widgEditor 1.0.1

2 March 2008

22 comments

A Blue Perspective: widgEditor 1.0.1

As with most of my output, I originally coded widgEditor to satisfy my own curiosity about WYSIWYG editors. Its actual uptake amongst users has – and still – takes me thoroughly by surprise. And that's the main reason why I'm feeling a bit guilty at letting it languish in non-maintenance limbo.

Although there's been silence for almost 3 years, the development of widgEditor has continued in private, and I've changed the code enough to be able to release a version 2 ... soon. But for the moment I'm issuing a point upgrade to the original; just enough to fix the most annoying bug: the inability to use widgEditor in Firefox 2+ when it starts with no content.

The bug is – rather strangely – caused by the way that the stylesheets are created inside the widgEditor iframe. Previously, I'd just write an entire HTML document into the iframe using document.write() (shudder), but it seems Firefox doesn't like this too much. Creating the stylesheets using standard DOM methods gets around this bug. Internet Explorer still needs the document.writed way, so there's a small code fork. Problem fixed.

As a minor bonus to the point release, the code for widgEditor is now hosted on code.google.com, so anyone who has bugs, feature requests, etc. can now post them using the tools there. Version 2 will be going up there as well, so stay tuned!

Download widgEditor 1.0.1

See widgEditor in action

Categories

,

Comments

  1. 1/22

    Sebastian Werner commented on 3 March 2008 @ 00:41

    Any chance that you fill the SVN at Google Code as well? Would be really nice to have a up-to-date checkout available here. Thanks.

  2. 2/22

    Lim Chee Aun commented on 3 March 2008 @ 01:54

    Wow, this is great! I learn a lot from your widgEditor codebase, which later made my own using Mootools.

    Looking forward for the version 2.

  3. 3/22

    Jason Moore commented on 3 March 2008 @ 02:28

    Great news! Your editor was the only WYSIWYG editor I found that was simple enough for average people to use, but also allowed more low-level fiddling of the HTML.

    I made a few tweaks to the old version - mainly to not strip out empty elements on save, and a method to insert text into the textbox. I'll see if they're still relevant.

  4. 4/22

    Tanc commented on 3 March 2008 @ 07:59

    Thanks Cameron, I really appreciate you updating your editor. Its still the best out there in my opinion and I'm really looking forward to seeing version 2.

  5. 5/22

    Andrew K. commented on 3 March 2008 @ 11:12

    3 years already?! Damn.
    Will version 2 allow tab navigation OUT of the edit area?

  6. 6/22

    The Man in Blue commented on 3 March 2008 @ 11:43

    Andrew: All feature requests should be logged on the Code site :D

  7. 7/22

    Andrew K. commented on 3 March 2008 @ 12:24

    Blue Boy: I will fight you.

  8. 8/22

    The Man in Blue commented on 3 March 2008 @ 13:26

    How? You're trapped inside an iframe. Mwahahaha!

  9. 9/22

    Andrew K. commented on 3 March 2008 @ 13:32

    I see what you did there...

  10. 10/22

    Hamish M commented on 3 March 2008 @ 17:07

    Wow, it really has been a long time.

    widgEditor was the WSIWYG editor I used in my first home-made CMS; some 2 years ago no. It's nice to hear there are more updates coming.

    Thanks Cameron. :)

  11. 11/22

    Fernando commented on 3 March 2008 @ 18:47

    Thank you!! After two years, it's still the better-looking editor I know.

    Un saludo desde Espaņa!!

  12. 12/22

    Michael Koukoullis commented on 3 March 2008 @ 22:10

    The return of the 'widg', can't believe it was three years ago.

  13. 13/22

    John Elliott commented on 3 March 2008 @ 23:46

    Looking forward a lot to version 2 - it was great to have an editor as good as widgEditor that was also pretty straight forward to hack about. I've certainly got some feature requests for google code.

    Cheers

  14. 14/22

    Thomas commented on 4 March 2008 @ 02:40

    Thank you very much for the easy usable editor. Interthing idea and waiting for version 2.

    which new features are plannet for v2?
    Thomas

  15. 15/22

    Lar Veale commented on 4 March 2008 @ 06:32

    Delighted to see this back up and running. I honestly believe that 'the Widg' has the potential to be the best WYSIWYG out there. <me>Eager anctipating version 2.</me>

  16. 16/22

    Daniel commented on 5 March 2008 @ 09:48

    "Oldie but Goldie"! Seems to be very smart and easy to use...
    thxs
    Daniel

  17. 17/22

    Kris commented on 5 March 2008 @ 15:25

    you go blue man, creator of new and inspiring really cool techie stuff. love that. you make the rest of us wipe our chins, squint our eyes and stay up way too late.

    cheers to you.

  18. 18/22

    Strangepants commented on 6 March 2008 @ 14:35

    Yay! for version 2 ... has it really been that long?

    I'm still using the original in a custom CMS at work - I hope version 2 doesn't add too many new features: simple was why I adopted the first release.

  19. 19/22

    Tom commented on 7 March 2008 @ 04:50

    Neat idea putting it on Google code i am thinking of doing the same with all my projects.

  20. 20/22

    Andy commented on 7 March 2008 @ 18:15

    I have a couple of my projects on google code, it's quite easy to do, and really good. Well worth it.

  21. 21/22

    Debra commented on 9 March 2008 @ 04:13

    Would be cool if you offered rewards for people who find or fix bugs with your script.

  22. 22/22

    Philipp commented on 10 March 2008 @ 07:08

    I love this tool and hope that version 2 will be as straight forward and easy to use as the current version.

  23. Leave your own comment

    Comments have been turned off on this entry to foil the demons from the lower pits of Spamzalot.

    If you've got some vitriol that just has to be spat, then contact me.

Follow me on Twitter

To hear smaller but more regular stuff from me, follow @themaninblue.

Monthly Archives

Popular Entries

My Book: Simply JavaScript

Simply JavaScript

Simply JavaScript is an enjoyable and easy-to-follow guide for beginners as they begin their journey into JavaScript. Separated into 9 logical chapters, it will take you all the way from the basics of the JavaScript language through to DOM manipulation and Ajax.

Step-by-step examples, rich illustrations and humourous commentary will teach you the right way to code JavaScript in both an unobtrusive and an accessible manner.

RSS feed