Integrate jQuery-based Markup Editor in Drupal

The debate on whether Drupal should have a WYSIWYG editor has raged and raged.
We should NOT restart that debate here, have a search of the forum archives for a history of that discussion.
One thread...
http://drupal.org/node/81053

A brief synopsis suggests that it won't be included in core, hence the simple won't fix on this issue.

The preferred option is to build a contrib module that offers this fucntionality, and individual site developers can decide whether they want to use it.

Alan

The general concensus for what gets into core is "If it's not already in Core and can be done as a module without putting it in core, then it doesn't belong in Core". That's not a strict rule, but that's a good guideline. A WYSIWYG edit can be implemented outside of core, therefore it should be left as an optional component.

That said, I think the new jQuery-based editor would make a fine module. I believe there is work on making a support module for such WYSIWYG editors that would make selecting which textareas to make WYSIWYG easier and more reliable. I forget what the issue queue is for it, but it's around somewhere. :-) You probably want to find it and get involved with that effort.

Hello,

A WYMeditor module for Drupal 4.7 is on its way. It is based on WYMeditor 0.2, which is not using JQuery.
It will be uploaded on CVS within a few days.
Feel free to come and test it as soon as it is online ;-)

Regards.
Frederic

I checked that editor out and it seems decent. Once 0.3 (jQuery-based) is going, I agree that this would make a nice contrib module addition. It's about time to have a jQuery-based WYSIWYG editor. Thanks for the heads up.

Utilize jQuery for editor is a very smart idea. This approach will give us:
- very small library because tinymce/fckeditor size about 2 - 3 MB!
- since Drupal 5.x contains jQuery by default then there is no reason to reject editor in the Drupal core :)
- Dupal will have core and contributed editor. Who doesn't like the editor then have choice to use a contributed editor.

I believe other CMS that based on jQuery like Joomla, will utilize jQuery for their editor feature.

Very smart idea!

A WYSIWYG can live happily in contrib and all the better it uses jQuery (although that is not the only reason in deciding whether or not to include it it in core)! With installation profiles we can easily create a Drupal install with this editor for a blog profile or corporate profile so this is best left for contrib.

I personally like jWYSIWYG. Very lightweight and easy to use. Could work in both core or contrib. If WYSIWYG does go into core, I think this is the best candidate, as it's GPL, and very small.

jWYSIWYG is now called markitup. It's certainly a nice looking editor, but isn't true WYSIWYG. I was under the impression that people didn't want an editor that shows code. :)

Gabor's D7 battle plan also has some useful information on this topic.

Looks very nice....

I have been playing with markitup and i too think it is a perfect candidate for core WYSIWYP (what you see is what you preview). I'll play with it a bit more and contribute some more on this topic.

It is still very much in its incipient stages, and only about two weeks old, but I do have a D6 (haven't tested with D7) module for markItUp currently in development (in CVS).

The current state of this markitup module is "functional but not feature rich" - mostly due to considering how to tackle issues surrounding the targetting of textareas and the tying of editor profiles to input formats. I'd love to have more eyes on it. And should it be considered for inclusion in core, I'd of course be happy to work towards that end and get more people involved in the development, and if not, would be happy to continue working on it as I have been.

Here's what the markItUp! module has going for it:
1. It provides buttons for inserting or wrapping content with tags. (It doesn't monkey with your content without being expressly under your control, unlike a WYSIWYG editor.)
2. It provides a live preview that behaves a lot like the split view in Dreamweaver - except you can't edit the "WYSIWYG" area, though you do get a realtime-like preview.
3. It provides keyboard shortcuts for inserting or applying tags (eg. highlight some text, hit ctrl+b and it'll wrap the highlighted text with strong tags)
4. It provides a pluggable system for adding in sets (buttons and shortcuts), and skins (editor themes) which seems very Drupalish to me.
5. It's lightweight and based on jQuery. (Read more and see a demo of the markItUp plugin (MIT/GPL) that the module integrates into Drupal.)

