Forget WYSIWYG editors - use WYSIWYM instead

Gonçalo Veiga

Question

A huge problem with almost every CMS in existence is the extremely poor quality of the code produced by their WYSIWYG editors (clearly not speaking about OutSystems!). There are very few WYSIWYG editors that come anywhere close to creating fully semantic and accessible markup, as noted by Peter Krantz in Evaluation of WYSIWYG-editors (https://www.standards-schmandards.com/2006/wysiwyg-editor-test/).

Since visual gadgetry like WYSIWYG editors sells, every CMS has to have one. Most are based on Internet Explorer's MSHTML editor, which creates absolutely horrific markup. That, in turn, makes it necessary for Web professionals who want to reduce the risk of clients unknowingly ruining the website's semantics and accessibility to disable features and implement more or less advanced code cleaning procedures. It is a mess.

https://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200612/forget_wysiwyg_editors_use_wysiwym_instead/

The comments are also quite interesting.

18 Dec 2006

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