed this task from Cursor behavior is strange on blank lines to You need to double-cursor to move across an inline slug, which makes editing "blank" lines in NWE confusing.Apr 18 2017, 7:09 PM
Jdforrester-WMF triaged this task as Low priority.
Jdforrester-WMF set the point value for this task to 8.
Jdforrester-WMF moved this task from To Triage to TR1: Releases on the VisualEditor board.
Esanders added a comment.May 3 2017, 5:36 PM

We may be able to disable a bunch of the slugging features in source mode as we know there will never be annotations. This will still behave like this in visual mode though.

• matmarex mentioned this in T188837: Extra hidden character seems to be at the beginning/end of the document, causing odd left/right key behaviour.Mar 14 2018, 10:15 PM
• matmarex subscribed.Mar 14 2018, 10:24 PM

I would like this to be prioritized higher, it really makes for a jarring text editing experience.

• matmarex mentioned this in T185590: Invisible character at end of line through copy&paste.May 16 2018, 2:38 PM
Nardog renamed this task from You need to double-cursor to move across an inline slug, which makes editing "blank" lines in NWE confusing to 2017 editor treats an empty line as if it has one extra invisible character.Feb 5 2026, 2:17 AM
Nardog merged a task: T416545: 2017 editor treats an empty line as if it has one extra invisible character.
Nardog subscribed.
DLynch subscribed.Feb 5 2026, 5:34 AM

We actually did remove the slugs to avoid this after those last comments (in rGVEDc0799b060844f26fe35cd1f6e661dc6702d0c925), but then that caused T225546, and so we restored them for non-block contexts.

Esanders renamed this task from 2017 editor treats an empty line as if it has one extra invisible character to VE treats an empty line as if it has one extra invisible character.EditedFeb 12 2026, 11:10 AM
Esanders removed a project: VisualEditor-MediaWiki-2017WikitextEditor.
Esanders edited subscribers, added: WhatamIdoing; removed: • Whatamidoing-WMF.

This is not specific to the 2017 editor, it is equally broken in visual mode (it's just less common there).

gerritbot added a comment.Feb 12 2026, 11:20 AM

Change #1239033 had a related patch set uploaded (by Esanders; author: Esanders):

[VisualEditor/VisualEditor@master] LinearArrowKeyDownHandler: Handle left/right in empty paragraphs

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1239033

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Feb 12 2026, 11:20 AM
gerritbot added a comment.Feb 23 2026, 11:00 PM

Change #1239033 merged by jenkins-bot:

[VisualEditor/VisualEditor@master] LinearArrowKeyDownHandler: Handle left/right in empty paragraphs

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1239033

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Feb 23 2026, 11:31 PM
Esanders added a project: Essential-Work.Feb 24 2026, 12:36 PM
gerritbot added a comment.Feb 26 2026, 11:24 AM

Change #1243867 had a related patch set uploaded (by Esanders; author: Esanders):

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Update VE core submodule to master (5cb0e8219)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1243867

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Feb 26 2026, 11:24 AM
DLynch added a project: Editing QA.Feb 26 2026, 3:16 PM
gerritbot added a comment.Feb 26 2026, 4:03 PM

Change #1243867 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Update VE core submodule to master (5cb0e8219)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1243867

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Feb 26 2026, 4:31 PM
EAkinloose edited projects, added: Verified; removed: Editing QA.May 18 2026, 6:41 PM
EAkinloose closed this task as Resolved.May 18 2026, 6:46 PM
EAkinloose claimed this task.
Nardog added a comment.May 19 2026, 4:55 PM

@EAkinloose Did you mean to claim this?

Nardog removed EAkinloose as the assignee of this task.Jun 16 2026, 10:58 PM
Nardog added a subscriber: EAkinloose.
DLynch assigned this task to Esanders.Jun 16 2026, 11:05 PM
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