In Search of a Lightweight WYSIWYG Client
I’m interested in finding a nice, lightweight, WYSIWYG HTML editor for use by non-developers. In this scenario, as I’m sure you know, is not having too little functionality, but having too much. I haven’t found one yet that I’m comfortable unleashing on non-developer content editors. How about…
The author is seeking a lightweight, HTML Web Editor that can be used by non-developer content editors. They have tried several options but have found them too complex or complex, with the author preferring a client that is page-centric rather than encompassing the entire website. The author believes that a lightweight, user-friendly HTML editor could be used to edit a pre-created site, with the aim of building a maintainable site.
Generated by Azure AI on June 24, 2024I’m interested in finding a nice, lightweight, WYSIWYG HTML editor for use by non-developers. In this scenario, as I’m sure you know, is not having too little functionality, but having too much. I haven’t found one yet that I’m comfortable unleashing on non-developer content editors.
How about FrontPage or Dreamweaver, you say? Dreamweaver is too complicated for the average editor to grasp. Yes, I know it makes perfect to HTML jockeys, but it’s not for the faint-of-heart. FrontPage is simpler, but I’ve found it gives the user too much rope. They end up with more than enough to hang themselves.
Contribute from Macromedia comes close. It’s a scaled-down version of Dreamweaver, but it’s not problem-free. It requires some voodoo to get it up and running and I didn’t find that it was easy to edit file system-based files. Contribute is at its best when used on a site managed by a geek with a copy of Dreamweaver.
Surprisingly, Mozilla Composer – part of the Mozilla Suite – is very good. Not quite perfect, but it’s clean and simple. However, you have to have the whole Mozilla shindig to use it. I hope they break it off into its own product.
What I’m looking for is a WYSIWYG editor with which I could let a user edit a pre-created site. Using some strategic rewrite rules, a limited FTP account, and php_append and php_prepend files, you could very easily build a nice, maintainable site that handles all the common elements of the page, leaving just the “content valley” to be managed by a content editor with a lightweight WYSIWYG client.
Now if I could just find the right one. Any recommendations?
Update: One last requirement: the client needs to be page-centric. Too many HTML editors drift off into concepts of “the Site” or “the Web.” I want one that is concerned pretty much solely with the page that’s currently loaded into it, and doesn’t try to wrap its arms around the entire Web site at once.