[WEB4LIB] RE: xhtml compliant WYSIWYG editor

[Jeph Remley]

Here at Kent State University Libraries & Media Services, we also built 
a CMS using PHP, and first added in Editize (http://www.editize.com/) as 
our WYSIWYG editor.  Over time we had Java problems, with the editor 
crashing for some of our content providers, locking up, etc...  Updating 
the JRE for staff members etc didn't always result in reliable fixes, so 
we decided to try another editor - DevEdit (http://www.editlet.com/). 
That editor seems to work ok, and I believe cranks out cleaner code (I 
haven't looked at the resulting code lately - I don't recall how clean 
it is), and seems more reliable.

We've actually given our content providers the option to choose between 
editors - they can set this along with other preferences as part of the CMS.

The two editors DO have their differences - how they render/develope 
unordered/ordered lists (especially when indenting embedded/sub-lists!), 
options when building a table (which, for the most part, we've blocked 
from the WYSIWYG options so our users can't use tables for layout 
purposes), etc.  If I remember right, Editize generated less-clean code 
than DevEdit.

We've also considered Editlet (http://www.editlet.com/), but realized we 
couldn't easily install a trial copy here for testing without more 
trouble than it may be worth at the moment.

 From the sounds of your msg, you're not looking for a Contribute or 
Dreamweaver type solution - you're actually looking for an application 
that can be incorporated into the code of your CMS?  (FWIW, I've notice 
some of the code generated by Contribute in our intranet pages isn't 
very clean either....was sort of surprise!)

Jeph Remley
Multimedia/Web Developer
Kent State University
Libraries & Media Services
Systems Dept
330 672 3090
jremley at lms.kent.edu




Wayne Graham wrote:
> If there's money in the budget, Contribute 3 is also a good product to
> use... 
> 
> Wayne
> 
> ========================
> http://support.swem.wm.edu/wayne/blog 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]
> On Behalf Of Leslie Hassett
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 12:19 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: xhtml compliant WYSIWYG editor
> 
> I have dreamweaver and am making sure I do that for the library pages but
> the other campus contributors do not have it and they must rely on the
> editor provided in the CMS.  Too bad!
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]
> On Behalf Of Pons, Lisa (ponslm)
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 9:09 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: xhtml compliant WYSIWYG editor
> 
> Excellent to be concerned: compliant code will only help you in the long
> run.
> 
> 
> Dreamweaver MX '04 will produce compliant code, but you have to set it up to
> do so.
> 
> Lisa
> 
> Lisa Pons-Haitz
> 
> Webmaster
> University Libraries
> University of Cincinnati
> lisa.pons at uc.edu
> (513)556-1431
> 
> 
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Leslie Hassett [mailto:lhassett at dwebb.llu.edu]
>>Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 11:50 AM
>>To: Multiple recipients of list
>>Subject: [WEB4LIB] xhtml compliant WYSIWYG editor
>>
>>
>>
>>First, let me say I appreciate this list and all the expertise 
>>represented here.
>>
>>I'm wondering if anyone knows of a "bug free" WYSIWYG editor that 
>>creates xhtml compliant code which could be integrated into a 
>>"homegrown" CMS. The CMS was created by our campus IT department and 
>>uses php. We are going thru a website redesign that is using 
>>stylesheets and xhtml 1.0 transitional (so we say!)
>>
>>I'm concerned that WYSIWYG editor currently in the CMS (purchased
>>separately) allows non-compliant code, for example creating font tags, 
>>even placing those font tags inside a header tag.  It's not clear to 
>>me whether the CMS itself will be able to clean this up. If it 
>>doesn't, our documents will not be what we say they are in the 
>>declaration statement which is:
>>
>>
>><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
>>"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
>><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
>>
>>
>>
>>I am a reference librarian on the outside of this development process, 
>>although I am one of the primary content editors and am one of the 
>>first users of the CMS.  I try to keep current on HTML/XHTML/XML 
>>issues, however, I still consider myself mostly a novice.  Normally, I 
>>only lurk on this list to listen to what the real experts discuss but 
>>I'd really like to suggest to our IT department an XHTML WYSIWYG 
>>editor to make sure our pages have compliant code.  Department 
>>secretaries and other staff who have no HTML knowledge will be using 
>>this to enter their pages in the CMS.
>>
>>If anyone can help with this I'd appreciate it.  
>>
>>Thank you.
>>
>>Leslie Hassett, Reference Librarian
>>lhassett at dwebb.llu.edu
>>(909)558-4300 ext. 47513
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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