WordPress.org

1. lhk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Hi,

   I'm very unsatisfied with the standard RTE editor coming with WP 2+. To say the truth, I'm *extremely* riled by it.

   Now I'm looking for input on which alternatives are out there and which are considered to be the best. My demands are actually pretty simple:

   - bold, underline, text positioning (left, right, center)
   - ability to input code
   and/or
   - ability to pre-define buttons
   - should be compatible with ImageManager of soderlind.no
   - no, NO, NONE, NADA code correction/change on insertion on its own! NONE OF THAT.
   - and with that goes: standard HTML input, no own "html language decisions"

   I've seen there are a variety of plugins/alternatives available. But I don't want to test-run all of them, so if anyone here has prior experience with what is offered, I'd truly appreciate your criticisms of the various alternatives.

   And no, I'm not talking about Quicktags, I truly do mean a normal wysiwyg editor.

2. Rok
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   There are many, check this link

3. lhk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Hi Rok,

   yep, I know there are many. Because there are many I'm asking people who favor one or the other to give me the critic they have on the ones they tried out or swear on using. :-)

4. resiny
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   blogdesk.org
   qumana.com

   both are good

5. lhk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Hi resiny,

   if I grasp this correctly, these are "offline" blogging clients?

   I will look into this as a possible solution. This might even be perfect for a totally different blog I had in mind.

   However, what I actually meant was a replacement of the in-built online RTE editor in WP. I'm looking for reviews of these:

   - ChenPress
   - EditorMonkey
   - Wysi-Wordpress
   - WYSIWYG
   - wysiwyg pro
   - Xinha
   - textile

   as compared to the current standard RTE editor in WP 2+. I need something which won't "run away" with the html, is configurable (esp. input buttons) and easy to deal with for a complete (really complete) blogging noob who doesn't know more than common Word.

   I place even more stress on clean insertion of tables into posts and no automatic re-writing.

6. lhk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Hi,

   I'm pulling this up again, as by now I tried Monkeyeditor and Chenpress, neither worked/worked as hoped for.

   With ME only the TinyMCE compatible version worked at all, and that just as badly as the in-built editor. The FCKeditor didn't play nice with Imagemanager (same in Chenpress) and the TinyMCE full version one inserted random code into the interface where it doesn't belong.

   So, I'm still at a loss with regards to a good wysiwyg editor for WP 2.0.

   My dream solution would be a Quicktags editor with a wysiwyg window. I haven't found anything like it, but it's the cleanest of all editors I tried so far.

   Any other recommendations?

   I'm also looking into the offline blogging clients, but haven't so far seen one which allows for editing of existing posts?

7. Ajay
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Hi lhk, do you really need a WYSIWYG?

   I've found the quicktags editor perfect for all needs. They WYSIWYG is just an unneeded addition to WP.

8. lhk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Hi Ajay,

   as I explained, this blog is not for me (I can write html even without Quicktags ;-)), it's for a client who is an absolute html noob. She has no knowledge whatsoever and is afraid of code.

   What truly exasperates me in that whole regard is, that the major other blog softwares like Nucleus or the online blogging services seem to all come up with wysiwyg editors which do not have the problem the WP one has: namely to insert faulty html and run havoc during repeated editing.

   If you have a close look at the html after a few basic edits of a post, you become quite sick. And that's absolutely needless. I remember - loooong, long ago - that even AOL's basic editor AOLPress managed to create working html. And I hate AOL, but dang it, they pulled that much off.

   I'm no programmer, but if you have a basic editor which produces halfway clean html like the Quicktags editor, it ought not to be a major problem, to use that syntax for a wysiwyg version of the same. Hey, even the Joomla people managed to pull it off ;-))

   And it's not as if this is a single complaint here, I've filched all other posts about this topic, it's irritating the hell out of people. Sigh.

9. Ajay
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   You got a valid point there.

   Check out Hoteditor at http://www.ecardmax.com/index.php?step=Hoteditor

   It looks good, you can try and give it a shot

   Edit: It doesn't generate XHTML, so it can be a problem :(

10. lhk
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Hi Ajay,

    unfortunately this one ties only into phpBB and SMF, not Wordpress.

    At that precise moment I don't care about XHTML, plain ole HTML would suffice for me. But clean HTML at that...

    Thanks for the input, anyone else have an idea yet?

11. lhk
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Oh, and just for the fun of it, this is what someone like this answers, if you ask "how would you feel using code directly?":

    "Please note: I know NOTHING about creating or publishing data on the internet. Nothing. I don't know what is HTML code. I know only that html is written at the end of some webpage addresses."

    That's meant word for word exactly as it's written and not to be cute. And that's not the only client who tells me the like. So in my book creating/having a wysiwyg editor which works cleanly is really a priority.

12. LiverpoolLad
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    This is a good thread as I've struggled a little bit with the WP 2,02 editor especially using IE.

