Wikipedia:MozEx tutorial

This tutorial describes how to use the MozEx extension of Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox to edit Wikipedia pages in your editor of choice.

Installing MozEx

First, you must download and install the MozEx extension by visiting the appropriate web page and following the installation link provided there. However, first note two important caveats:

• Currently, the official MozEx package (at http://mozex.mozdev.org/) does not support editing UTF-8-encoded documents. This is particularly problematic since all Wikipedia articles are encoded in UTF-8 by default. An unofficial version of MozEx which supports UTF-8 is available.
• Currently, the official MozEx package (at http://mozex.mozdev.org/) does not install properly on Mozilla Firefox 1.0. However, an unofficial repackaged version of MozEx for Firefox is available.

Configuring MozEx

After installing MozEx, depending on your operating system and its settings, you may need to configure MozEx to invoke the text editor of your choice. Detailed instructions for this are available on the official MozEx web page.

Note for Microsoft Windows users

When configuring the textarea setting to open up the text editor of your choice, the path must not use long filenames. You should use the MS-DOS 8.3 filenames instead—e.g., C:\Progra~1\editor\edit.exe %t instead of C:\Program Files\editor\edit.exe %t.

Editing with MozEx

To edit a Wikipedia page, click on the "edit this page" link. A box (textarea) containing editable text will show up. Right-click with the mouse in the textarea, and select mozex→Edit Textarea from the context menu that pops up. Your favorite editor will pop up, and you will be able to edit the text. Once you are done, save the text, go back to the browser window, and click on the text area. The text will be automatically updated, and the file you just saved will be deleted from your computer.