WYSIWYG Editor/Rich Text Editor

[AliasM2K]

Please keep in mind that the biggest issue with integrating a rich text editor in the past has been support for custom bbcodes.

Will remember that... In fact that is one of the biggest mess I am encountering now. Custom BBCodes...

If i remember correctly none of RTE proposals addressed custom bbcodes.

Custom bbcodes need interaction with phpBB API, which I have not yet done as I was more focused on customizing CKEditor to match the current phpBB editor; and I think I have quite succeeded too... Check out the live demo here

And, sorry for not being around these days... Got a bit carried away by university exams... So, what did I miss?

[Oleg]

Without a solution for custom bbcodes it does not matter how pretty the UI is.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_model and http://www.reliablesoftware.com/DasBlog ... 45454.aspx.

[brunoais]

I have a complete idea for the custom BBCode. I just don't know if it is really makable.
It goes as follows:
For all BBCode that is a direct translation of markup BBCode (E.g. divs + CSS) is trivial.
For all BBCode that contains scripting (no javascript from external files) it should also work as expected (example: the so well known spoiler tag), else it should not work.
If it contains Objects or any other external source stuff that uses space (E.g. video tag) then it should be replaced by an image. That image is chosen when the BBCode is made.

Anyway, I still believe that there should be a 3rd textarea in the BBCode page so that there could be a personalization of what appears in the WYSIWUG editor...

Anyway, we could also use the ludicrous IP.B way. Custom BBCode exists but you con only see it in action using the preview. I don't think this is the phpBB way but seems to work for them.

[wGEric]

Custom bbcodes need interaction with phpBB API

I wrote a lightweight BBCode parser in javascript that was similar to phpBB's. This could be used instead the phpBB API. It won't be the exact same as phpBB's parser but you could get it close. Here is a ckeditor plugin that uses that parser: https://gist.github.com/1595828

For all BBCode that is a direct translation of markup BBCode (E.g. divs + CSS) is trivial.
For all BBCode that contains scripting (no javascript from external files) it should also work as expected (example: the so well known spoiler tag), else it should not work.
If it contains Objects or any other external source stuff that uses space (E.g. video tag) then it should be replaced by an image. That image is chosen when the BBCode is made.

This would probably work and you can wrap all text within tags that aren't a BBCode token with a <span> that won't allow them to edit the text. There are a lot of cases so this might be pretty difficult.

[AliasM2K]

Without a solution for custom bbcodes it does not matter how pretty the UI is.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_model and http://www.reliablesoftware.com/DasBlog ... 45454.aspx.

I know this sounds weird, but there must be some way to communicate the bbcode plugin file and phpBB control panel which is used to set the custom bbcodes.

The bbcode plugin js contains a map which could be used to specify attributes and tags required to specify the required tag to perform the action to be performed by the custom bbcode.

I think manual customization of the core would be necessary to include custom bbcodes. Automatic handling seems impossible.

[Maël Soucaze]

Hey, what's about wysihtml5?

• More info: https://github.com/xing/wysihtml5#readme
• Example (Simple): http://xing.github.com/wysihtml5/examples/simple.html
• Example (Advanced): http://xing.github.com/wysihtml5/examples/advanced.html

[brunoais]

Hey, what's about wysihtml5?

• More info: https://github.com/xing/wysihtml5#readme
• Example (Simple): http://xing.github.com/wysihtml5/examples/simple.html
• Example (Advanced): http://xing.github.com/wysihtml5/examples/advanced.html

Good:
Simple WYSIWYG.
Lightweight.

Bad:

• (the page of the examples) The HTML in the examples is sloppy and completely wrong.
• (for the editor itself)
  
  
  • I can't find a way to make lists inside lists
  • Where the option to view as BBCode? That is crucial for phpBB
  • The HTML it generates for the user to see is unreadable.
  • Sometimes, it parses the HTML with mistakes.
• (personal opinion) The commands should not be anchors. It's against the HTML5 spec to do that. They should be span's.

And there are some other stuff I didn't appreciate about that editor.

As a general note, this is more like a work in progress. It is a very nice starting point but still has much to be done for it to be a good viable choice for a project like phpBB. This has a good future ahead, IMO, though.

[wGEric]

Would a rich text editor not be merged if it didn't support custom bbcodes? That is the biggest road block to this and IMO it would be better to have something even if it isn't feature complete instead of nothing.

[Senky]

No! Merging editor without custom bbcodes would mean stop supporting custom bbcodes, as they would not be able to be used. It is start supporting one feature, but neglect another one, which is part of phpBB much longer time.

[imkingdavid]

Would a rich text editor not be merged if it didn't support custom bbcodes? That is the biggest road block to this and IMO it would be better to have something even if it isn't feature complete instead of nothing.

In my opinion, that would not be an acceptable answer. It needs to either work fully or not be included. How would it work if you have custom bbcodes in your post in source view and then switch to rich view? And what if you then submit the post and go back to edit it?