README.txt
Summary
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AreaEdit - Browser Based WYSIWYG HTML Editor Component.
by: Yermo Lamers of DTLink,LLC
http://www.formvista.com/contact.html
AreaEdit is a formVista compatible fork of the rapidly
developing Xinha project. Xinha itself is a fork of the
original HTMLArea component created by Mihai Bazon and
sponsored by Interactivetools. AreaEdit maintains the original
HTMLArea (modified BSD) license and is free to use.
While it is designed to work within formVista without
modification, AreaEdit does not requre formVista. It is a fully
functional editor component supporting a number of plugins and
can as easily be used standalone in any PHP web application.
Additionally, if the ImageManager, Linker and SpellChecker
plugins are not needed then AreaEdit can be used independent of
any backend language.
The primary difference between AreaEdit and Xinha is one of
focus. The Xinha project aims to be a rapidly developing
feature-filled editor with many plugins worked on by a larger
number of developers. It also aims to be backend agnostic.
(i.e. showing no preference over PHP, Perl, ASP, etc on the
backend.)
By contrast, AreaEdit takes a slower minimalists approach. It
aims first and foremost to be functional and maintainable. The
feature set we are focusing on is targeted squarely at the
serious non-technical business user. Business users don't care
about the nuances of HTML <br> and <p> tags, they just want the
editor to work as they would expect. Additionaly, those
features of AreaEdit that require backend support such as
Imagemanager, Linker and SpellChecker are implemented in PHP.
While this does not preclude others from developing those
backends in other languages (hooks are available), we are not
likely to that development here unless we have a paying client
funding the effort.
If your audience is primarly composed of developers or those
familar with HTML, you may wish to take a look at Xinha.
Please see the CREDITS file.
AreaEdit is released under the same terms as HTMLAREA. For
license information please see the accompanying LICENSE.txt
file. It is also available on the web at:
http://www.formvista.com/otherprojects/areaedit/license.html
For questions, suggestions and bug reports please use the
formVista discussion forums at:
http://www.formvista.com/forum.html
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REQUIREMENTS:
AreaEdit works in MSIE 5.5 or later and all modern Gecko based
browsers.
If you want to run the examples or are going to use any plugins
that require server backend support you will need a properly
configured webserver that supports PHP. In addition you will
need a command line PHP interpreter in order to run the command
line Configure.php script. (Configure.php generates the
backends/backend_conf.php file).
The AreaEdit codebase is developed under Linux and has only
been tested on that platform. It should work under Windows as
well. If try to run it under Windows and have any problems
please report them to us.
---------------------------------------------------------------
AreaEdit used to be known as the Xinha unified backend branch.
The main difference between it and standard Xinha is that all
client to server communications are routed through a single
backend script (backends/backend.php). This design allows the
component to work within the formVista framework in addition to
standalone.
JavaDoc style headers have been added to all methods in
addition to extensive debugging trace messages.
A number of scripts have been being added to make the codebase
more manageable. These scripts require Perl and PHP.
See the README_DEVELOPERS.txt for more information about
working with the codebase.
For more information see:
INSTALL.txt
README_DEVELOPERS.txt
index.html
docs/index.html
http://www.formvista.com/otherprojects/areaedit.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
On the Subject of <p> vs. <br> tags on Enter:
By default Gecko based browsers insert a <br> tag when ENTER is
pressed. By contrast, MSIE wraps text correctly in <p> tags.
As a result, both the generated HTML and the user experience are
different under the two browser. In MSIE, ENTER behaves like a
double enter when <p> tags have their default style.
The "correct" solution is to have both browsers use <p> tags and then
modify the look from stylesheets.
EnterParagraphs is a plugin that valiently attempts to correctly generate
wrapped <p> tags in FireFox. Unfortunately, even after countless hours
of work it's still largely very very broken.
For the time being, AreaEdit uses the default browser behavior on ENTER.
Under FireFox, EnterParagraphs intercepts CNTRL-ENTER and does it's thing.
(see areaedit/plugins/EnterParagraphs/enter-paragraphs.js line 940).
Once we can get EnterParagraphs working in all cases correctly we'll
change the behavior back to onENTER.
Documentation generated by
JSDoc on Sat Dec 31 14:56:56 2005