thanks

Ok, I’m ready to join the beta test…

I have been using TinyMCE and the EE extension, but have been plagued with a number of bugs.  TinyMCE seems to have issues with malforming links when it thinks that it knows better than you do as to what your link should be.  In addition to that, I have found other problems when TinyMCE doesn’t nest codes properly.

So, I’m ready to give Xinha a try.  I have installed it on one EE installation and have begun some testing.

There were some installation difficulties, with the system not wanting to function correctly, but I finally got it working in a limited fashion.  I will test further and come back with my results.

However, I have found one possible problem, but it is one that I am not absolutely certain of.  It appears to me that Xinha or the extension might be having difficulties when there are multiple textarea boxes within the same publish page…

This is great feedback, Doug.

What installation difficulties did you have, and what did you have to do to get it working correctly? In what way is the current functioning limiited?

Xinha can support all the text areas on the same publish page. I will add some checkboxes to the preference settings to make it easy to activate Xinha for all text areas.

In the meantime, if you’d like to use Xinha with with additional text areas, open the “xinha_prefs.js” file. In the section marked STEP 2, change this:

...to this:

Field 2 is the Body field. Field 3 is the Extended Text field. Field 1 is the Summary field.

Doug, I look forward to your additional feedback. Thanks very much for this beta testing.

I see 31 potential beta testers have downloaded the latest version so far. Have you had a chance to install it yet? If so, please post your feedback here.

37 people have downloaded the extension, but so far only one has posted comments here about it. Is something making it difficult to install the extension? If so, please email me directly with any questions. Thanks in advance for your feedback on this extension.

For the less knowledgeable and technically acute among us, instructions on setup and initial use need to be step-by-step and straightforward (not just the Xinha extension, Xinha, too).

I’ve downloaded the build and tried to figure out how to install. No go. There’s no readme.txt, no doc file, no start_here.txt. I’m willing to put in some effort to try out extensions, plugins, and modules, and I don’t want to sound picky or trite, but wider adoption, even of a beta ext/pi/mod needs to be easier to use, and instructions need to be clear.

For example, I had to scour through the thread to find the latest extension (still not sure if it’s the latest), and finally realized it’s an attachment. A week or so ago I read a thread that a Xinha js file needs to be edited to attach itself to text fields.

I tried the TinyMCE editor and got it to work but ran into regular bugs; tried different browsers, and ran into different bugs, so, out the door it goes.

I would like to have a stable XHTML text editor within EE because some users require that level of ease of use.

A little help for the old, hard of hearing, and nearly blind among us…

Thanks very much for this feedback, RonnnieMC, and for asking what needs to be done to install Xinha itself. Because you have asked this question, I’m sure many others have this question as well.

You don’t have to do anything to install Xinha besides what’s in the Read Me file for my Xinha extension.  Following the instructions in the Read Me file that comes with the extension should activate Xinha for the Body field for the EE Publish Page, with no need to edit the Xinha js file.

OK, I’m still dinking around but got Xinha installed and the WYSIWYG editor shows up OK, though only in the {body} field (field_id_2).

I’ve added field_id_1, field_id_3 as per instructions, but neither shows up. I’m using Firefox 1.5.0.1 (Safari doesn’t like Xinha about the same as it doesn’t like TinyMCE.

The Newbie Guide is a bit daunting, though I’m still playing around.

The value with Xinha/TinyMCE et al, is for those users who don’t know XHTML (or shouldn’t be allowed to spell it) yet need to format their own entries. So the objective of sucha a project is worthwhile.

That said, there are many of us EE users, though we don’t mind dinking around in code, are not coders by nature, so ‘ease of use’ for installation, set up, etc., has to be at a different level than for those who program and work at a different, more technical level.

Promising so far. More to come…

I installed the Extension and so far it works fine - in it’s default configuration.
So far I haven’t figured out how to get my CSS styles recognized or how to get the Image Manager plugin working. I agree that the setup and configuration needs to be made more easy to understand and step by step. I also think this applies not only to this extension but to Xinha itself.

Great! It sounds like the extension is working. I’m working on a new version that makes it easy to select which publish fields to use it with. I’ll have a look at doing something like this for the CSS file as well.

In terms of getting the Image Manager working,  there’s no way to access the settings for that from Xinha or from an EE extension. It just has to be done as per the “Recommended Image Plugin” section in the “Read Me” file I provided. It’s a hassle, but after a bit of experimenting you’ll get it working. Maybe I can provide a file that will work on most EE installations. That could make it easy in most cases.

Ok - Had more of a play around with it and got the ImageManager working.
Had to replace

with

in the config.inc.php file and it worked.

Still can’t figure out how to get the editor to display everything using my CSS stylesheet or give me the option to apply styles directly to text in the Xinha editor.

Fantastic, Andy. Very cool. I’ll put this into the next version.

Haven’t got that to work yet. Is there a “;” at the end of the string?

I did get the editor to show up in other text fields, but it doesn’t want to allow an edit within the field.

You need to edit two variables in the config.inc.php file and also make sure your image directory has the right permitions (seems to need 775)

and a bit lower

And yes I also forgot the ;
*note to self: always double check cut and paste!

How hard would it be to implement something like in the left frame of the Xinha example page in the preferences page of the Xinha Extension for EE? That way after setting the custom variables for the individuals EE site all one would have to do is activate a certain plugin for Xinha. Is this achivable or just an utopian dream?

Actually, it’s pretty easy for me to put a scrollable list of plugins into the EE settings for the extension, so that the user can just click what extensions he or she wants to use.  As soon as I get the answer to a question I’ve posted in the Extensions forum, I’ll add that to the next version of the Xinha extension.

Great - looking forward to it. 

I’ve got the new version of the extension ready. It depends on some EE updates that haven’t been released yet. (Paul sent me betas). As soon as the update of EE is released, I’ll post the new version of the extension.