[TYPO3-v4] TinyMCE vs htmlArea RTE

[Thomas Allmer]

Hey Guys,

sorry for replying so late to this conversation but I have been on 
holiday for 3 week (without electricity, just pure nature). I enjoyed it
very much :)

As I'm mostly responsible for what tinymce_rte is today I surely favour 
it instead of htmlArea. In fact I use it all my projects since it's 
first release in 2008. And had quite some projects during this time :). 
Furthermore I know a lot of people solely relying on it too.

In my opinion it has same major benfits
- is loaded just ONCE during an entire backend session
- has just "ONE" place to define its configuration (pagets, userts)
- all benefits of TinyMCE (see below)
- tinymce_rte supports all of TinyMCE features (incl. templates + 
special TYPO3 templates)

TinyMCE benefits:
- major JS RTE that is used by a lot of projects
- very good documentation
- clean HTML output
- lots of features (lot's of dialogs, tables, word paste, etc...)
- external development

TinyMCE drawbacks:
- external devlopment (can't easily push changes)
- for TYPO3 to use the ONE load functionality it needs a change in the 
TinyMCE Core and despite trying multiple times to get in pushed - so far 
there has been no really feedback; maybe someone knows anyone?

some toDos for tinymce_rte:
- use custom json encode function as the php version treats everything 
as string (code already written for another project with js json config, 
but didn't pushed it to tinymce_rte as it's not backward compatible; if 
seriously considered for core I would recommend to do this beforehand)
- improvements for page- and imagebrowser
- improvements to linkhandler

tinymce_rte "drawbacks":
- completely different configuration from htmlArea
- jet another js stuff with own loading logic (it's just TinyMCE no 
dependency to a framework)

= Aloha Editor =
I don't really know Aloha Editor - I just used it while playing with 
TYPO3v5. I think it's a awesome for Frontendediting where you just have 
some text. However as jung as the project is I think it's not (yet) an 
alternative to a full featured RTE like TinyMCE or HTMLArea. It just 
lacks to many commonly needed features. As I said I don't know it maybe 
the are there and I don't see them. However without some form of a 
common dialog or the possibility to view the html code or to add/remove 
css classes or create/edit images with properties... I think it's (yet) 
no real replacement (for the v4 BE).

Don't get me wrong I would love to see using the same Editor with v5 and 
v4 but I don't think it's (yet) ready (for v4 BE).

= Conclusion =
I do use TinyMCE (as tinymce_rte) and I would love to see it in the core 
as I think it currently represence the best (BE) - RTE solution for TYPO3.
However I see the problematic that it's not backward compatible to 
htmlArea plugins and configurations (and if you ask me it will never be 
:p). Moreover I could just be a "middle" step before switching to Aloha 
Editor...

In my opinion it would probably still make sense as for for newcommers 
it will be better and we could have htmlArea too in "compatibility mode" 
right?. I don't say it's the perfect solution but imho it's the best 
currently available for the v4 BE.

just my 2 cents
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| Thomas Allmer                   |   http://www.delusionworld.com    |
| E-mail: at at delusionworld.com    |   phone: +43 699 16217064         |
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