Any WYSIWYG text editor that doesn't use HTML (contenteditable or designMode), a la (new) Google Docs?

Question

Apart from the new Google Docs, all the other WYSIWYG widescreen text editors (ckeditor, tinymce, old Google Docs) I've seen are based on contenteditable or designMode. I personally hate the use of these editors. It does not take much formatting or copying / pasting before the whole experience turns into an exercise in frustration. The return suddenly begins to receive double intervals, inadvertent formatting is introduced by pasting from other HTML sources, undo / redo cancels completely, formatting becomes painfully difficult to manage, etc.

I believe this is one of the reasons Google Docs introduced their much more limited non-HTML formatting mechanism. Is there an open source library that provides something similar? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can start with the Ace editor (formerly Bespin and Skywriter). It is aimed at editing code, so it lacks formatting and other functions, but you can find a useful core of functionality for creating a rich text editor.

In action: http://ajaxorg.github.com/ace/build/editor.html

Code: https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace

Update. As @theazureshadow points out, the current editor does not use canvas , as I originally reported. Bespin used canvas before it merged with Ace, which uses the DOM. Showing briefly under the hood, it looks like they are using contentEditable or designMode . (There is a <textarea /> that follows the cursor and spans divs to show text - a bunch of custom JSs to put all of these elements together.)

From ace.ajax.org> History:

Bespin started as part of Mozilla Lab and relied on the <canvas> , while Ace is a component of the Cloud9 IDE editor and uses the DOM for rendering.

Answer 2

You are right: it is much better.

Is there an open source library that provides [a document editor that does not use a browser to process editable text, instead uses a customizable editing surface and a linking mechanism entirely in JavaScript].

Doubtful.

Firstly, the editor is duplicated by "Kix". It is not non-HTML, but it does not use contentEditable, because it sucks for what they do, as you mentioned. What he does is complicated and cumbersome, and I am sure that it took a lot of effort to create it.

Say why google open source Kix? This undermines their efforts to become your center of documents, and this will mean that they have to do a bunch of extra work to separate Kix from other Google documents in a way that doesn't interfere with integration. Benefit? Not so much, as open source projects sponsored by Google are unlikely to receive support in the form of developer participation in improving it.

As for someone creating a library for this, I doubt it will happen in open source. Typically, open source projects, which are a significant undertaking, are sponsors of a university or company, and this is unlikely in this case for the above reasons. Again, if the developer has an itch for him, it does not say where he can go ...

Answer 3

There HTE , unfortunately, is slow and misses a lot of basic selection functions.