Comments
Browser based HTML-WYSIWYGs: FCK or TinyMCE
Written By lucasvo on May. 31, 2007.
3 Comments
Report Note
+ Clip This
I'm currently doing a webpage for a friend and have only little experience with html editor, I'm completely satisfied with VIM, not my friend who doesn't know HTML at all. I've been looking for open source editors on the web and I have found the a to suitable editors, TinyMCE(http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/) and FCKEditor(http://www.fckeditor.net). They both produce horrible code and look very similar. Has someone worked with both of them, what's the difference? Which one do you prefer?
carmodyarc
Written May. 31, 2007 / Report /
You're right they both spit out some godawful code. I've worked with both of them a little, but usually end up just writing the HTML myself.
I'm not sure what your needs and platform will allow but I've found that using Markdown and Textile are great, easy to learn text-to-HTML conversion tools. They aren't the same as WYSIWYG editors, but once implemented they produce valid code with minimal effort. Of course, each has their own syntax, so you and your friend would need to learn that. (Don't worry they're both very intuitive and easy to get a grasp of.)
The Markdown link points to Gruber's original PERL implementation, but there's also a PHP version
I've been using Markdown PHP for a while and love it. It certainly beats the crap out of coding the HTML by hand.
(And if Mike, Scrivs and Tyme implemented one of these in notes I would love them forever :)
jwynia
Written May. 31, 2007 / Report /
I'm actually curious about better alternatives as well. My current need/intent is:
WYSIWYG editor in browser for use by people who are 55+ in age. I need XHTML as the output from that as I'll be applying XSLT to the result to get DocBook XML for further downstream processing for eventual inclusion in PDF for print-on-demand publishing.
Obviously, since the content will go through many transformations before reaching its destination, having clean HTML in the first place is critical. I need to know that whatever users do with the HTML editor, it will work consistently with the XSLT.
rickcurran
Written Jun. 1, 2007 / Report /
Not sure how it compares to the output from the two editors mentioned already but I use WYSIWYG Pro on my blog - www.wysiwygpro.com. It doesn't do perfect code but overall I like all the features it has. I'm still on the look out for a perfect match though.
Standards-schmandards.com has a good evaluation of various editors, it's worth a read, Evaluation of WYSIWYG editors (2007).