PanNotes

When delivering a CMS to a client a WYSIWYG editor can sometimes be the Achilles’ heel of the complete product. These editors were created as a means of allowing users to easily create HTML without actually knowing HTML. While the intent is great they usually produce more problems than solutions. I actually agree with most of the sentiments in Why NOT to install TinyMCE.

We do need to provide an easy way for users to update and create content on their website but the current breed of editors are not the solution. So what is? My thought on the matter has always been that users need to know at least a little bit about the system they are using. The CMS is not a word processor. It’s a different paradigm and that needs to be communicated to the users.

A partial solution may be, as suggested in the post linked above, using less buttons on the editor. Ideally these should include “bold”, “italic”, “underline”, “link” and some means of inserting an image. Image insertion comes with its own issues, which I won’t get into right now. My suggestion is the use of more lightweight markup languages such as Markdown and Textile. These use special markers that when interpreted generate correct HTML but the inputted text is still readable by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about HTML. My personal favorite is Markdown. In fact this post is written in Markdown and the comment form on this site accepts Markdown.

People still like to see buttons that remind them of their word processor, so for the time being I am watching WYMeditor. WYMEditor takes a different approach, according to the website:

WYMeditor’s main concept is to leave details of the document’s visual layout, and to concentrate on its structure and meaning, while trying to give the user as much comfort as possible (at least as WYSIWYG editors).

WYMeditor is written as a JQuery plugin. JQuery is a javascript library that is included in Drupal as of version 5 and happens to be my library of choice :)

There is seemingly another option cropping up. Control.TextArea provides a bridge between the WYSIWYG editors and the plain text options by providing buttons that generate the markup for you. It is not a WYSIWYG editor though.

The good news is; people do realize current solutions are not ideal and are working on better solutions. For the time being though we are stuck with editors such as TinyMCE and FCKEditor.