By martinki on

There has been some discussion in the past of which text editor to use with Drupal. On our site (http://www.creditimobiliar.ro) we currently use TinyMCE and I find myself disabling the editor most of the times I post so I here's another option (maybe - will be testing tomorrow).

I came across the Dojo Editor Widget (soon to be part of Dojo 0.2 release) and thought wow - ajax, cross browser (degrades well?)...and a Drupal-compatible licence (if I understand right): Academic Free License (http://opensource.org/licenses/afl-2.1.php).

link to demo here:
http://dojotoolkit.org/archive/dojo-2005-11-07/demos/widget/Editor.html

and description here:
http://dojotoolkit.org/docs/rich_text.html

via:
http://www.ajaxian.com/archives/2005/11/dojo_rich_wysiw.html

There have been a couple of other discussions related to choice of editor but I thought best to start a new topic and refer since this I didn't see a previous mention for this. Previous editor related discussions here:
http://drupal.org/node/18567
http://drupal.org/node/22069

Comments

cel4145’s picture

cel4145 commented

definitely seems like a nice alternative. I use TinyMCE. While it has been an improvement over my previous experience with HTMLarea, I'm always looking for something better.

factoryjoe’s picture

factoryjoe commented

But then again, I'm not only biased but have been recommending that Drupal use Dojo for a long time. Oh well.

But yeah, its design principles are extremely valiant: basically, don't make the browser crash!

And -- I think it supports various import formats as filters... Very nice.

Would *love* to see this get into Drupal.

drofnar’s picture

drofnar commented

Yes, I definitely agree with you Martinki. I saw the dojo editor demo via ajaxian.com also and it looks excellent. Ive been keeping an eye out for a better editor - wikiwyg and synchroedit looked neat, But having seen the dojo editor, thats the best Ive seen to date, safe & robust - follows the "it just works" philosophy.

I also agree with Factoryjoe, the dojo toolkit keeps on getting better and better. The approach seems very well thought out, degrades, isnt heavy and is highly regarded among the ajax community.

Whatever it would be nice to have Drupal adopt a good set of ajax tools that the community can build upon. my small vote would be for dojo as part of that.

rnsi’s picture

rnsi commented

Win98 w/ IE5.5 doesn't work at all at that demo site. Just JS errors. Looks good though in FireFox. I'll wait for the next version to see if there's better compatibility.

Maniac8888’s picture

Maniac8888 commented

Win98? You must be joking.

rnsi’s picture

rnsi commented

Problem?

Maniac8888’s picture

Maniac8888 commented

No, not at all. Looking for Win98 compatability however is a challenge as its not particularly in the mainstream any longer.

rnsi’s picture

rnsi commented

It's not the OS, it's the browser. Works fine on Win98 w/ IE6. I'm just not ready to enforce an IE6 or newer policy. Maybe in another year or so. There's still a lot of older machines out there, and I feel it's wrong for the web designer to demand what browser I should be using. It's my job as a designer to be sure that the VAST majority can see the sight at least without errors.

nathandigriz’s picture

nathandigriz commented

What about the security holes in 5.5? I think nowadays the reason for upgrading has very little to do with browser code support and more to do with dealing with security attacks.

I wonder if using Dojo would make it seem as though all the 4.7 ajax work is a waste?

zach harkey’s picture

zach harkey commented

rnsi, I think you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

There is a huge difference between enforcing a modern browser on the general public just so they can view a website, and specifying a modern browser for advanced content administration.

"I give my users a choice. It works with all browsers by default. However, if you want all kinds of rich text and deluxe formatting options, you need to update your browser. It takes 5 minutes, it's free, and it's more secure. Again, you don't have to, it's just an option."

I'll let you guess what my conversion ration is.

Latest browser statistics show IE 5 use at 5.6% anyway. While that makes it worthwhile to support for access and viewing, I have no problem burning the bridge when it comes to an admin tool.

-zach
------------------------
harkey design

: z

rnsi’s picture

rnsi commented

While I somewhat agree with your statements, I don't feel that 5.5 is THAT old to force a user to upgrade. I don't bother doing any testing on IE4 anymore, but I feel I should at least go back one version.

I don't feel it's my right / job / responsibility to tell you what browser you must use in order to view my site. What if you're on a mac? or *nix? I just tried to use the demo with Opera 7.54u1, no good at all. I realize there's a newer version, but not everyone's going to have it, or in the case of lack of administrative privilages, not everyone will be able to upgrade.

The reason for not upgrading doesn't matter...I have a message to tell so I need to tell it in a way that the widest audience can hear it.

As far as security concerns - so what. If you're pc is at risk because of the software you use, that doesn't affect me or my site. Obviously when there are security holes in a popular product (just about anything Microsoft), you *should* upgrade. I didn't because 5.5 works faster on my older hardware. That's my risk, not the web developer's.

It would be great if everyone had IE6 or the latest FireFox installed, then our lives would be so much easier - no more cross browser testing. But until the browsers get closer to each other in the way they render, I'm not willing to get too fancy.

As for WYSIWYG editing, I use HTMLArea and feel it's better for compatibility reasons. I do like Dojo in IE6, if I find some free time maybe I'll tweak it to degrade to HTMLArea.

Toe’s picture

Toe commented

Doesn't degrade as well as TinyMCE for Opera. With TinyMCE it at least leaves you with an editable text box. On that demo under Opera, I can see the text, but can't edit it.

behindthepage’s picture

behindthepage commented

I downloaded the kitchen sink distro, made a page exactly as directed in http://dojotoolkit.org/docs/rich_text.html#id6 and put it in the Editor_files folder but I can't get it to work.

Can't find any documentation on it anywhere.

Any Suggestions?

gpdinoz
"If we can see further it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants"

Regards
Geoff

behindthepage’s picture

behindthepage commented

I have got it to work editing divs but not textareas. I have emailed the developers.

May have missed something or done something stupid.

gpdinoz
"If we can see further it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants"

Regards
Geoff

Dublin Drupaller’s picture

Dublin Drupaller commented

Hi and thanks for posting that..

It looks very slick. Anyone tried incorporating that into Drupal yet?

love the simplicity and tidyness of it..

Dub

Currently in Switzerland working as an Application Developer with UBS Investment Bank...using Drupal 7 and lots of swiss chocolate