Frustrated with WYSIWYG and random outputs!
2 posts by 2 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: April 17, 2008 (RSS)
By nikkijones - April 17, 2008
Hi,
Firstly i love this product. However, i thought i'd try it out and see how the client gets on before buying more licences. The main problem we're having is with the WYSIWYG editor - its terribly random! We keep getting extra lines, deletion of text and random alignment, the frustrating thing is you change it, save it, it doesn't update the site and when you go back in the editor it is still as it was before you changed it! My client spent two hours this morning trying to delete ONE line, she then contacted me. I spent a further two hours trying to understand why it wouldn't delete and during the process lost a lot of text and formatting which i didn't touch!
The problem is, the WYSIWYG is the main section the client uses therefore its stability is imperative. You sell the product to us, we sell it to them as a self updatable website but then they have problems updating it, the site looks messy and takes too much time to update so i get the angry phone calls [unsure]
Most of the site looks fantastic so i'm not sure if its this page in particular which does have a lot of content but in all honesty, i've had this problem with other IT products and the WYSIWYG editors.
Is there anything that can be done as i'm worried they'll look elsewhere and i haven't been paid yet?!
Many thanks,
Nikki.
Firstly i love this product. However, i thought i'd try it out and see how the client gets on before buying more licences. The main problem we're having is with the WYSIWYG editor - its terribly random! We keep getting extra lines, deletion of text and random alignment, the frustrating thing is you change it, save it, it doesn't update the site and when you go back in the editor it is still as it was before you changed it! My client spent two hours this morning trying to delete ONE line, she then contacted me. I spent a further two hours trying to understand why it wouldn't delete and during the process lost a lot of text and formatting which i didn't touch!
The problem is, the WYSIWYG is the main section the client uses therefore its stability is imperative. You sell the product to us, we sell it to them as a self updatable website but then they have problems updating it, the site looks messy and takes too much time to update so i get the angry phone calls [unsure]
Most of the site looks fantastic so i'm not sure if its this page in particular which does have a lot of content but in all honesty, i've had this problem with other IT products and the WYSIWYG editors.
Is there anything that can be done as i'm worried they'll look elsewhere and i haven't been paid yet?!
Many thanks,
Nikki.
Re: [nikkijones] Frustrated with WYSIWYG and random outputs!
By Dave - April 17, 2008
Hi Nikki,
Thanks for reporting this. Let's track it down and get it resolved. You can let your client know that it shouldn't do that and you're working with the programmer to get it resolved ASAP.
We use the popular TinyMCE (link) wysiwyg editor which is the same editor used by many CMS and Blog applications.
The first step would be to figure out what's going wrong. Is your client on Mac or PC and are they entering the content directly or copying and pasting from Word? If there was a way we could see some of the problem content that would be ideal.
Sometimes if Word has extra formatting such as invisible tables it can cause problems when editing. There's a few features that help with this.
First off, the "Paste As Plain Text" button (a clipboard with a T) pastes text from word only and removes formatting. Using this feature and then re-applying formatting in the browser is often the safest route. Next there's a "Paste from Word" button (a clipboard with a W) that often does a better job of "cleaning" word content to make it work better on the web. Finally, the "Remove Formatting" button (2nd last button in the top row that looks like an eraser). If you select a block of text and then click that it will remove the font face, color, etc. Which can often be helpful when some formatting or tags have been copied from Word that weren't desired.
Hope that helps, let me know if they are in fact pasting from Word or any other details and we'll track this down and find a solution for your client ASAP. The WYSIWYG should be easy to use.
Thanks for reporting this. Let's track it down and get it resolved. You can let your client know that it shouldn't do that and you're working with the programmer to get it resolved ASAP.
We use the popular TinyMCE (link) wysiwyg editor which is the same editor used by many CMS and Blog applications.
The first step would be to figure out what's going wrong. Is your client on Mac or PC and are they entering the content directly or copying and pasting from Word? If there was a way we could see some of the problem content that would be ideal.
Sometimes if Word has extra formatting such as invisible tables it can cause problems when editing. There's a few features that help with this.
First off, the "Paste As Plain Text" button (a clipboard with a T) pastes text from word only and removes formatting. Using this feature and then re-applying formatting in the browser is often the safest route. Next there's a "Paste from Word" button (a clipboard with a W) that often does a better job of "cleaning" word content to make it work better on the web. Finally, the "Remove Formatting" button (2nd last button in the top row that looks like an eraser). If you select a block of text and then click that it will remove the font face, color, etc. Which can often be helpful when some formatting or tags have been copied from Word that weren't desired.
Hope that helps, let me know if they are in fact pasting from Word or any other details and we'll track this down and find a solution for your client ASAP. The WYSIWYG should be easy to use.
Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
interactivetools.com