Replacement for contentEditable

[alastc]

This probably isn't the right place to ask, but I don't know where else to raise a cross-browser lack of standards issue?

Vlad Alexander of Xstandard outlined the issues with contentEditable, and why they stopped using it. Due to backwards compatibility concerns this can't be changed, but could someone define a better, more standards friendly version? I.e. one that doesn't allow inline markup.

At the moment it's so hard to create a standards aware WYSIWYG editor because there is so much cleanup you have to do. JavaScript based editors seem so flaky because of this (or at least partly because of this).

Xstandard created a pluggin/ActiveX control to get over the issue, but surely this is something that should be standardised browser functionality?

Then you wouldn't need to allow for font tags for CMSs (not that I think you should anyway). I've looked into the requirements for standards aware and accessible WYSIWYG editors, but it would be much easier if there were a better underlying mechanism.

[zcorpan]

First off, replacing an existing feature because it is badly implemented with another feature based on the argument that the new feature won't have any bugs, doesn't make any sense.

What we should do here is try to fix contenteditable.

Why there is so poor interoperability today is mostly because there hasn't been any spec. Having a spec hopefully fixes the interoperability problems.

I don't know enough about contenteditable myself to know what the other problems are. I know Vlad has concerns that it is too presentationally oriented. Other than that, what specifically are the problems that needs to be addressed (and isn't already with the current spec in HTML5)? We probably need more input from WYSIWYG vendors here.

[alastc]

replacing an existing feature because it is badly implemented with another feature based on the argument that the new feature won't have any bugs, doesn't make any sense.

In general I agree, unless the vendors refuse to update it because it will break too many sites/applications.

Having a spec hopefully fixes the interoperability problems.

Thanks for that (specific) link, I hadn't seen it before. Has there been any feedback from the browser vendors about this section?

what specifically are the problems that needs to be addressed (and isn't already with the current spec in HTML5)? We probably need more input from WYSIWYG vendors here.

Agreed, apologies that my post was not very well thought-out, just take it as frustration with something I can't change myself!

Vlad had enough issues to give up on the whole concept, and probably isn't the best person to ask these days as a change will not affect him as such. (Although I'm sure he knows a lot about it and would have good input to give.)

Does anyone here have contacts at TinyMCE or FCKeditor? What are the main issues?
Why is it that the interfaces seem to be so focused on adding inline content?
Why does the generated code from IE look like HTML 3.2, and Gecko's isn't much better?
Why doesn't Gecko use paragraphs instead of <br>s?
Why are nested lists virtually always invalid, and difficult to edit?

Working from the interface backwards (sorry, I'm a usability guy by trade), why are these interface aspects so difficult to do?

[Cerbera]

In HTML you have the luxury of </li> being an optional tag. That makes nesting lists easy.

My understanding of contentEditable is that it's not just very presentational, it is often invalid and very much "tag soup".

On error correction standardization – I disagree with this goal of the WHAT WG because I don’t believe it is responsible for Microsoft to cause any unnecessary compatibility problems (e.g. the problems that would be caused if we changed error-handling behavior). If the WHAT-WG wants to standardize on EXACTLY what IE6 does for any given error case, no matter how funky it may be, great, but I don’t think that’s what they would consider doing.

(Source: You, me and the W3C (aka Reinventing HTML).)

Changing contentEditable in the spec might mean the most-used browser can't conform to that part of HTML5?

[wgabrie]

I tested contentEditable support in Internet Explorer.

Tool:

Install multiple versions of IE on your PC
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

HTML test file:

Code: Select all

<html>
<body>

<p contenteditable="true">This is a sample paragraph.</p>

</body>
</html>


Process:
I opened the test file in each version of IE (3.0, 4.01, 5.01, 5.5) until I found the version that did something with the paragraph (version 5.5).

Results:
In Internet Explorer 5.5(and higher) you can type in the paragraph. It seems contentEditable works.

Acually putting "contentEditable" to work as a tool, ex. a web-based word processor, is a programing problem/challenge not an issue with the spec.