cut'n'paste text and images into content?

[vee]

Hello all

Just been having a look through WB.  I like it - but like many cms's it seems to suffer from the need to upload all images into a media folder before they can be used in content and referenced through the content editor.

I've also been trying Fastpublish (still quite buggy) but that uses a rich text editor and allows one to cut'n'paste text+images from elsewhere, in particular other html pages, directly into the content area.  The images are automatically stored in a "rich" folder and are renamed with a prefix so as to avoid name conflicts.  This makes creating page content a real breeze.

Have I missed something with WB or is this also possible?  If not, is anyone thinking of integrating such a rich text editor with cut'n'paste functionality.

Cheers
Vee

[pcwacht]

Fastpublish uses Rich Editor (http://richarea.com/demo/) wich isn't released under gpl or simular license, in fact you need to pay for using it.

This will never make it to WB


John

[vee]

Hello John

Thanks for the reply.  Yes, agreed on the gpl point but there are several other such editors available that are gpl.  The real thing I was getting at is the way Fastpublish takes images in the clipboard and automatically transfers them into a "rich" folder within Fastpublish, together with some kind of automatic rename to avoid conflicts, when they are pasted into the editor.

I downloaded the Xinha module for WB and this seems like a step in the right direction - except that it doesn't work properly!

The step in the right direction is that one can paste text+images from the clipboard and they appear in the editor (unlike in the default html editor, of course, where one just gets image marker boxes).  The problem is that Xinha seems only to make a link to the source of the images.  So if they are copied to clipboard from My Docs and then pasted, Xinha makes a link to the My Docs location.  Similarly if you copy from elsewhere on the web - you just get a link in the code to that place on the web.  Of course, the pics won't then show if the link is broken or the image source is changed.

What's needed is for the copied images to be automatically placed/uploaded into a folder within WB, say within the media folder, and then automatically linked as usual to the wb media folder location by the ricg-text editor.  That way wb content is dead-easy for the end user to make and the content is also made part of the wb website rather than being made up of a bunch of links to outside sources.  Therefore, no worries about images not showing when outside links are broken.

I've studied many cms's and my goal is always to find something that is easy for the end user to work with.  I find WB to be clear and very accessible for the end user but adding content is still a tedious job for most since they have to plan ahead what images to upload first and in addition make sure there are no name conflicts when uploading them.

I'm not a programmer so I don't know how difficult this is to achieve but surely it can't be too difficult to have the clipboard images copied into WB at the same time as they are pasted into the editor and have the rich-text editors produce the link direct to the new renamed images in the WB "rich" media folder?


As for Xinha not working properly, it seemed to install ok and I got one save out of it - then the whole of WB started to behave as if I'd selected "none" for the wysiwyg choice in settings - ie no editor was available for adding content.  (Tried fckeditor too - can't remember what the problem was right now but it didn't work properly either.)  For the moment I'm back to the default editor and everything works fine, though no image pasting of course.


I think integrating a cut'n'paste capability as described would be a very worthwhile addition and I'd be happy to help out with ideas and testing if any programmers are  interested.

Many thanks
Vee

[pcwacht]

Agreed on the capability of cope and paste, but for that you are in the wrong forum I think.

WB uses standard HTMLArea wich has died.
XINHA based on HTMLArea, FCKEditor, TinyMCE and other gpl editors are made as a plugin for WB. WB does not code on them, just make them pluggable for WB

Only tiny things (ahum tiny) programmed by the community are things lilke integrating css, pointing the wysiwyg to the right mediapool etc

Extra features as your described copy-paste is best if they are programmed by the wysiwyg builders/community.


John

PS Troubles with switching wysiwygs, make sure your local cache is empty!!

[vee]

Hi John

Thanks for that.  Only just joined the forum - where is the right place to go to talk with the wysiwyg programmers?  Community discussions/modules maybe?

Thanks
Vee

[pcwacht]

The websites where the wysiwygs come from are:

FCKEditor : http://www.fckeditor.net/
XINHA : http://xinha.python-hosting.com/
TinyMCE : http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/

These wywiygs are beyond the scope of WB, so not here

John

[vee]

Hi John

OK - but just while we're here, I saw on a thread in the modules forum that you did a commercial job for someone to integrate a non gpl editor for them - so obviously you know what you're doing.

What would it actually take to integrate a rich-editor such that the paste function works as described before?  To get it done, does one talk with a guy like you who's coding WB or talk to the rich-editor guys and get them to make wb work with their editor?

Seems to me that the obvious way is for the wb team to integrate the paste function - so why would that be beyond wb or the wb team programmers?

Many thanks for your time

Vee

[pcwacht]

I saw on a thread in the modules forum that you did a commercial job for someone to integrate a non gpl editor for them

I allso do loads of nonprofit help and coding......

Code:

so why would that be beyond wb or the wb team programmers?

To make this clear you need to know how a wysiwyg works (I'll try to explain as far as my knowledge goes..)
wywisyg's are javascript embeded codes with loads or routines.
When you click on something in the wysiwyg the javascript(routine) is executed.
Like inserting a table, changing fonts etc

What you want is to paste an image in the content.
Since the content is controlled by javascript (code made by the wysiwyg guys) they must make some routine wich "looks" at the embedded pictures and decide if the picture is local or from another server and if it is from another server fetches that image.
The real grabbing of the image and store it locally could be php but the initiation or 'fetching the parameters'  should be javascript

What we do here at wb is coding php and using /integrating existing programms from others like wysiwygs to make wb better.
In the wysiwygs addons could be very minor setting changes so it works better with wb. There allso could be some plugin changes all to make it work better with wb.
But wywiyg core changes are best done  by those developers, same as development for wb is done by the wb developers.

I hope this make sense and makes it more clear?

Extra functionality wanted / needed in a wysiwyg -> wysiwyg forum
Extra functionality wanted / needed in wb -> wb forum
Better integration wanted / needed for a wysiwyg in wb -> wb forum

Same goes for other things wb uses or need to run,
think php, mysql, apache, IIS, mail etc etc etc..

John

[vee]

Hi John

Yep, makes sense and very clear - thanks for taking the time.  Well you've certainly got me thinking now...!

Thanks again

Vee

[ruebenwurzel]

Hello vee,

if you have a free wysiwyg editor wich does what you want, post it here and we can try to make a modul for WB from it.

Same could we do with a commercial wysiwyg editor (like pcwacht did before) but not here in the forum. PM or mail pcwacht or me and ask.

If there is a descreption for the editor, how to implement in CMS systems, I'm pretty shure we got it to work for WB too.

Matthias

[vee]

Hi Matthias

OK - great stuff!  I'll look into this, do some better research and I'll tell you what I find out.

Thanks!
Vee

[akiratetsuo]

hi guys,

is it possible to use the fckeditor as a module for wb ? the htmlareaeditor is such a resource killer i created nearly 220 pages and its wasting time to wait for it (htmlarea).

the raw insertation of php code is not my style, i lame on that.....

thx.

[kweitzel]

you find the required module here: http://addons.websitebaker.org/modules/

cheers

Klaus

[akiratetsuo]

nice and slow (fast)  i will check these plugin soon

thx

[melissa]

@vee: I use the FCKeditor module, and I'm pretty happy with it. There's functionality to upload images without leaving the wysiwyg editor, you don't have to be in the Media section of the WB admin.

I find with my users, if they could just copy and paste images in, their page sizes would end up massive, because they just wouldn't think about whether an image had a big filesize or not. I'm not sure how the wysiwyg editor you mentioned copes with this.

Melissa