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DrupalCon San Francisco 2010

wysiwyg

Cool Mint Editor by FlashMint

Karen Myers's picture
By Karen Myers - Posted on 02 March 2010

While Flash CMS is probably the best way to create a fancy, multi-functional website, there is always a chance to improve the user experience in website management. With exactly this purpose in mind FlashMint has released Mint Editor – a new offline content management software to edit and customize FlashMint XML templates at ease.

MintEditor - Logo

Revisiting WYSIWYG with mojoPortal 2.3.1.5

Bryan's picture
By Bryan - Posted on 27 August 2009

Although you wouldn't expect an application with the version number of 2.3.1.5 to contain anything but bug fixes, in the world of mojoPortal almost every release contains new features for the CMS. mojoPortal 2.3.1.5 is no different with a number of changes centered around rich text editors (WYSIWYG). TinyMCE has replaced FCKeditor as mojoPortal's primary text editor.

Tiny MCE Editor Rises To The Top

For a long time now the FCKeditor has been the best editor available out of the box in mojoPortal. It was the only one with the ability to browse and upload images and files, it was the only one with integration for our Content Template System and Content Style System, and it was the only one with a spelling checker. Not anymore! I had not upgraded the Tiny MCE editor in a long time, I had tried to once and it broke and I was busy so I reverted to the working version. But recently we've been having some issues with FCKeditor so I decided to give the Tiny MCE upgrade another try.

Joe Audette, mojoPortal developer, writes that FCKeditor fans shouldn't feel like they're being left behind. mojoPortal also supports the CKEditor. The makers of FCKeditor realizing that the code base for their RTE was more than six years old and needing improvements began CKEditor as its replacement. CKEditor focuses on features such as accessibility and performance improvements that weren't quite there for FCKeditor.

Besides changes for TinyMCE and CKEditor, mojoPortal 2.3.1.5 also includes these enhancements:

  • New Permissions Tab in site settings
  • NeatUpload 1.3.18 upgrade
  • The DOCTYPE changed to Html 5 for included skins
  • The default 90 days allowed to comment on a new post post can be changed
  • Removed Site Office
  • New translations include Hebrew and Polish. The German translation has been updated.

AuroraFlash - Free Flash CMS

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By auroraflash - Posted on 06 August 2009

What is AuroraFlash Site Builder?

AuroraFlash site builder is your desktop flash WYSIWYG editor allowing to build fantastic flash websites without any special skills, additional software of flash animation knowledge. The concept is very simple and the tools are unbelievably powerful. The main goal of the project is to provide simple, free yet professional program to anyone willing to create flash site.

free flash WUSIWYG editor

Now you don't have to be flash guru or computer geek. Anyone can make flash website in 30 minutes, even your grandma. All you have to do is to download free AuroraFlash Builder and switch on your imagination.

Working in Visual Design mode allows you to create flash site and make all necessary changes on the fly. The application interface is as simple as possible. We did our best to make the process of website development more than intuitive. To master the basics of AuroraFlash you have to spend about 20 minutes. User friendly site creator wizard walks you through all steps of making new site. If you want to change any aspect of the site you can always roll back without the risk of data loss.

User friendly, free, professional are 3 best epithets characterizing our Flash Site Builder.

After the Deadline: Contextual Spell Checking

Bryan's picture
By Bryan - Posted on 02 June 2009

Logo for After the DeadlineRaphael Mudge sent us an email on his latest project, After the Deadline.

I'm a computer scientist working to fill a gap in current CMS feature sets.  It isn't a new social or wireless feature.  I'm working to bring spelling, style, and grammar checking to web applications.  The technology is available for WordPress and the Open Source TinyMCE editor.

After the Deadline is an exciting plugin that adds a much needed feature often missing in most CMS rich text editors. After the Deadline currently supports plugins for TinyMCE and Wordpress. Some additional bullet points behind the plugin include: 

  • Corrects spelling with 90% accuracy
  • Checks 1,500 words for misuse
  • Finds grammar errors
  • Improves writing style
  • All plugins are licensed under the LGPL

Deal of the Year: Drupal Wysiwyg API for $30

Bryan's picture
By Bryan - Posted on 01 March 2009

I've been using the contributed Drupal module WYSIWYG API since last Fall. Although the module is open source and free (offered under the GPL), I feel like I got it for a steal at $30 USD.

One of the most frequent criticisms by new users of Drupal has been that the content management system doesn't include a rich text editor (WYSIWYG) in its core. Historically, the core developers have opted to include an RTE option through contributed modules.  While the use of non-core Drupal modules for implementing WYSIWYG in Drupal is fine, the development pace, availability, and implementation of a particular RTE module (FCKEditor, TinyMCE, etc) has often varied when major versions of Drupal are released.

The Wysiwyg API attempts to improve the implementation and consistency of RTE's in Drupal. The module is capable of supporting any kind of client-side editor as long as there are support files available to integrate the external library with Wysiwyg API. Editors currently supported by the module include FCKeditor 2.6, jWYSIWYG 0.5, markItUp 1.1.5, NicEdit 0.9.0, TinyMCE 3, TinyMCE 2, and Whizzywig 55 (download).

Up to this point much of the work has been done by Daniel F. Kudwien (known as "sun" in the Drupal community). Since Daniel has invested a huge number of hours on this project he has asked users of the module to voluntarily contribute to the project financially. For someone like me who is not a developer, nor has a lot of free time, giving financially is way of showing appreciation for the open source products you use.  Even the smallest financial support can help the community and future development of the software.

If you're not comfortable with donating to an indivudual developer in your open source project, if available, you should consider taking membership in the project's association or foundation.  For instance, this week I'll be renewing my membership in the Drupal Association.  Many of these open source groups such as the Drupal Association use the membership revenue to support the maintenance and growth of the infrastructure that Drupal.org runs on, as well as to produce various conferences and workshops around the planet.

MediaWiki plus FCKeditor: WYSIWYG for the wiki

Bryan's picture
By Bryan - Posted on 15 December 2008

A couple years ago we decided to use MediaWiki for a wiki implementation at work.  Wikipedia uses MediaWiki for their wiki application so we felt it was the right choice for our needs.  One concern my team had was that MediaWiki didn't come with a rich text editor (no WYSIWYG).

While a number of us may be fine with using wikitext or HTML to edit our wiki pages, I believe the majority in any organization prefers to edit their pages with a friendly user interface similar to that found on their word processor. At the time, we tried a number of solutions but found neither the suggested TinyMCE or FCKeditor implementation integrated that well with mediaWiki.   So for our project we settled with wikEd, an editor that still required users to work with wiki syntax but surprising a very good tool for most users.

During a lunch conversation last week with Deane Barker of Gadgetopia and Blend Interactive, I mentioned my frustrations with MediaWiki not having available a good WYSIWYG solution.  Deane suggested that I look at a more recent implementation of MediaWiki plus FCKeditor. This project is being supported by the developers of FCKeditor themselves.

FCKeditor: 1,500,000 downloads!

Bryan's picture
By Bryan - Posted on 14 January 2007

"Amazing numbers! After only 6 months of the announcement of our first million downloads, another half a million can now be added to that incredible milestone. Yes, one and a half million downloads [of FCKeditor]!"

Complete Story