Am 01.03.2011 19:36 schrieb Aryeh Gregor:
Two or three weeks ago I began writing a specification for
execCommand() and related functions. I don't have anything
implementable yet -- it's very incomplete and there are known issues
with the existing stuff. But I thought I'd post it for any early
review comments on the direction I'm taking, particularly from
implementers but also from anyone else familiar with the APIs (e.g.,
someone who's used them in practice):
http://aryeh.name/gitweb.cgi?p=editcommands;a=blob_plain;f=editcommands.html;hb=HEAD
The plan is that this should be merged into the main HTML spec, with a
full test suite, by the end of August. Feedback appreciated.
I am very interested in your work because I work with content management
systems a lot. Some months ago I started to write a simple rich text
editor trying to use DOM methods instead of execCommand(), because I
don't like the the code some UAs produce, and wanted a slim and easily
configurable editor. If execCommand() gets standardized and enhanced, I
might be happy to abandon the project. Here are a few comments from my
point of view:
- I assume that the list of commands is not complete, as some commands
given in the HTML spec are missing, such as "formatBlock" or
"insertHTML" - or is it your intention to drop these commands? For
better understanding, it might be worth to clarify this.
- Please consider adding a generic "formatInline" command for applying
all kinds of inline elements. A sophisticated RTE might e.g. want to
provide separate "bold" and "strong" options for authors caring about
this distinction.
- I'd like a "className" command to be added. Corporate websites usually
use a restricted set of formattings; in a CMS for such a website it
should be possible to provide a select box with the respective CSS
classes rather than font and color menus.
- In the opposite case, where everything is allowed, users might want to
apply CSS properties not covered by the command list, such as borders,
or future fancy stuff such as shadows. For these cases, an "applyCSS"
command could be helpful.
- Some CMS systems use different doctypes than the pages where the
edited text is finally published. Content edited in an HTML5 page might
be published in an XHTML page. While it is not too complicated to solve
this in practice with server-side string editing - would it be possible
to specify the desired HTML style for the output? (Which could result in
different HTML styles in a contenteditable area and the surrounding
document.)
These are just some thoughts out of my everyday work, of course I have
no idea about implementation cost and whatever issues. Generally, I
think that a future-proof execCommand() specification should rather
provide generic commands for inline and CSS formatting, and support
specific commands such as "bold" or "backColor" only for backwards
compatibility reasons. (This would also make a discussion on the
preference of element or CSS formatting obsolete, as RTE authors would
have the choice to use either.)
