I just decided to try the YUI Rich Text editor, because I had heard nice things about it. However a brief test with it this morning revealed that it produces truly horrible markup!
It doesn't take much editing to start spitting out <span> and <div> tags all over the shop.
Just look at the markup that it produces. <br /><br />This should be a new paragraph not a line break.<br /><br /><span style="background-color: #ff00ff; "><span style="background-color: #a0ff40; "><span style="color: #0000bf; "><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">And whatever happened to separation between style and content. Inline CSS is horrid! And do you really want to run the risk of your users choosing COMIC SANS?</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #0000bf; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';"><br /></span><br><span style="color: #0000bf; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';"><br /></span><br><br>Urrrgh!
A much better option would be to teach users the bare minimum of html (this really doesn't take too long) and to add a custom button to provide the extra styles you need in a style sheet.
Using BUeditor with a custom button to apply the hightlighted style would make this even easier. It's a perfect compromise - users get the "look and feel" of a WYSIWYG editor, without the awful markup.
This will be much easier to maintain especially when it comes round to the inevitable re-design in three years time!
<p>Just look at the markup that it produces</p><p>This should be a new paragraph, not a line break</p><p class="highlight">And whatever happened to separation between style and content. Inline CSS is horrid! And do you really want to run the risk of your users choosing comic sans</p>If you haven't used BUEditor, I suggest you give it a try: http://drupal.org/project/bueditor
Comments
Couldn't agree more.
Also, YUI can seem to misbehave if you flip between WYSIWYG and code views and make edits in both.
A nice addition to BUEditor is to use it in conjunction with http://drupal.org/project/textareatabs. That way you can indent your code using the tab key.