Hey everyone!
This week, Fandom released an update to the VisualEditor, targeting the interface of both the Visual Mode and the VE - Source Mode (also known as the '2017 editor'). The goal is to improve the editing experience there to make it more intuitive than it use to be.
You can check the announcement blog from staff for more details and a bit of history behind these changes, and also the updated help page.
To summarize, some of the changes the team worked on are these:
Some of the tools have been renamed (e.g. "paragraph" is now "normal text")
Icons were shuffled around (e.g. the back and forward arrow buttons are now located on the far left rather than the middle)
Some less-essential tools were hidden from view to make the initial editor view a little less overwhelming (but the tools are still accessible in dropdown menus)
For the 2017 source mode: removal of the options available from the menu icon (the three stacked horizontal bars) -- To get those back, anyone can customize the toolbar to access them from there)
You can also see an outline of these in the design mocks below:
VisualEditor - Visual Mode
VisualEditor - Source Mode (a.k.a. 2017 source mode editor)
Separate from this, some functionality changes have also happened to the older source editor (a.k.a. "2010 editor"). Those are unrelated to the VE changes, and some have been filed as bug tickets (for instance, a cursor not being visible on wikis using a dark skin).
If you have any questions or feedback to share, you're more than welcome to either reply here, or message me directly. Cheers, and have a nice Friday/weekend!