    In fact I've never used a wysiwyg editor having always worked in html - and I'll admit I found the WP editor a little fiddly to use.

    For instance, I'm trying out html mark ups but have written in html and when saved, I noticed that I'd left some tags on there which I never wanted. I guess I never closed them using the little buttons which could be redesigned to make it easier to see when one is actually active.

    What would have taken me two minutes to do scrawling up some easy html has taken me an hour of editing the html mark ups thrown up.

    I'm going to spend a few hours checking this out as it is the most important part of WordPress. The average user wants some sort of easy word processing editing capability that is easy to use. I think a clearer GUI (a graphical user interface) might be called for as those buttons are small and I strain to look at them like 40% of people with not the greatest eyesight.

    I think I'm having issues with IE6 and editing posts, but I'll report back and give a proper verdict on the editing control panel.

13. lhk
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Hi Liverpoollad,

    what gives me the willies is how liberal the editor is with sprinkling tags around no one ever wanted, or to not remove those you want to remove (even when doing it in the html popup).

    If I was to grade this editor by normal wysiwygs, I'd say it's on a worse level than the Word WWW editor, it doesn't even begin to touch Frontpage and it sure as hell is no Dreamweaver.

    What we truly need is something self-restricted as Dreamweaver.

14. LiverpoolLad
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Lhk, I think the editor is sprinkling html about because we are not closing the tags in the editor.

    I've tried to patiently use the limited mark ups on the wysiwyg editor, they do work, but is not easy to see what tag needs closing, just a little drop shadow on the button.

    I've also added all the heading tags in the html and that works fine in IE.

    The problem, I think, is the fact you have to hit a button to start a tag, then write your words, then close it.

    It also uses maybe the easier way of adding mark ups by highlighting what you want marked up then clicking the bold or whatever. WordPress does this to add an html link, so why not use that way to add the other html mark ups?

    Either that or have some better GUI that shows users which mark up is open. Bigger buttons would be better.

15. AdventureDad
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    I've been using Mudbomb's (www.mudbomb.com) WYSI editor for almost a year and I've found nothing that comes remotely close. I think the WP 2 editor is horrible and it's not enough for my needs. I don't want to do lots of coding in my posts and Mudbomb's editor saves me tons of time. It uses iimage-browser for all images which is perfect for me. I can do thumbnails with many differnt options, resize/resample, wrap text, and do everything I need in seconds. Html editing of text is very easy and I don't miss any functions. It's very easy to install and Mudbomb is helpful when it comes to support.

    I'm not sure if this might be something for you but I think it's the best WYSI editor out there.

    AD

16. lhk
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Hi LiverpoolLad,

    I believe we are talking about two different editors. I am talking about the WYSIWYG editor bundled with WP, you seem to talk about the Quicktags one.

    There's nothing about closing or not closing tags, which riles me. It's about sprinkling needlessly 's or about stripping out <div>'s or about entering a wild nested mess of <font> tags, once the post gets saved.

    Also - a WYSIWYG editor has to be so robust, that a noob can use it (as it's meant for noobs, I never ever use WYSIWYG editors myself) and NOT produce a mess or at least only a small one.

    I'm talking about very simple stuff here:

    - bold/unbold
    - underline/un-underline
    - align/unalign left/right/center
    - edit text in a table
    - align thumbnails and pictures

    That's truly not much to ask, que no? Offline WYSIWYG editors 10 years ago managed to pull that much off without creating such an abysmal tagsoup and I just tested the Wysi-editors for Serendipity, Nucleus, Textpattern and Dotclear, they curiously all manage that much.

    By now I'm convinced that it's the interplay of WP and the editor which creates this curious behaviour. Sigh.

17. LiverpoolLad
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    The visual rich editor or VRE is the culprit. When turned on, I could not edit the html, but with it turned off, all my woes are like water under the bridge.

    I've used the the VRE under a few IE6 versions up to the latest, IE 7 Beta 2 and FF 1.5 just in case it was a browser issue.

    What we need is for the people who work under the hood to spend a bit of time looking at this issue.

    I've had an Ie6 page crash which I put down to something the visual rich editor was doing in the mark up. Once I coded the page with the VRE turned off, the faults went away.

    The VRE was on by default, and for most users they will have no real isses with the VRE until they decide to mess about in the html editor that is included.

    I'm sure there is a fix, not least the use of a plug in perhaps, but it would be far better to just include it as standard, after all the editing facility is one of the most important as it is all that 99% of bloggers are able to use.

    Don't get me wrong, I love WordPress and am in no way criticising the people who make it. I just think the Visual Rich editor needs improving, not least on the issue of tags being thrown up which are not needed.

    If I can find the page that controls this, I doubt I would understand the code that makes it happen.

18. converting2wp
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    lhk - have you moved on? or do you have time to let us know whether you've found anything closer to an acceptable WYSIWYG editor for WordPress?

