CustomerCentrix

Our current choice of online rich text editors (see also) is called TinyMCE. Installing in not difficult, but takes a little more effort than many of the other drupal modules. As of September, 2005, the current version of the Drupal TinyMCE WYSIWYG (integration module) is 4.6.0 and of the editor itself is 2.0RC3. The drupal module is really just some extra code that is necessary to plug the editor into Drupal. You need both pieces.

Copy the module code like with other modules to the modules subdirectory and run the mysql code. The copy the editor code into the modules/tinymce subdirectory. Note! This will give you an odd looking modules/tinymce/tinymce directory structure. Another note! While not that big by today's standards at a little less than 1MB, the TinyMCE editor download is significantly larger than the entire drupal installation.

Next steps are to log into drupal as administrator and enable the editor. Authorize authenticated (or other users) for its use. If all is working, it now should appear when creating content as a link below the main edit box. It is disabled by default, and clicking the link will add a toolbar at the bottom of the editor.

Tinkering with the settings for TinyMCE will allow it to be turned on by default. You need to create a new TinyMCE profile to adjust any of the other settings. I created one called "General Editing" for authenticated users. It has the advanced theme (more editor functionality) with the toolbar located at the top instead of bottom. Most users seem to expect toolbars to be at the top unless they are using developer tools. At the bottom of the profile, there is a long list of additional plug-ins (editor features) that you can enable as well. I turned on search and replace as well as the table features. Refer to the docs for descriptions of other features.

Image handling is probably the biggest feature that is left wanting. For non-technical users, the expectation is that you click on a button, upload an image or select one that has already been uploaded. The functionality that is provided gives only the capability to insert an img tag, assuming that the image is already available from an internet addressable location that the user knows. This is the kind of assumption often made by technical folks, that frustrates the average internet user. An additional (for purchase) module from Moxie or one of the Drupal image or file handling additions is necessary for this to work as most users would expect.