Editing controls

Steve, Mick

Hi, just wanted to add my two pennies worth. We use Ektron loads and
infact have taken it apart and practically completely rewritten it.
Furthermore, we also have a free editing control that we have released
to the community on
http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=C
8DD9D28-EAB8-4CF9-B9EB-DAD032C6A58E
<http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=
C8DD9D28-EAB8-4CF9-B9EB-DAD032C6A58E>  . We've also put up other stuff
here including Artemis code cleaner etc etc.

Regarding accessibility, public sector etc. We have used Ektron
extensively, most notably for an extensive engagement at the Cabinet
Office where we developed their second generation intranet, CabWeb 2,
using Microsoft CMS and SharePoint Portal Server. This was an
interesting project in terms of accessibility/standards etc given this
is where Government standards have emanated from given the ODPM and
eEnvoy are both part of the Cabinet Office. 

Hence to my point, which refutes to a certain extent Steve's comments
(sorry steve) - In terms of accessibility guidelines within UK Public
Sector in the context of editing controls it actually does n't matter at
all whether the editing control in the editing environment conforms to
government standards etc etc. Accessibility is only relevant in terms of
the presentation itself ie how the info looks once published to the live
site.

Hope this is useful

Cheers

Dan

Daniel Reardon
Associate
Artemis Corporation
DDi: +44 (0) 1635 291804
Mob: +44 (0) 7900 346509
Fax: +44 (0) 1635 291801
[email protected]

 

 

........Mick - also worthy of note (as you seem to be UK based) is the
fact that if you wish to sell into the central government - you will
find that a lot of them conform to either so-called GSI or XGSI
standards - both of which prohibit the use of ActiveX components...when
we were pitching for the Lord Chancellors Dept bid this was one of the
factors that removed several competitors from the field - as they were
either using their own ActiveX components - or relying on a third party
tools such as text editors that used ActiveX components....so best to
make sure that the intended customer is not bound by the above
standards.......at least in the UK...not sure about the US - is there a
similar standard over there ?

Regards

Steve

-----Original Message----- 

From: Mick Sear [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ]


Sent: 21 May 2004 11:25 

To: [email protected] 

Subject: [CMS] RE: CMS Digest, Vol 4, Issue 13 

 

I've tried both Ektron's eWebEditPro and KTML. I'm working on KTML at
the 

moment because cross-browser & platform is more important to me, but 

Ektron's product is very good (ActiveX). It's customisable and quite
easy 

to integrate, but you'll have problems enforcing accessibility standards


with any of the editors I've come across. I suspect you'll have your
work 

cut out for you, replacing those parts that don't conform to WAI
standards 

(forms and tables, notably). However, it's not impossible. You can 

easily add buttons that open your own popups, generate the correct HTML 

string to paste into the editor, and then that code will (mostly)
persist 

as you continue to edit it. Taking your points: 

 

a) works in IE6/PC (though other browsers are bonus) 

on the front end, .net server model on the back 

end. 

- eWebEditPro is IE 4.something upwards. Windows only. 

 

b) allows for admin-defined tags/CSS classes 

- Not bad support for this in eWebEditPro 

c) allows admin's to block certain styling 

(namely in-line styles and presentational markup) 

- Suggest that you do this server-side. i.e. You can feed your own CSS
to 

eWebEditPro, which will then expose the CSS classes for use in editing
the 

snippet. You'll have to take out classes and inline styles after the 

content is submitted, using something like regular expressions. 

d) ability to clean pasted text from Word/Other 

HTML pages. Ideally, this could be a default/ 

automated behavior. 

- It's not bad at this, but you'd do well to test this out fairly
carefully. 

e) ability to create a link within the text that 

links to a file on the server that can be browsed 

to. (ie, select text >> click MAKE LINK >> select 

BROWSE >> browse to PDF on SERVER >> Click INSERT 

LINK to make link) 

- I replaced the link and image browsers with my own popups, and I 

generate correct XHMTL code. Certain attributes need to be converted 

server-side afterwards if you want XHTML 1.1, such as 'border'
attributes. 

I think 'align' attributes need to be converted as well. 

f) Support for accessibility tags via the interface 

(alt tags in images, title attributes in objects, 

TH tags, ACCRONYM tags, etc.) 

- You could add buttons to open popups where the user supplies the title


attribute, then you can paste the correct code into the editor. It's not


difficult. 

At the end of the day, most editors I've come across will produce OK
XHTML 

1.0, but really struggle with XHTML 1.1. You need to enforce compliance 

very carefully server-side. You'll have trouble with forms (forcing 

framesets, labels, tabindexes, etc.) and tables (column header scope,
row 

header scope, title, summary etc.) for accessibility compliance. If you 

decide to go with eWebEditPro, I might be able to help you out. 

Regards, 

Mick 

-------------------- 

Mick Sear 

eCreate Web Services 

T: 0845 241 2406 

M: 07743 852 328 

F: 08700 941 084 

W: www.ecreate.co.uk <outbind://80/www.ecreate.co.uk>  

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