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So my idea is to use Redactor for something I call a "Visual Markdown Editor". Redactor's formatting will be limited to what's supported by Markdown, and while the editing itself will happen in HTML to provide instant visual feedback and unclutter the content from Markdown syntax while editing, the editor will output plain Markdown that can be handled by Symphony's markdown text formatter.

I realize converting content back and forth between HTML and Markdown might look redundant and unnecessary, but it also has some great advantages:

  • Ensures the editor doesn't output malformed HTML or unintended formatting.
  • Developers can easily switch from and to other Markdown extension (text formatters or editors) without losing content or formatting.

Question:

Is this approach something the Symphony-Community (both the Markdown- and WYSIWYG-fanboys) would appreciate?

Definitely interesting!

(When I looked at Redactor I said to myself "why does it not save Markdown?")

The downside I see is the license thing. I am not sure if you can release such an extension as Open Source.

This is something I have been thinking for a while too and I really like the idea to have a visual editor that I can switch on and that's based on Markdown for the mentioned reasons.

So, yes please, something like this would be really useful. But maybe you should search for a working open source alternative to Redactor for the reasons Michael highlighted. There should be plenty suitable scripts as Markdown doesn't do any fancy things.

The downside I see is the license thing. I am not sure if you can release such an extension as Open Source.

But maybe you should search for a working open source alternative to Redactor for the reasons Michael highlighted. There should be plenty suitable scripts as Markdown doesn't do any fancy things.

No problem, I'll just have to get a developer licence (which I'm happy to do).

From the website:

Can I include Redactor in any products that I intend to give away for free? Sure, you can do this after purchasing the Developer License. In this case, you are allowed to include Redactor in all your open source projects, including those published under GPL, BSD, etc.

Alternative would be doing this with TinyMCE, but in my opinion, Redactor fits Symphony much better visually.

Let me understand:

  1. Client uses Redactor WYSIWYG interface to write the content.

  2. Redactor saves Markdown to database.

  3. Output will be processed with the classic Markdown extension.

This is how it will go?

This is how it will go?

Yeah, that's the idea.

This could be very interesting with Templated Text Formatters.

An UI for editing + the power of Templated Text Formatters ( daydreaming :) )

In my eyes, the visual editor shouldn't save anything to the database as this should still be handled by the selected Markdown formatter, right?

In my eyes, the visual editor shouldn't save anything to the database as this should still be handled by the selected Markdown formatter, right?

Exactly, the visual editor would only be a UI element which inserts Markdown to a normal textarea that is handled by a Markdown Text Formatter.

This thread inspired an idea here.

Just wanted to let you know I'm actually working on this, not just talking about it.

But there are still some rough edges I want to smooth off before releasing a first beta.

That looks really cool! Can’t wait for the beta! :D

This looks like a great idea and I just wanted to know what's the status on this.

Thanks

Status is that I have a working prototype, but Redactor is still in its early stages an they're changing a lot with every new version, so I'm currently not ready to release the extension.

With the latest version, Redactor introduced a new plugin API, and I'm looking into using this to provide the additional functionality for the extension instead of hacking Redactor's code like I do right now.

Meanwhile, remie released another extension which bundles Redactor as is, but I'm definitely still working on my concept of a more restricted and markdown saving editor.

Status update:

Made some great progress over the last couple of days and feeling confident now to release an experimental alpha version soon.

Just waiting for a response from the redactor guys regarding some questions about the licensing.

@jensscherbl were there any updates on this by any chance?

Interested too...

@jensscherbl - any updates?

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