DrupalCon London 2011: WYSIWYG -- EDITOR MODULE

Problem:
Drupal is currently years behind in providing a content editing interface that is intuitive for end users. The expectation is so great to have a WYSIWYG editor in content management systems that when presented with the Drupal node editing form, users may struggle to find the "toolbar" that normally comes with text editing interfaces. Most users do not know HTML, we shouldn't be shoving it onto them.

Contributed-based solutions to WYSIWYG are a start but currently all of them lack from deep integration with Drupal. At minimum, we should be targeting at a bundled WYSIWYG in core with the ability to insert an image with a caption. Even today, the solution for doing this eludes every contributed solution.

Proposed solution:
This session is going to be a discussion more than a demo of proposed code. We'll take a look at what solutions other systems (namely WordPress) have included to deal with rich text editing, and we'll identify the central problems with building similar functionality into Drupal.

Ultimately, the solution currently being pursued will be an overhaul of the "Filter" module (which currently is only designed for filtering on output), and replacing it with a new module that controls not only filtering on output but also on input, making it possible to provided a true WYSIWYG (or at least a lot closer than anything we have today).

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