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.

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.

I'm spending time Friday and this weekend upgrading the software I use to run CMSReport.com. You'll have to excuse the mess as I'm working with a lot of themes/modules for Drupal 6 that are still under development. Feel free to report problems below, but note that the WYSIWYG for comments is currently offline. working but considered under "test mode".

Bryan

I'm in the middle of switching the text editor on CMS Report from FCKeditor to TinyMCE. Both are fine WYSIWYG editors, but I have seen some problems lately so this is a good time to try something different. The text editor is available to those who have open a free account here at CMS Report. The CSS in the Drupal theme I'm using isn't quite compatible with the TinyMCE editor so I'll be doing some tweaking in the next week or so.

During the past few months, I've been getting inquiries about how to place an ad on this site. If you are one of those people, I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back to you in a timely manner. I've been a little more focused on just getting the content out there as well as working on some usability issues for visitors here at the site. I plan on looking at some options and in a couple weeks should have a "how to place ads" page up here at CMSReport.com. If someone would like suggest an option, please feel free to leave a comment here or send an e-mail through the contact page.

As always, I'm open to suggestions for improving the site as well as criticism. A lot of people in IT don't like to hear complaints, but I'm not one of those people. Without good quality criticism, it's difficult make necessary improvements.

"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

"This version /2.3.2/ is another important step to consolidate the well known quality of FCKeditor. Bugs have been fixed and a few interesting new features are being introduced."

Complete Story

In case you missed the news, the Website for FCKeditor is now using the Drupal content management system (CMS). FCKeditor is a HTML text editor with a WYSIWYG interface and is commonly utilized in Web-based applications. The following was posted at the FCKeditor site:

We're proud to announce that, from today, the FCKeditor web site is running over Drupal, one of the best Open Source CMSs out there. After a long research, Drupal has proved to be the best solution to handle our half a million page views monthly, with flexibility and reliability.

This important change will make it possible to provide even better services to our community.

Ironically, the Drupal module for the FCKeditor hasn't been fully released for Drupal 4.7, the latest version of the CMS. The module documentation for 4.7 cites that the "integrated file management needs lot of manual configuration". Luckily for Drupal 4.7 users, the Drupal module for TinyMCE has been available for some time. TinyMCE is an alternative HTML text editor and in some ways could be considered FCKeditor's "main competitor". Here at CMS Report...we like both editors fairly evenly.

I'm working on an ecommerce site using osCommerce to enable the shopping cart functionality for my client's online store. This is the first time I've used osCommerce so I'm still working on improving my comfort level with the application. osCommerce is open source and released under the GNU General Public License. According to the osCommerce site:

osCommerce has attracted the largest community for an e-commerce solution that consists of over 106,100 store owners and developers worldwide with add-ons being contributed on a daily basis. To date there are over 3,500 add-ons available that have been created by the community to extend the features of an osCommerce online store.

Those numbers are impressive, but in my opinion the coding practices of the application are definitely showing its six year legacy of software development. While I have found osCommerce to work out-of-the-box, I must say that I'm surprised that most mods require hacking into the core application. I've been spoiled by working with more "modern" CMS applications with convenient API's and making changes through modules/plugins instead of modifying the core. However, I'm a newbie to osCommerce so maybe there is more to it than meets the eye.

osCommerce by default does not offer a graphical text editor for entering descriptions of products. While my client does know a little bit of HTML, he would prefer to have a WYSIWYG user interface. So naturally I looked at using TinyMCE or FCKeditor to edit the textareas. I like and have used both text editors, but decided to use FCKeditor for this project. No particular reason I chose FCKeditor over TinyMCE except that I didn't need two editors.

• Geeklog 1.4.0sr5-1 is available as a complete tarball, as an upgrade from 1.4.0sr5, and as a combo update from any previous 1.4.0 release.
• Geeklog 1.3.11sr7-1 is available as an upgrade from 1.3.11sr7 and as a combo update from any previous 1.3.11 release.

Please note that when using the 1.4.0 "combo" update, you will also have to remove some files to fix the security issue with FCKeditor's file manager, as explained in the included README file."

[Geeklog]