Has there been community discussion (link) about this or is this a personal request?

I'm at least aware about this:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikisource-l/2015-March/002197.html

This is also a topic for offline because it's impossible to provide a good ZIM file of Wikisource as long as Parsoid is not able to deal correctly with it.

Two years ago we did a survey within the international Wikisource community: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisource_Community_User_Group/Wikisource_survey_report#Visual_Editor

In the wikisource-l ml, we discussed about this a few times. It is definitely not me alone :-)

It would be great if you reached a consensus in the village pump and provided the link to it

In T93525#1140601, @Gerardduenas wrote:

It would be great if you reached a consensus in the village pump and provided the link to it

I believe that the consensus about it is fairly clear. No need for discussions on different languages Scriptoriums.

Is this task asking for VisualEditor to be enabled for opt-in to edit the main and user namespaces right now, or to wait until T48580: Create a VisualEditor plugin to integrate with ProofreadPage is complete? If the second, that is a lot of work and won't happen soon.

In T93525#1140648, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

Is this task asking for VisualEditor to be enabled for opt-in to edit the main and user namespaces right now, or to wait until T48580: Create a VisualEditor plugin to integrate with ProofreadPage is complete? If the second, that is a lot of work and won't happen soon.

As you can see, the task you mentioned is in this task's "Blocked By" field.

Hi James,
for many Wikisource, implementation of the VE in the ns0 is not-so important. As you are maybe aware, we have a Page: namespace that is the place where the transcription really happens, with the scan of the page of the book. I was aware of the owrk of Tpt and Rohit (if'm not mistaken), who tried to refactor the Proofread Page extension.

In T93525#1207335, @Aubrey wrote:

Hi James,
for many Wikisource, implementation of the VE in the ns0 is not-so important. As you are maybe aware, we have a Page: namespace that is the place where the transcription really happens, with the scan of the page of the book. I was aware of the owrk of Tpt and Rohit (if'm not mistaken), who tried to refactor the Proofread Page extension.

Yes, that is T48580: Create a VisualEditor plugin to integrate with ProofreadPage.

Some notes from Wikimedia-Hackathon-2016 concerning WS Mainspace and proofreading system using VE: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/ve-wikisource

It seems really nice!
Thanks everyone for making this happen.

In T93525#2398992, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

So, with T48580: Create a VisualEditor plugin to integrate with ProofreadPage closed, as of next Wednesday there will be a (basic) VisualEditor integration on Page: pages too. You can see it in action now on Beta Cluster, though it doesn't look very impressive as DjVu file rendering is currently broken there.

This version does not seem to be functional yet:

• I see no way to change proofread status of a page: and attempt to edit it manually ends with "unknown error" (I am surprised that the proofread status raw data is even available for the editor - it is a very bad idea). Changing the proofread status is a key functionality for Wikisource, however.
• Any attempt to edit header/footer seems to break them both (moving them or their parts into main edit area); see this diff:
  
  http://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Page%3ADictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_51.djvu%2F377&type=revision&diff=716&oldid=649

Is there a working version elsewhere? I do not think it is ready for integration.

In T93525#2398992, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

You can see it in action now on Beta Cluster, though it doesn't look very impressive as DjVu file rendering is currently broken there.

Do we have a task about this?

In T93525#2399658, @AlexMonk-WMF wrote:

In T93525#2398992, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

You can see it in action now on Beta Cluster, though it doesn't look very impressive as DjVu file rendering is currently broken there.

Do we have a task about this?

I think it's T116816: beta cluster missing vips command needed to render tiffs and pngs, pnmtojpeg for DjVus. Apparently it's been broken for a while. We've just worked around it in ProofreadPage code, though, so it doesn't matter much for this use case.

In T93525#2399147, @Ankry wrote:

• Any attempt to edit header/footer seems to break them both (moving them or their parts into main edit area); see this diff:
  
  http://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Page%3ADictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_51.djvu%2F377&type=revision&diff=716&oldid=649

I couldn't reproduce – http://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?diff=721&oldid=720 – perhaps an intermittent bug?

In T93525#2401282, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

In T93525#2399658, @AlexMonk-WMF wrote:

In T93525#2398992, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

You can see it in action now on Beta Cluster, though it doesn't look very impressive as DjVu file rendering is currently broken there.

Do we have a task about this?

I think it's T116816: beta cluster missing vips command needed to render tiffs and pngs, pnmtojpeg for DjVus. Apparently it's been broken for a while. We've just worked around it in ProofreadPage code, though, so it doesn't matter much for this use case.

I installed the package needed for pnmtojpeg on the deployment-mediawiki* servers yesterday.

In T93525#2401285, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

In T93525#2399147, @Ankry wrote:

• Any attempt to edit header/footer seems to break them both (moving them or their parts into main edit area); see this diff:
  
  http://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Page%3ADictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_51.djvu%2F377&type=revision&diff=716&oldid=649

I couldn't reproduce – http://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?diff=721&oldid=720 – perhaps an intermittent bug?

@Jdforrester-WMF: I agree with @Ankry - This version does not seem to be functional yet (...) Any attempt to edit header/footer seems to break them both...
It is easy to reproduce:

1. step: Editing header and footer (added <div style="color:blue;"> in header and </div> in footer- see image
2. step: Save Page -> Review your changes see image

editions of a header disappeared and been replaced with "</ div>"; editions of the footer have been transferred and mixed with the contents of the page...

Z.

In T93525#2404697, @Zdzislaw wrote:

In T93525#2401285, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

In T93525#2399147, @Ankry wrote:

• Any attempt to edit header/footer seems to break them both (moving them or their parts into main edit area); see this diff:
  
  http://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Page%3ADictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_51.djvu%2F377&type=revision&diff=716&oldid=649

I couldn't reproduce – http://en.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?diff=721&oldid=720 – perhaps an intermittent bug?

@Jdforrester-WMF: I agree with @Ankry - This version does not seem to be functional yet (...) Any attempt to edit header/footer seems to break them both...
It is easy to reproduce:

1. step: Editing header and footer (added <div style="color:blue;"> in header and </div> in footer- see image
2. step: Save Page -> Review your changes see image

editions of a header disappeared and been replaced with "</ div>"; editions of the footer have been transferred and mixed with the contents of the page...

Can you file a new task, please?