Not Viewing Correctly

Hi Steve,

I d/l winmerge and had a closer look; pointed out additional <p> tags inserted from the WYSIWYG as you said.  I went into the html editor in CMS and inserted the text directly (removed additional tags) and it still wants to place additional tags when the record is saved.  I have these areas blocked in span tags so the CSS can handle how it looks.  but the additional tags are making it view with gaps and not allowing it to correctly call the stylesheet. 

Not sure where to go from here.  Like I said I've used this before and have not had this problem.  I just cut and paste the php snippets to call info from the database and let the CSS handle the rest. 

Also, if you click on the About Tab or Testimonials in the html version, you'll see that it comes up in a fancy box of sorts.  Now compare the php version.  None of the style is called. 

Help!

Hi Night_oWL.

Just my two cents.

Unless you absolutely need to use a WYSIWYG field, I'd suggest using text boxes. Much less aggravation and much more consistent results.

You still have to look out for extra returns, errrant spaces, and blank lines at the end of a field, and if it's really important there are a few ways to style text internally in the text box.

I stopped using WYSIWYG for my clients sites years ago and have never looked back.

Jerry Kornbluth

Hi Jerry,

Yes, I usually use the WSYWIG more sparingly, but in this case, I wanted to give my wife more options for modifying the text.  Like I said I've used these in the past and have not had these problems with spacing and basically a wacko looking page.  also, still not sure what's happening with my fancybox pop-ups on about and testimonials?  I've used all of these same elements before with CMS Builder and have not had these problems. 

Thankyou,

eldon

I get around this by overriding the default HTML paragraph margin styles in the CSS for the element.

One thing I noticed quite a while back, with regards to the WYSIWYG editor is when I just post my html code into the box it can/will get modified by the editor. So, when I'm going to paste html code now I first click on the "html" menu item and a new window opens on top of the editor with a box in it. I paste my copied code there and click "update" and it seems to work well.  Just have to be careful at that point if the "use word wrap" option is checked...you may not want it to.  It's worked fine for me doing that one extra step first because it's how the WYSIWYG editor was engineered.

Having said that I want to emphasize that I don't use the WYSIWYG editor on my own sites but always build the option in for my customer and teach them how to use it if they want.  Very few do because I've made the other text fields and text boxes easy to use and can modify the styling from the style sheets if necessary. It's always great to explain to the clients, too, that while I build text boxes in specific places for them to copy-paste third party code for PayPal (and other merchant processors) or YouTube and Vimeo code...I let them know that any text box on the back end will accept that third-party standard code. It's a nice feature and they get it.

Ditto, Equinox!  WYSIWYG fields have been my nemesis since I began buildig CMS.  I too have moved away from them.  It is a lot more work up front using purely text fields, but well woth the effort.  I have only one client out of all who has the publishing skills to properly format data without breaking the design.  I envy you having found teachable clients! LOL

Hi again,

I too have felt your pain, but it comes with the territory of giving clients more formatting control over their site (which practically all would prefer - hence the existence of the WYSIWYG).

You can get into the "guts" and change the way TinyMCE operates, but it would affect all WYSIWYG instances where you may want lines to be wrapped in P tags. Would that be an option for you? Note: from an SEO standpoint, it's better to having flowing page copy in paragraph tags versus using breaks in between true paragraphs.

- Steve

Just a thought.

I guess that you're getting the feeling by now that not too many of us like how WYSIWYG breaks our pages.

I don't know how much control your client actually needs, but in some cases I have been able to tell my client about certain tags that can be inserted into the text in a text field to change the looks.

I try to limit this to bold (<b> <b/>), italic (<i></i>), text color (<font color="red"></font>), hyperlink (<a target="_blank"  href="your_link_url.com">your link text</a>),  and other such benign tags, and leave out the really dangerous ones.

Then I put these tags into a field called "instructions" as the default value so it shows up in every record (you could also put them into an html separator)

It's a bit more work but find it to be a lot safer.

Jerry Kornbluth