Re: wysiwyg editors

Hello,

any news on the nWidget (!) - WYSIWYG integration? I have been working 
with HTMLarea3 and it is great...

Best,

Christian Boulanger

Andrew Tetlaw wrote:

> [email protected] wrote on 27/06/2004 12:08:33 AM:
>
>>> From Matt:
>>
>
>> Technically, the problem with browser differences appears to stem from
>> the editor using execCommand() to add markup. If it manipulated the DOM
>> directly we should get the markup we want, as Andrew's <strong>
>> workaround shows.
>
>
> There's more to consider. The editors are not just markup generators 
> there's also a lot of other editor behaviour that is provided. For 
> example the ctrl+b to toggle bold/unbold. Even if you wrote your own 
> button for 'bold' the keyboard shortcut is still available and still 
> does the same as the standard execCommand('bold'). The editors support 
> all the standard keyboard short cuts for formatting/editing.
> For total control you'd have to disable or intercept all these key 
> combos.
>
>> execCommand() appears to have only one advantage for adding tags: it
>> takes care of undo/redo for you. But since not every command can be done
>> with it - such as inserting a table - we'd really need our own undo/redo
>> stack anyway.
>
>
> The undo/redo stack includes both use of the execCommand('bold') and 
> the keyboard shortcut, which is useful. What is also useful regarding 
> the undo stack is the copy/cut/delete/paste functions are also 
> included. I don't know if it would be easy to code you own undo stack 
> to also intercept copy/cut/delete/paste.
>
> The other bahaviours are the table editor (allows you to 
> resize/insert/delete rows and cells with graphical widgets *at least 
> in Moz it does, IE doesn't seem to have it, I guess that's the reason 
> for the table plugin) and the image editor (allows you to drag and 
> place/resize images graphically).
>
> So when using these editors you're not just making use of the 
> execCommand commands available you're using the whole kit.
>
> Also in using them you're limiting yourself to Moz and IE.
>
>>> From Alex:
>>
>
>> So I've got a monkey wrench to throw in the works:
>>                I don't think producing HTML is helpful.
>
>
> Perhaps netWindows doesn;t need to make that choice. Maybe the useful 
> thing to do it provide a bunch of editing widgets and the users of 
> netwindows can make the choice.
>
> In my position I'm faced with the problem that the users of my apps 
> want to be able to edit content like they do in Word (I often get 
> asked 'where's the spellchecker?'), but I want to retain control of 
> visual style. Like Matt I too think an XML editor would be excellent. 
> Something like Authentic
> http://www.altova.com/products_doc.html . It's great because it's free 
> but it's not because its closed source and IE only (for the broswer 
> plugin, although there is a stand alone client).
>
> I can see a place for an editor like HTMLArea, one like Textile and 
> one like this one: 
> http://www.lotusgeek.com/SapphireOak/LotusGeekBlog.nsf/d6plinks/ROLR-629RVF 
> (see at the end, it is stupidly IE only but doesn't need to be) which 
> is simple but offers a live preview. If they were all netWindows 
> widgets you could choose which one suited your app best.
>
> Anyway, enough jibering from me! I'm not even a developer here! I only 
> use the sig/slots library, what the hell am I making all this noise for?
>
> :)
>
> Cheers,
> Andrew Tetlaw
>
> Bligh Voller Nield
> http://www.bvn.com.au
> p: (07) 3251 5778
> f: (07) 3852 2544
>
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Christian Boulanger

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