Xinha Discussion Forum

zebo

New member

Registered: 2005-02-14

Posts: 7

Fck

The latest FCK editor looks very similar to HTMLArea - at least on the surface.
I can't stand the name, but there may be some ideas there.
http://www.fckeditor.net/

I don't know what they're on about when they say... "With version 2.0 FCKeditor will be the first DHTML editor compatible with IE 5+, Mozilla and Netscape."

It definitely seems to take longer to come up than HTMLArea.  I'm not sure about chopping up the source into loads of little files like they've done.  Twenty 4K files takes longer to load than one 80K file.  If Xinha is to be chopped into IE and gecko files, I suggest one big file for each rather than chopping into little functions (plugins can still be separate).  This is the same principle that led James to use a single image for all the buttons (though bigger code files are easier to maintain than a clump of buttons in one image).

Having spent some time with HTMLArea, I do think its very messy.  x-browser javascript issues aside, I really don't think it needs to be so convoluted.  Try using a javascript debugger and tracing the code... it does a lot of stuffing around.

I think the number of files and code size should be minimized.  It would be nice if it could load in 10 seconds for dial-up users (about 50KB total).  How long does HTMLArea take on dial-up (anybody still have dial-up?) - must be >20secs.  I guess it's a one-off thing and the browser cache can be relied on after that.

-=Bruce Webster.

Last edited by zebo (2005-02-16 21:34:56)

gogo

Xinha Leader

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2005-02-11

Posts: 1,015

Website

Re: Fck

I'm not sure about chopping up the source into loads of little files like they've done.  Twenty 4K files takes longer to load than one 80K file.  If Xinha is to be chopped into IE and gecko files, I suggest one big file for each rather than chopping into little functions (plugins can still be separate).  This is the same principle that led James to use a single image for all the buttons (though bigger code files are easier to maintain than a clump of buttons in one image).

I was more thinking splitting the core into three files

core.js
ie.js
gecko.js

core.js contains just pure JS stuff that works everywhere
ie.js is loaded by core.js when running in IE and contains method implementations that are specific to IE
gecko.js simiarly contains specifc to gecko stuff.

Plugins are left as is, just the core gets split.  Thats mostly what makes it such a big load now, all that reimplementing of stuff for one browser that the other browser supports better (equal amounts of that for each browser, neither is blameless).

Having spent some time with HTMLArea, I do think its very messy.  x-browser javascript issues aside, I really don't think it needs to be so convoluted.  Try using a javascript debugger and tracing the code... it does a lot of stuffing around.

I don't think it's tooo bad (and I have done the odd debugging run in venkman with it to fix problems).  Once the editor is built basically it's just updateToolbar and execCommand that do the work.  There is room for improvement though.  And I have done so in a few places.

I think the number of files and code size should be minimized.  It would be nice if it could load in 10 seconds for dial-up users (about 50KB total).

Thats doable now using javascript compressors, at least for the core, plugins add a little.

How long does HTMLArea take on dial-up (anybody still have dial-up?) - must be >20secs.

I'd say about that.  The combined images I did would help immensly there I expect.  As you say, it's (mostly, IE seems finiky about it sometimes) a one time cost.

As regards FCK, I looked at it a while back and I found it's loads of tiny files strewn through piles of directories somewhat difficult to follow.  I don't know if (I think the guys name is Fred?) the developer based it off htmlArea originally, but if so they changed it a LOT.  I havn't played with it enough to know if it behaves better or worse than Xinha/htmlArea at all.  I don't think thier demo had table operations last time I looked.

I'm told they have "40 developers", so a force to watch I imagine.

A friend of mine (also in Christchurch) has more recently looked at FCK (and decided to stick with Xinha), I'll see if I can get him to comment here.

---

James Sleeman

matt

New member

From: Christchurch, NZ

Registered: 2005-02-17

Posts: 1

Website

Re: Fck

As regards FCK, I looked at it a while back and I found it's loads of tiny files strewn through piles of directories somewhat difficult to follow.  I don't know if (I think the guys name is Fred?) the developer based it off htmlArea originally, but if so they changed it a LOT.  I havn't played with it enough to know if it behaves better or worse than Xinha/htmlArea at all.

They have multiple files for the source code, but then when you actually deploy it on your site you only load a startup.js, browserspecific1.js, and a browserspecific2.js.  These files are compressed versions built from the "loads of tiny files"

I don't think thier demo had table operations last time I looked.
A friend of mine (also in Christchurch) has more recently looked at FCK (and decided to stick with Xinha), I'll see if I can get him to comment here.

Their table operations are all done with a menu that appears if you right click on the table.  Certainly helps to keep the toolbar less cluttered.  Apart from that I haven't played with it extensively, functionality wise. 

It was rather painful to integrate the existing image and link insertion dialogs that we have from our CMS.  I assume many people do something similar to this? Some nice easy way of pluging in custom image and link insertion dialogs would be nice.