CMS: Support for WYSIWYG editing?

Hi,

As far as I know, there are two solutions to let users add contents to a web site through a CMS:

- The CityDesk way, which is WYSIWYG but requires generating the whole site before uploading it to a remote web server. Here, the site is static.

- The server-side CMS, where users are expected to type raw text in a textarea. They must not prepare their contribution in a WYSIWYG HTML editor, as those do not generated raw content, but rather add the HTML stuff necessary for a single, stand-alone document... which we don't want it this article is to be delivered through the CMS.

So... do you know of any good server-side CMS that offers a WYSIWYG interface to users, either as an enhanced web browser (HTMLEDIT box?) or a dedicated client app that sends contents over the wire to the CMS through eg. WebDAV or XML-RPC/SOAP?

Thanks for any tip

Frederic Faure
Saturday, October 11, 2003

http://www.richtextbox.com
is a .Net WYSIWYG HTML-editing component. Not sure if this helps.

Philo

Philo
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Thx Philo for the tip :-) Unfortunately, Richtextbox only runs with IIS + .Net. If I can help it, I'd rather use a non-proprietary solution.

Do CMS makers _really expect_ users to type pages of text in a textarea? :-)

Frederic Faure
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Non-proprietary? Or non-Microsoft?
"Nonproprietary" is really going to limit your options for CMS.

Philo

Philo
Saturday, October 11, 2003

There is a Flash-based WYSIWYG HTML editor that I've seen, used, and like. Unfortunately, the name eludes me, but I'm sure Google can give up the ghost.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Download Radio and install it, it's got a JavaScript WYSIWYG editor that launches in your browser, IE only. So does eBay. It uses the same dhtmledit control that CityDesk does. You can call it from a web page.

There are some others that use this DHTML Edit control.

Actually, I'm not positive about Radio, it might be the pay version of Frontier. I played with it a bit, and was able to isolate the code that did it, you should be able to take that and learn how to do it yourself.

www.MarkTAW.com
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Radio does have it. RichTextBox (recommended above) is a .NET wrapper around it.

The Flash based one is a little more universally accessible, if you can't dictate the browser.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Yeah... that Flash version would have that benefit huh.

www.MarkTAW.com
Sunday, October 12, 2003

Here's one that's available for free.  It works only under IE, though:  http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/documentation.html?htmlarea#intro1

Herbert Sitz
Sunday, October 12, 2003

Thx for the tips :-)

As for Radio, I tried a few times... but, besides the occasional GPF, I could never figure it out. It seems filled with features, and couldn't find a good tutorial to figure it out. Maybe I'll give it another try.

Does anyone have experience with XML-RPC? Should I just forget about building a VB app that sends contents to a web server through this protocol?

Frederic Faure
Sunday, October 12, 2003

No CMS, but it's an excellent 100% script WYSIWYG client-side editor. It's also pretty inexpensive and is developer-based licensing, not server-based -- you can use it in as many projects as you like with just the one $70 license. I use it in several applications, and have found the source quite easy to modify (it's javascript). It requires IE pretty much like all the others, but has no server requirements. The samples use an ASP-based image browser, but you can replace that with a PHP version or you can run ASP on another platform, if supported by your host. I have rewritten the image browser myself to suit different purposes. It's also realistic to use it without the image browser.

Troy King
Sunday, October 12, 2003

Frederic -- I don't think it uses XML-RPC, but are you talking about an application like this one?:

http://www.powerblog.net/

Herbert Sitz
Sunday, October 12, 2003

{cough}  try http://www.objective2k.com/AccessEdit

Simon Lucy
Sunday, October 12, 2003

For another WYSIWYG XHTML-compliant editing component with an appealing price (free) and an awfulk name, try fckeditor at  http://www.fredck.com/FCKeditor/

David Walker
Sunday, October 12, 2003

Thx a bunch everyone :-) Don't know if TTW editing is good enough for anything longer than a few paragraphs, in which case I'll have to look into some dedicated app.

Thx again for the tips.

Frederic Faure
Sunday, October 12, 2003

Mozilla/Firebird also has an good editor (Mozile).

For a good web based CMS check out Plone.

fool for python
Sunday, October 12, 2003

Thx. I know about Zope and Plone, but I was looking for a simple way to input rich text. Textarea just isn't the best word processor around :-)

I guess Mozile is just a regular WYSIWYG HTML editor? In that case, we're back to square one: How to allow users to add contents through a CMS, ie. no hard-coded HTML.

Frederic Faure
Sunday, October 12, 2003

IE 5.5 or later:

  <div ContentEditable='true'>edit me :-)</div>

(in fact this is all richtextbox.com and htmlarea are)

Duncan Smart
Monday, October 13, 2003

Thx Duncan for the tip. It didn't work on IE 6. I assume you have to install sthing else, but I'll check into this.

Frederic Faure
Monday, October 13, 2003

  Recent Topics

  Fog Creek Home