12 Replies Latest reply on Jun 24, 2011 9:53 AM by jbalunas

    WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations

    lfryc

      Since we are going to implement editor component in upcoming major release,

      I have started survey on current implementations which suits our needs,

      now you have possibility to choose which one particular implementation do you like

      or recommend your favorite choices.

       

      I have divided editors to two groups:

       

      • full-featured
        • offers complete editing experience
        • heavy-weight - decreases user experience
        • still might be optimized for simple scenarios
      • lightweight editors
        • offers enough of editing experience (but lacks advanced options)
        • light-weight from their nature
        • needs plug-in when achieving advanced use cases

       

      Let's check it out:

       

      Full-Featured Editors

       

      TinyMCE (Demo, LGPL, enteprise support)

       

      CKEditor (Demo, LGPL, enterprise support)

       

      HtmlBox (Demo, MIT, JQuery-based)

       

      Light-weight Editors

       

      YUI Editor (Demo, BSD)

       

      CLEditor (Demo, MIT/GPL, JQuery-based)

       

      NIC Editor (Demo, MIT)

       

       

      Message was edited by Lukáš Fryč (added information about JQuery and support)

        • 1. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
          lfryc

          Aloha (Demo, AGPLv3) is my favorite one,  but licensing doesn't probably suits well.

          • 2. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
            jonask

            an option advanced="true" would be great which switches a light-weight one to an advanced version. are there any implementations which support two versions? that one would be my favorite...

             

            from the one you posted i prefer CKEditor and if lightweight NIC Editor.

            • 3. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
              lfryc

              Basically each of them allows to select fine-grained options you would like to display.

              So all of full-featured editors are coming to consideration then.

               

              We will probably stick with only one editor implementation, but needs to make sure, that it supports both full-featured and light-weight configurations

              and verify that they doing so non-intrusive way (resources, that are not needed should not make way to the browsers).

              • 4. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                rcoats

                I'd probably have a preference for TinyMCE, that way any new usage of it in Richafaces 4 applications would give a similar user experience to that in the RichFaces 3 apps that already use rich:editor.

                • 5. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                  bleathem

                  Do they all make use of jQuery?  It would be nice to make use of the javascript libraries we are already bundling as much as possible, and not unecessarily intorduce new included script files.

                  • 6. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                    jbalunas

                    Unfortunately the tinyMCE editor had several issues, and was difficult to upgrade between versions.  There were also issues with portlet environments that made it difficult to maintain.

                     

                    Since this is a major upgrade version to 4.X we want to review other options.

                    • 7. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                      jbalunas

                      We need to make sure whatever we choose has a good history and activity so that we can make sure they will maintain it and update as needed for bugs, browsers, etc...

                       

                      We also need to be sure there is mobile device support!

                      • 8. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                        lfryc

                        Brian Leathem wrote:

                         

                        Do they all make use of jQuery?  It would be nice to make use of the javascript libraries we are already bundling as much as possible, and not unecessarily intorduce new included script files.

                        This is great idea, but regrettably only some of editors are JQuery based (HtmlBox and CLE Editor), I have added this informations to initial post.

                         

                        Also using jQuery-based editor might be considered as risk in upgrading jQuery versions.

                        • 9. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                          lfryc

                          Jay Balunas wrote:

                           

                          Unfortunately the tinyMCE editor had several issues, and was difficult to upgrade between versions. 

                          Could you be more specific about issues and problems with upgrade? We might want to test this with other implementations.

                           

                           

                          There were also issues with portlet environments that made it difficult to maintain.

                          This is also the point which we should test prior start of implementation - would be worth to contact Wesley and Jan.

                          • 10. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                            lfryc

                            Jay Balunas wrote:

                             

                            We also need to be sure there is mobile device support!

                            Unfortunately, there are no mobile-enabled implementations, see http://community.jboss.org/message/611796#611796

                            • 11. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                              jbalunas

                              Lukáš Fryč wrote:

                               

                              Jay Balunas wrote:

                               

                              Unfortunately the tinyMCE editor had several issues, and was difficult to upgrade between versions. 

                              Could you be more specific about issues and problems with upgrade? We might want to test this with other implementations.

                              The main issues were around upgrading and stability between point releases.

                              • API changes between point releases
                              • Skinning was difficult to implement
                                • and changed with point releases

                              There were also issues with portlet environments that made it difficult to maintain.

                              This is also the point which we should test prior start of implementation - would be worth to contact Wesley and Jan.

                              +1 - This is something that Wesley should be able to comment on as well.

                              • 12. Re: WYSIWYG Editors - Implementations
                                jbalunas

                                Lukáš Fryč wrote:

                                 

                                Jay Balunas wrote:

                                 

                                We also need to be sure there is mobile device support!

                                Unfortunately, there are no mobile-enabled implementations, see http://community.jboss.org/message/611796#611796

                                ok - commented in other page - we'll keep this in the requirements discussion for now.  Hopefully we can find some more info here

                                 

                                Update:  The quick research I did here are not positive.  There is little support - especially for iphone.