Hi,
Is there any way to change the WYSIWYG editor in Matrix? It seems to be at least partially integrated with the system (eg changing user preferences for which buttons appear), but it would be cool if we could choose a different editor and integrate it ourselves.
Does anyone have any experience of this?
cheers
The editor is very tightly integrated and would be quite challenging to replace. You would need to handle all the asset map integration with the Insert Link and Insert Image/Video plugins as well as handle other things. It's not impossible, just not very likely.
ok many thanks!
Have you seen Nicedit?
If you are creating a Simple Edit interface and you don’t want to use the Matrix WYSIWYG editor, you could easily change DIV types to Raw HTML and then use something like Nicedit (which is very easy to implement).
Obviously you lose all WYSIWYG functions like asset map integration when inserting images, and HTML Tidy.
Credits for this really go to Nic Hubbard’s blog post on this (which is where I first saw Nicedit). See Nic’s post for more details:
Nicedit
Cheers 
Dan
Just remember that NicEdit does not have integration with HTMLTidy, so your HTML won't be cleaned up. This ultimately was the deal breaker for us, and I went back to using the Matrix WYSIWYG.
Ok, I realized Dan already said this. But it doesn't hurt to say it twice!
Hi, I've got Avi Miller saying it's quite a challenge to put in another WYSIWYG and Dan Simmons/nnhubbard saying that it was easy to impliment, just they didn't like the functionality on offer. So how does one switch WYSIWYG? There doesn't seem to be any documentation either about how it works, or how it integrates with the rest of Matrix.
I think that you are getting confused about what we said here.
Avi said it would NOT be easy to change the Matrix WYSIWYG editor, as it is tightly integrated with plugins, preferences, etc. This is definitely true, as I have tried my hand at replacing it with FCKEditor. And while I have been successful, the plugins and preferences would have to be modified to work.
Where we DID say it would be easy, was to use NicEdit on a metadata field. Which would give you a nice and quick editor. But, it would have no integration with Matrix at all, but would only allow your users basic things like bold, colors, fonts etc. If this is all you need, then NicEdit would work for you.
[quote]I think that you are getting confused about what we said here.
Avi said it would NOT be easy to change the Matrix WYSIWYG editor, as it is tightly integrated with plugins, preferences, etc. This is definitely true, as I have tried my hand at replacing it with FCKEditor. And while I have been successful, the plugins and preferences would have to be modified to work.
Where we DID say it would be easy, was to use NicEdit on a metadata field. Which would give you a nice and quick editor. But, it would have no integration with Matrix at all, but would only allow your users basic things like bold, colors, fonts etc. If this is all you need, then NicEdit would work for you.[/quote]
Hi nnhubbard, where is the confusion? "Avi said it would NOT be easy to change the Matrix WYSIWYG editor" and "I've got Avi Miller saying it's quite a challenge to put in another WYSIWYG" are very similar statements.
I understand that FCKEditor will just replace text areas the same way it does with other CMSs, but I was wondering how you managed this with matrix, as it doesn't seem to use domain root folders the same way as any other CMS I've used and isn't really documented. If I can replace the matrix WYSIWYG entirely, I can still reroute some requests from a third party WYSIWYG to other matrix assets and get the matrix linkup that way, without being stuck with and undocumented and unmodifiable WYSIWYG.
hope you can help.
[quote]Hi nnhubbard, where is the confusion? “Avi said it would NOT be easy to change the Matrix WYSIWYG editor” and “I’ve got Avi Miller saying it’s quite a challenge to put in another WYSIWYG” are very similar statements.
I understand that FCKEditor will just replace text areas the same way it does with other CMSs, but I was wondering how you managed this with matrix, as it doesn’t seem to use domain root folders the same way as any other CMS I’ve used and isn’t really documented. If I can replace the matrix WYSIWYG entirely, I can still reroute some requests from a third party WYSIWYG to other matrix assets and get the matrix linkup that way, without being stuck with and undocumented and unmodifiable WYSIWYG.
hope you can help.[/quote]
In order to get FCKEditor working in Matrix, I built it as both a new content_type, and a new attribute. Therefore, you can then use it when you create new content divs, as well as change assets to use FCKEditor rather than the built in editor. This all takes some work and knowledge of how Matrix assets work. So, unless you have done this before, I would not really recommend it.
But, if you are up for a challenge, check out the “create new asset” tutorial on the Matrix Dev. site.
The WYSIWYG editor is not meant to be replaced, that is why it is a struggle. It is tightly integrated into Matrix as Avi said.
OK, thanks. I'm having trouble with users being able to add images to pages easily with matrix and have received a large quote to make the matrix WYSIWYG do what I want, which may make it worth my while to do it another way. I'll be paying someone else to do it, but it helps to know what the approach is.
Could you let me know what you are trying to do?
Are you looking for the kind of functionality that was bidded on in the feature bazaar last year?
[quote]Create a new image asset from the Insert Image popup ($7, 000) [To be released 3.20]
Currently, before you can add an image onto the page you need to upload it to the system by creating an Image asset. Once you have created the Image asset, you can use the Insert Image pop up on the WYSIWYG Editor to insert it into the content of the page.
This feature will allow you to create a new Image asset from the Insert Image pop up. You will be able to select where to create the Image asset and which file to upload.[/quote]
From http://matrix.squiz.net/resources/MMIUC-08/feature-bazaar