Subscribe. Hope there will be only ONE thread about this feature very soon... there are so many issues and i don't know what is the most important one and what will win the race :-).

If WYSIWYPreview is good enough for core, then markItUp gets a +1 from me. Am also hoping to help a bit with the contrib module for use on my own site. The contrib project could probably do with some guidance on how to 'groom' it for inclusion in core. Overall the editor does seem very Drupal-ish in its philosophy.

I checked the examples page of markItUp and i wonder why HTML is visible to users. A WYSIWYG Editor is for non technical users that do not understand HTML at all. If you must press a preview button to see the "word" like view - i'm sure this will never go in D7.

jWYSIWYG is now called markitup. It's certainly a nice looking editor, but isn't true WYSIWYG. I was under the impression that people didn't want an editor that shows code. :)

I can't see the link between jWYSIWYG and markitup, except that they both use the jQuery library. I think they are still separate projects. I would agree with the impression that most naive users don't want an editor that shows code, so I would have thought that jWYSIWYG should still be in the running.

I can't see the link between jWYSIWYG and markitup, except that they both use the jQuery library.

Yeah, sorry about that. That's what it used to say on the markitup site, obviously that was incorrect and the information has been removed from the site. At the time jWYSIWYG looked un-maintained, but it's been updated since then.

jWYSIWYG does look a better fit for Drupal than markitup IMO.

No worries! Perhaps it's not incorrect anyway and markitup is a fork of an earlier version of jWYSIWYG, or an earlier version of markitup was based on jWYSIWYG, but now the two have diverged so much that there is no meaningful link. And despite the recent jWYSIWYG release, markitup does look more supported, though I have to say I haven't tried either of them. Anyway, the key point (on which we seem to be agreed) is the type of user interface that's desired.

@egfrith I think perhaps the confusion may have arisen from the fact that markItUp derives from the jTagEditor (rather than jWYSIWYG, as was stated above).

My feelings are conflicted regarding WYSIWYG in core. Yes it's what the users want, but sometimes the users don't know what's best for them. (Only being halfway arrogant with that statement.) :)

Giving WYSIWYG to users feels like the Windows way (which isn't always bad): for the sake of immediate ease-of-use you provide a tool that isn't very exacting and doesn't do much to allow the user to self-learn and empower themselves. In short, it's not transparent.

On the otherhand, with WYSIWYP (where the P = preview), you can enable users to empower themselves and to learn (which is the *nix way!). But there is a cost - some users will be put off.

There is no one-size-fits all, we need to be careful regarding what ends up in core. My personal sentiment is that a WYSIWYG editor in core would need to be very limited in scope. I've done sites for users that provide TinyMCE with most of the buttons enabled, and that usually ends up going poorly for the users/sites. 1. the users don't know HTML which, paradoxically, you need to know to figure out why the WYSIWYG editor behaves as it does (eg. "I want this text large, so I hit H1, but why does that turn the whole paragraph huge?"), 2. some sites are designed so that the theming and placement of node fields determine the page layout and presentation. A fully-featured WYSIWYG often encourages too much user attention to presentation, which works counter to what a _content_ management system is all about. This leads me to the opinion that a WYSIWYG editor in core ought to be limited. Strong, em, bullet lists, hyperlinks, images, maybe headers... can't think of much else I'd want in there.

Many of the issues noted in the previous paragraph are avoided using a WYSIWYP editor, which by it's nature encourages novice users to focus on content rather than markup. For instances where special markup is necessary, the site developer can fairly easily extend the editor to provide custom buttons that include markup with the desired classes applied, or etc. That's something one can't easily do with a WYSIWYG editor... And that's very attractive to me.

I'd be happy having either in core, but there is an implicit statement being made about content depending on the tool we provide. It's like giving a person a piece of paper and handing them either a pen or colored pencils and saying have at it. You'll likely get something very different, depending on which tool the person received.

Interesting D8 material. Would a good first step be to get this into http://drupal.org/project/wysiwyg?

wymeditor is supported by Wysiwyg module for a long time already.

D8 plans are different. Search the net for Drupal Spark.