WYSIWYG Text Editor

[Paul]

Hi there,

I wouldn't call this unique per se, but I bet there are enough interested people out there that would really like this hack.

The following is a link to an open source WYSIWYG editor that works on IE 5.5+. There is a demo page to test out, etc. here:

http://www.laneve.com/Tech/XSDHEditor/

It seems pretty easy to add into vb... perhaps with a way to detect IE 5.5+? I'll have to test it in netscape and see if it works at all. At the least it would make for a great usercp option.

Paul

[Paul]

Anyone else interested in something like this?

[The Ghost]

hi,

sounds good!

Greetz

The Ghost

[Velocd]

Looks fairly interesting, I wouldn't mind having an option to click an image button and asking you to browse for the file. Although I'm not sure how well this would integrate into Vbulletin, since its DHTML, and also might run alittle slow.

I wouldn't really call it a WYSIWG either, its just a simple text editor, just more functions then the one Vbulletin already has.

edit: this would be fairly interesting actually...I'll look into it, I'm sure its beyond what I can do..but..

Also VB3 may include these features, and maybe not, who knows.

[Paul]

Originally posted by Velocd
I wouldn't really call it a WYSIWG either, its just a simple text editor, just more functions then the one Vbulletin already has.

Well, as far as WYSIWYG, I mean applying bold text will make the text in the editor appear bold This is a great option for those who don't mind sacrificing the slow load time for the ease of use. See www.gossamer-threads.com's forum for an example of how a similar editor could be employed.

Features can be removed or added. I wouldn't necessarily want people who use this editor to have more options, just a different display that's easier to visualize than [] tags. However, the justification tags do look like something that could be added easily into vbcode.

I attempted to hack this into vb myself by tinkering with the code and using the replaceTags properties, however adding more than one tag to replace seemed to make IE6 hang.

I posted a message on the developer's web site and haven't seen any responses yet. I'm not sure if he's actively developing this.

It seems very promising though, and any progress you could make would be greatly appreciated. I know there are a lot of people (at least on my forum) who would really like an editor such as this.

Thanks!
Paul

[Velocd]

Its absolutely a great idea and I'm surpised forums are still using this code/button click then, its an outdated way if you think about it. Why use code tags like like italics [i] or bold [b], when you could simply do it the way every text editor program does it by hitting a button. Your not scripting anything or writing in a authoring language, its just a simple document and should be easier on the person using it. I admit, using the tags at some points is very fast, but you could also make a WYSIWYG editor like this and implement it to use code tags also.

I just spent about 45 minutes tickering with the code and trying to hardcode it alittle into my forums, but about as far as I got was putting it in my main forum directory . I'm just not that great of a coder to tackle a big project like this yet, but I hope somebody does. It would be a shame if VB3 came out and still used the old way of doing things..tsk tsk, so primitive

[Paul]

The only problem with the way this particular editor works, as opposed to other solutions (mostly commercial) out there, is that it depends on internal functions of internet explorer to work (meaning, it will not work with netscape and other browsers).

From a little digging into the msdn site at microsoft.com, it appears that the code used to create this editor will only output html... so the html must then be converted to vBcode.. something which would be relatively simple to do and is already somewhat possible with the existing code in the editor.

Unfortunately, for some reason when you specify more than one replaceTag, the thing hangs. I think it's a scripting problem with the thing itself, but I'm not really sure what language it's written in. It almost looks like c++.

I'll dig around and see if I can get in touch with the author over the hangs.

Paul

[Velocd]

It's not C++, I can tell you that. It looks like Javascript, or maybe DHTML? The title of it is "XS DHTML Editor".