which free good rich text editor to replace the htmlarea?

searain

I have been using htmlarea as WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) rich text editor.

Unfortunately, it was discontinued. But they gave the follow directory for other WYSIWYG editors available.

http://www.htmlarea.com/directory/WYSIWYG_Editors/index.html

There are so many simliar prodcuts now.

Now I have to pick up one to replace old htmlarea.

Could anyone from your experience, telling me which is the best?

1) Free
2) Stable, simple, and easy to use.
3) Doesn't create unnessary tags (Specially, automatically add <br> to separate paragraph instead of add <p>.) because <p> may cause some troubles with my css style. - but if <p> tag has to be used, i am ok with that.
4) keep the format tags as min. and as simple as possible. not conflict with css etc.
5) for general platform.

Thanks!

EricC

I've had reasonably good results with TinyMCE which is a cross-platform javascript based wysiwyg editor. It seems (to me at least) to support Moz/Firefox better than HTMLArea and is easier to configure as well.

searain

Thanks! I will test it.

Any other programmers want to share their experience with the rich text editor.

Right now, so many of them in the market (free and good too). It is hard to pick one.

How about this one?

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex16/richtexteditor/index.htm

leatherback

Have a look at FCKeditor

searain

Tiny MCE is not tiny at all. 🙂

I might try to use Tiny MCE in other projects.

For current project, I am doing an e-commerce site. For the products information, I want the description for the products could be rich text editor. And actually, all I need is a link, unlink, BOLD, etc. very simple very basic format.

As a matter of fact, the rich text editor use less format, less tags, offer less extras the better.

The more format and tags it has, the more it will conflict with our own web site formats (css).

I tested FCKeditor. It is an overkill for my project too.

Any other suggestions for me to test and check out? Thanks!

Very simple, clear coded (less codes), min. html formats, cross-platform, bug free rich text editor (htmlarea editor) is what I am looking for.

I used to use htmlarea, but it has some bugs and it is discontinued. I am looking for a simple version rich text editor to replace the htmlarea.

Thanks!

Weedpacket

Go to the General Help forum FAQ and read it.

cretaceous

you can just use the basic install for TinyMce, no need for all the bells and whistles (may have the wrong name for 'basic' -simple?) - anyway its not hard to edit the javascript to get just a text area thing with bold and links - I did exactly that a while ago
I could dig up my modded script if you want - if thats allowed

searain

Thanks!

tinyMCE advanced theme simplified is exactly what i want for this project to replace my old htmlarea. and the good news is that for the other projects i can use its full version.

So I don't have to use several rich text editor for several different projects. 1 is for all.

cretaceous

Hey Searain - not sure what you want me to do..

I remembered I separated out the link function and did links with a php script

if you initiliase in the header with

<!-- tinyMCE -->
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="_scripts/tiny_mce/tiny_mce.js"></script>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
   tinyMCE.init({
      mode : "specific_textareas",
      theme: "simple"
   });
</script>
<!-- /tinyMCE -->

(mode 'specific_textareas' sets named textareas rather than all )

and a named one on the page looks like:

<textarea mce_editable="true" name="u_descrip" rows="4" cols="22"><?php echo $u_descrip ?></textarea>

that should give you what you need I think

As I said I removed more functionality by editing the js and you can also butcher the js to change the appearance

TinyMCE has a forum also

searain

cretaceous, I tried out your way.

It is perfectly fine for my current project. Thanks!

I will do more learning and modification of tinyMCE later on for the other projects.

One quick question, does tinyMCE advanced feature also have the way to tell how many characters you already typed in, or give the alert if you type in too many characters which is over the limited length you preset? Thanks!

I have another script to do the above job, but I think I may not both apply that script and tinyMCE at the same textarea.

cretaceous

not sure about your other question, I don't think so..
ask on the tinyMCE forum!
http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/punbb/index.php