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Would someone be willing to make this WYSIWYG HTML text editor into extension for Symphony?

Froala

Would someone be willing to make this WYSIWYG HTML text editor into extension for Symphony?

Would you be willing to pay for the required OEM / open source license?

Would you be willing to pay for the required OEM / open source license?

If so it does admittedly look like a nice replacement for Redactor, which also has a dev license tied to it (which is owned by the person not maintaining the extension).

If there's enough interest I may be tempted to chip-in, especially if it avoids spitting out unneeded inline styles and structure code like every other non markdown WYSIWYG I've used!

I'd be happy to chip in too. I use Redactor and it has limitations and bugs.

I use Redactor and it has limitations and bugs.

I'm just going to wrap a <div> around that paragraph, I'm sure you want it, ooh and add a <br/> to the end, that makes sense. Looks like you might also want to wrap that link in a <span> and force some line-height as well - I'll just sort that for you now.

He he. You clearly feel my pain.

This is what i am missing most in symphony. A good WYSIWYG editor.
Symphony is really user friendly, but without a good editor it's hard to sell to a client.
Almost a show-stopper... So i am all in! Even an update to make CKeditor work in 2.5 will do for me...
Or redactor without al the funny mark-up... Wish i could fix it myself though...

i'd also chip in. as long as the resulting extension would/could be free to use for everyone.

This is what i am missing most in symphony. A good WYSIWYG editor.

I have never seen such a thing. WYSIWYG is a broken concept.

I have never seen such a thing. WYSIWYG is a broken concept.

True, but i think you know what i mean...
I would describe it something like;
A visual markup representation of the end result.
Or; WYSIWYE (what you see is what you edit). ;-)

@michael-e are your clients happy with markdown? whats your approach and whats their attitude. or what do you use if not markdown?

@juro: Yes, I think they are. I have one system with around 1000 authors (Members) writing on nearly 500 Websites (all handled by a single Symphony installation), and the issues I encounter are insignificant compared to the issues you get when using WYSIWYG editors (saving HTML or similar).

The hardest part, in my experience, is "selling" it. Of course you have good arguments, like semantics and structured content, but these are hard to understand for clients. I learned that you should do two things to sell Markdown:

  1. Prepare a demonstration of the power of "semantic content". For example, in my system I can copy the Markdown code of an image into an article's text and show that, on the website's pages, in emails etc., the image will always be scaled to the maximum width of the text block (which can vary). I can do the same with videos: Just link to a video, and the video will always be embedded with the available width. Now send it by E-Mail, and you will see the original link to the video. When clients see that, they are impressed by this power and start to believe in what you say. (I am using the Ninja technique to achieve it. Hell, you can parse anything that is semantic.)

    (You may say that this demonstration could be done with any well-formed and semantic HTML. Yes, but the problem is "well-formed and semantic". You probably know what I mean...)

  2. If nothing helps, tell the client that he should just try for two weeks or so and come back to you if he still feels uncomfortable. Nobody complains then. The fear to learn new stuff has been pushed away by the pride to have learned and used a "secret, professional thing" like Markdown.

In my system, I even kill most of the HTML code a client could possibly copy into a textarea. Again, I am using the Ninja technique to achieve this. (I use a whitelist of allowed elements/attributes which will be transformed. All other elements or attributes match empty templates.) But on the other hand I provide magic mechanisms, like correcting the order of headlines inside articles depending on where the content pops up — people are impressed if you explain this.

That said, I have nothing against previews. One can easily link from an admin page to the website's frontend or a special preview page. You might even include a live preview (if your layout has room for it, which may depend on the devices used by the authors, of course).

But using Symphony in conjunction with WYSIWYG (i.e., in my eyes, the invitation to create semantically bad content by not thinking about it) would really hurt me.

or what do you use if not markdown

I have never allowed authors to use anything else. With Symphony, XSLT and Markdown, you can solve nearly every data/content issue they might encounter. (The hardest thing is tabular data inside texts, but that's always hard. Even with WYSIWYG editors people won't get it right.)

Forgive me, I really don't want to spoil the party here, strictly speaking my comments are off-topic. (This thread is about Froala Editor.) @juro: If you like, open a new discussion about Markdown.

I have one system with around 1000 authors (Members) writing on nearly 500 Websites (all handled by a single Symphony installation)

(To spoil a thread or not to spoil) That sounds really impressive and I almost would say give me a showcase and some more details.

It's already late here, maybe I can do a write-up tomorrow.

@michael-e thanks so much for this super infos. I will create formally a new thread and get back to this there.

@plenaforma: Unfortuantely, giving an overview of my "big project" would require some spare time (for writing), which I don't find at the moment. Maybe I manage to do this later (bundled with 1000 man-hugs to everybody in the core team, and also everybody who has worked on Symphony formerly). I would open a new thread then.

I'd love to use Markdown exclusively but in my experience clients want to embed images inline in their text copy, embed videos inline, add/format tables, create some links which open in new windows.

Wordpress does this and is the benchmark for many people. So although WYSIWYG will always be ugly, it is necessary for me and my clients.

It looks like we have at least 3 people willing to chip in for this extension. Anyone willing to deliver the project and put a price on it so that we have a goal to work towards?

@Stuart, Something you'd have to keep in mind is that things like image uploads etc, will most certainly still require some additional functionality. Ideally you'd be able to manage these client uploads as well (especially if they're removed from content) and I presume the ability to link the text display to what you have on the frontend so the client gets a better idea.

So far I've stuck with markdown.. I've seen drag and drops with subsection manager, inserting some html markup on dropping in the text area. I don't think the new associations has this but was looking at adding that in for image integration.

The discussion in another thread about having drag-and-drop functionality added to the new 'Editor' extension is IMO more worthwhile than adding more WYSIWYG's into the mix - but I have a mixed experience. Like Michael I've had clients that have resisted Markdown, but have forgotten about it a week later. I've also had clients that have seemed offended that I'd offer anything other than a WYSIWYG (especially if they've used WordPress).

So for better or worse I need both options, but I always favour Markdown, it's just better TBH.

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