CMS Development

[Bon Bon]

Hi I am programming a CMS that I plan on making open source in the near future, most of the development has been underground and an initial release is due later this year.

I am planning on implementing a version of the WYMeditor but a problem I see is the amount of JavaScript mixed in with the HTML on each page.

The CMS strives on the fact that the pages are pure HTML without CSS or JavaScript mixed in as they are imported from their own files. It also strives on the fact that it degrades gracefully if JavaScript or CSS are not supported.

Will version 3 be implemented without this mix of JavaScript and HTML because this will help make the editor look cleaner.

What I am hoping to do is provide the source code in a textarea and then have a submit button, then the imported JavaScript will do the rest of the work in building the editor around the basic page.

[cdanea]

I second that.
JS/XHTML separation is a must. So is graceful degradation for that matter.
An event driven editor initialization would solve both of these I guess. Regardless of the implementation, will these features be available in the upcoming version?


Thanks.

[turicon]

Hi,
I have the JS-Code for Buttons etc. outsourced and included with PHP. Its easy to make and the HTML-Code is clearly. And! You have only one file to edit! Don't forget the JS-Definition in the head- and body-Tag.
Everything together, you have max. 10 more lines in your CMS. I have a little Tutorial (sorry, only in german) on my site http://www.turicon.de.

cu,
Turicon

[jfh]

Hi,

Next version (0.3) will be a jQuery plugin and will be easier to integrate.
You can check out the code at svn://svn.wymeditor.org/wymeditor/trunk/src or see it in action at http://files.wymeditor.org/wymeditor/trunk/src/

[jfh]

Note: 0.3 is alpha, some features haven't been implemented yet

[Bon Bon]

Everything is looking a lot better in 0.3 but once again there are some issues, mainly this time relating the number of scripts you are importing.

In an ideal situation the scripts should be able to be called using something similar to this:

Code: Select all

addEvent(window, 'load', WYMeditor);

Where WYMeditor being the initialising function.

I already use the prototype.js framework and it is used in a lot of scripts I have, if the above does not satisfy you could always use the prototype.js to initialise everything with:

Code: Select all

function initWYMeditor() { myWYMeditor = new WYMeditor(); }
Event.observe(window, 'load', initWYMeditor, false);

Doing this and combining some of the scripting would be of great help, I have very little experience in programming JavaScript so I am of little use to you in the sense of creating my own example of what I think would make things better.

Another thing is, are you the only person developing the editor or are other people involved because it does appear that there is little awareness of this editor around the Internet, maybe some marketing a little like Mozilla's would increase the productivity of the work?

[jfh]

Everything is looking a lot better in 0.3 but once again there are some issues, mainly this time relating the number of scripts you are importing.

I forgot to say that the core js files will be packed in one file.
We use multiple files to ease the development process.

In an ideal situation the scripts should be able to be called using something similar to this:

Code: Select all

addEvent(window, 'load', WYMeditor);

Where WYMeditor being the initialising function.

I already use the prototype.js framework and it is used in a lot of scripts I have, if the above does not satisfy you could always use the prototype.js to initialise everything with:

Code: Select all

function initWYMeditor() { myWYMeditor = new WYMeditor(); }
Event.observe(window, 'load', initWYMeditor, false);

Doing this and combining some of the scripting would be of great help, I have very little experience in programming JavaScript so I am of little use to you in the sense of creating my own example of what I think would make things better.

We use jQuery, which is another JS library.
Initializing the editor is just one line of code:

Code: Select all

$j(".wymeditor").wymeditor();

This call 'replaces' each element with class 'wymeditor' by a WYMeditor instance.

Another thing is, are you the only person developing the editor or are other people involved because it does appear that there is little awareness of this editor around the Internet, maybe some marketing a little like Mozilla's would increase the productivity of the work?

Please see WYMeditor Team and Promote WYMeditor.
This is a young project, you know (started in September 2005).
I guess next version will improve the awareness of WYMeditor.
BTW, thanks for comparing to Mozilla.

[Bon Bon]

Thanks for answering my questions, and regarding getting involved, I am interested in setting up a live demo so that when people edit a page they can see how the changes.

Some sort of live version which actually shows the page with the updated information, and then allow the page to be skinned to show the diversity of the editor.

[jfh]

Good idea, Bon Bon!

Please feel free to contact me when it's available, so I announce it on the website/forum/etc.

[Dolittle]

There is a new JS library which is very impressive.
http://extjs.com

You are building a new project so you might want to use the most powerful tool you can get if it`s not an overkill
I read some posts in their forum saying that they might be interested in developing an editor but saw it`s allot of work:

http://www.yui-ext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3563&highlight=wysiwyg

I was looking at the new demo above. I know this is not finished but I liked the previous more simple design.