    I, too, have a strong need for WYSIWYG editing in my support for a *very* non-technical community.

19. Chris_K
    Administrator
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Ya know? I'd put my 60 year old dad in front of Windows Live Writer (beta) with no qualms... it's a windows client, but (relatively) seamlessly handles images and formatting.

20. vkaryl
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Beat me.... yup, second that Handy....

    [Omigoddess, I'm old enough to be your mother.... *sigh*]

21. computerfriend
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Hey, folks,
    I'm guessing that you all are talking about the TinyMCE editor that is "automatic" in WordPress. First let me say that I love WordPress and our blog is a testament to some of the nicer things that WordPress has done for us.
    HOWEVER, the implementation of TinyMCE is SO FLAWED that unless you are just posting one time for each article and not trying to do anything fancy, it is the screwiest most bug ridden awful thing that we've ever seen.

    This is not a criticism of the programmers who make WordPress, it is a request for a MAJOR POWWOW (a huge meeting of the minds) to decide that this is the largest bottleneck and biggest hurdle that WordPress faces.

    Why? Because it is one of the very worst features that WordPress has. Please go to my blog and look at this article-- you may have to type it in because I don't want people to think I am advertising, I am trying to help: 'www.artondisk.com/blog/?p=137'.

    That article could never be accomplished using TinyMCE because it ate the code up alive. I had to go into the Manage-- Users account and turn off the rich text editor to create that article. Actually, I had to set up a back room version of WordPress so I could get some of the code from the TinyMCE editor, and some of the code from using the regular interface. I don't know much HTML.

    What this means most of all is that I can't recommend WordPress to anyone I know because they just can't handle it. I can figure it out, but it is painful and time consuming. So, there it is. This program needs a major overhaul when it comes to general word processing and html creation. TinyMCE generates new code that clogs up the system, molests normal code, eats up code that should be left alone, and at one point created things that changed font sizes, made 20 or 30 new tags that weren't accurate, and just caused total mayhem. If I knew how to fix this I would do it in a heartbeat.

    Someone on the development team, please help all users! It would be the best thing you ever did for this outstanding program. Thanks!!

22. mathias_h
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    I've tried Mudbombs Wysiwyg and had to abondon it since it hasn't got support for the <!--more--> tag. EditorMonkey recently got scrapped, which was a shame since it was very promising. My strongest bet right now is WYSIWYG Pro from http://www.wysiwygpro.com. It looks really promising and $47 isn't extremly expensive. I'll probably buy it. I'll let you know how it works if no one else has tried it and writes about it before.

23. johnnyspade
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    I have purchased and used WYSIWYG Pro and can tell you it's the best of the editors currently available for WordPress and I have used most of them. What I like about it is that it does everything you need it to do and isn't cluttered up with stuff you don't. The image upload / management and document upload / management tools are very good and these were the 2 things I really needed. It also features a pretty nifty snippet tool which allows you to insert bits of HTML. I have this running on a client site and this gave them a nice way to insert bits of content based on HTMl that I had written. It doesn't beat FCK editor's insert template function but it's pretty close.

    The only downside is the $50 price tag. I'm not saying it's not worth it, it definitely is when I can bill it back on a project but I'm not certain I would foot the bill for my own site or blog. It really depends on how badly you want the easy image and document uploading.

24. mmcginnis
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    I'll add another bug to the built-in Wordpress editor - it automatically deletes out nbsp; (non-breaking space) tags if you type them in via the HTML pop-up editor, and doesn't honor space tags you type in to the WYSIWYG interface. I'm trying to upload poetry with bizarre spacing, and it's driving me crazy.

    Don't know where to go from here as no one seems happy with any but the $50 solution, but I'll let you know if I find anything.

25. kjarrett
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #

    Thanks for the pointer to Mudbomb's WYSIWYG. Seems to be working great for me. I run several blogs for our school. WYSIWYG Pro sounds appealing but so far the free WYSIWYG plugin may be enough for us! Thanks again.

    kj99gt

26. Xeoncross
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #

    I agree, the editor that has come with wordpress, uh... sucks.

    I can't stand editors that delete your own code in exchange for their own messed up font tags and in-valid syntax.

    Drupal and others like it have it right - let the user enter their own HTML or BBcode and only turn "\n" (line breaks) into <p> or %lt;br /> tags.

    And do the conversion when the post is shown! So that when you go back to edit it you don't have to delete code - you are right where you left the post.

    Simple, people - keep it simple. ;)

27. Chris_K
    Administrator
    Posted 2 years ago #

    Simple, people - keep it simple. ;)

    Users -> Your Profile. Uncheck the option to use the visual rich editor.

    You're seeing font tags added? Then you're not using the default VRE as delivered. Changing fonts isn't an option. Font tags usually show when folks cut and paste from Word...

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.