Standards Schmandards has an interesting comparison between eight WYSIWYG editors. WYSIWYG stands for what you see is what you get, and is basically trying to mimic a word processor. If you’re using the standard installation of WordPress with the rich text editor enabled (it’s there per default) then you’re actually using TinyMCE, one of the WYSIWYG editors featured in the test.
TinyMCE was the best open source choice, with a score of 13 out of 19. EditOnPro, a commercial editor, scored 16 and is the winner of the test.
The test concludes with the following suggestions for the future:
- Remove toolbar buttons for rarely used markup items such as justified text (justified text on the web is bad for readability).
- The default installation should provide buttons or menu options for inline quotes, blockquotes and acronyms.
- When creating a table, headers should be created by default instead of forcing the user to add them later. Throw in a default caption as well to make sure content editors do the right thing.
- Make sure images without alt-text specified receives an empty alt attribute.
- Do not use the icon for “indent left” for blockquote markup.
- If you claim cross-browser compatibility, make sure that the generated markup is identical.
- Create valid markup
Read the whole thing yourself.
So why don’t I use WYSIWYG editors? Because it writes crappy code, and whenever you fiddle a lot with a post or update you can count on getting even more crappy code, even if you don’t see it. Sometimes you can even get stuck in the editor’s madness, and will have to reload the page with your changes unsaved. Now, I have the luxuary of knowing HTML by heart, not everyone does that so I can certainly see the need for WYSIWYG editors, but they have a long way to go before even the least HTML savvy should convert if you ask me.
Link found via 456 Berea Street.
Originally posted on December 12, 2006 @ 2:28 pm