[freelancr]

For all of the websites I have to create for clients, there will always be some form of CMS allowing them to edit the content, images, files, etc. So far I have used several different JS WYSIWYG Textareas.

TinyMCE - Far too big, weighs in at about 2.2mb the last time I used it.
FreeTextBox - Closed source asp.net control, utter shite.
FCKEditor - Versions I have used have crashed browsers randomly, very comprehensive and configurable. Probably the best out of the 3.

Problems with these:

• Require Javascript, I assume they degrade but leave the user with xhtml to work with. (not really a problem tbh)
• Take time to load on slow connections, and potentially crash if the user gets click happy.
• Gives the end user too much power to fuck up the page, although FCK you can tell it exactly what controls to give them, they can still bollocks it up by sticking in images.
• Makes clients assume that you can do anything with the web, but soon confuses them when their content all ends up in a single column.
• Dont generate XHTML Strict 1.0 (or XHTML 1.1) code
• Most of my clients will write up what content they want into a word document, and then after they are happy with it in word, they will copy and paste it into the editor. Hello ugly word tags, and yes they all ignore the "paste from word" button!

So generally, they have been more trouble than they are worth. But it may be worth customizing FCKEditor to my needs, or attempting to make my own editor either from scratch or opensource code.

So anyway. I went back to normal xhtml text areas, with plain text entering. Recently I have been experimenting with String.Replace in ASP.NET. At the moment it is just simple shit like replacing "/n" (plain text newline) with "<br /> (xhtml newline), and replacing "/n/n" (plain text 2 line spacing for paragraph) with "</p><p>"

Going to be adding in BB code, like [url] [b] [i] [img], so hopefully any forum users or people with a bit of brainpower can still use some formatting. Might also back it up with a bit of JS like this forum uses to add in the tags on (ctrl+b) or the buttons at the top.

So then, what is it you use? JS WYSIWYG or Serverside String.Replace?

Reason im asking is because I want to make my CMS systems a doddle to use, and I assumed JS would be my saviour - seems it has caused more problems than it has solved.

[sole]

TinyMCE. Remove unneeded files for languages which you don't use and it should be lean - way leaner than FCKEditor!

FCKeditor just gave us trouble and more trouble.

And in Tiny you can intercept the "paste" actions and apply the cleanFromWord function. Can't remember exactly how but I managed to do that using some help in their forums. So you can end with a nice semi clean version, you just need to finish the cleaning process in your server if you want to add more complex rules. It's up to you.

In mi opinion forcing the user to learn bbcode or textile or whatever just makes them like not willing to use the system. Specially non tech savvy people. Let's make them life easier

[freelancr]

Originally Posted by sole

In mi opinion forcing the user to learn bbcode or textile or whatever just makes them like not willing to use the system. Specially non tech savvy people. Let's make them life easier

I think I will just treat it as a work in progress, keep it mostly serverside with the "string.replace()" ensuring the input is clean, and to use [bbcode] tags. Then when I get chance ill make my own javascript thing to add bbcode with bold, itallic, heading, etc buttons.

Also with the "paste from word" thing, when you copy and paste from word into a standard textarea it doesnt include any of the excess code and formatting anyway (i think?)

I think I will always keep the images separate from the text though, let them add in an image to somewhere predefined so they can't wreck the page too much.