Hi Teo thank you for your reply. Any possible solutions on how to give this option? Maybe with another editor? Thank you
You can paste HTML code in medium Editor and then it renders it.
Maybe if you find a way for him to generate the HTML and paste it inside that would be fine.
Teodor while this is an option, it is not an easy one for the non tech savy user. The ‘issue’ is that Medium Editor is great and very easy to use. So when the user sees such a great functionality he expects to be very easy to create a table. Furthermore when he has used the TinyMCE or similal editors in older websites, it is a very common question for him to ask, why he can not do it in a cutting edge Admin area.
Thank you very much
I think the problem is that Medium Editor itself does not support tables. It’s not really a Wappler issue of not supporting it.
I understand where you are coming from, unfortunately we spoilt our customers some time back by offering them such functionality that was available to us through Advanced HTML Editor 3, with multiple add-on extensions there was really not much that could not be achieved.
Move 5 years ahead to today where technology has got better and better, cars are about to take flight, web development has pushed limits and given us greater expectations.
But hold on, instead of Advanced HTML Editor we can now offer Medium Editor, with about 1 percent of the functionality we used to offer, half a decade ago.
@t11, the unfortunate reality is that this functionality is still available for you to make use of, if you, or I had the brain of @George and his team we could offer our clients all this and more, but i am in the same boat as you relying on purchased tools to meet my clients needs. This is certainly no fault of Wappler, as they have prioritised what their DMXZone clients most purchased and coveted, if they sold 1000 units of Nivo Slider vs 50 units of Advanced HTML Editor, then they might just make a new version of that for us when they are a little bored one day, whereas they will continue to develop Nivo Slider at super speed. Sad but understandable.
I have resorted to telling clients that want to have a Full CMS that i can only give them that on the WordPress platform, however if there website needs custom development then they can only have a very limited CMS, and this has made my life far easier.
I know this does not help you at all but it’s just my 2 cents on the matter.
Hello @psweb,
We are actually moving away from what editors like Advanced HTML Editor 3 offered as we think website user should not be given the opportunity to insert static HTML elements directly on the page as later this only causes issues with the layout.
It’s better to build your CMS and page templates in a way where user only inserts data into the database and then you use this data to visualize it on the page. So if you want them to be able to upload images, better add an upload field, insert the images paths into the DB, and the using a repeat region in your page templates - show them. It is so much better than allowing users inserting and aligning pictures here and there…
If I am building a CMS i’d even only use text fields and textareas (not an HTML Editor) then, using CSS I’d style the contents of my templates. Giving styling and aligning and inserting options to the users who have no idea which element should they insert and where to insert it always causes issues with “my site built with your extensions is now broken”
However, we will check what add-ons for Medium Editor would be useful and will probably extend it a bit more.
I must admit that if it were up to me no client would ever have a CMS at all. Even the Wordpress one, most clients with little knowledge of web development just make their own websites ugly whenever they add their own stuff. Or as you say break the site completely. They upload images at the incorrect size, resolution, aspect ratio, and quality most of the time. So I honestly do agree with you.
The problem is that some clients really want a CMS and no matter what I say to try convince them that it’s a bad idea that is what they still want. So in those rare cases it would be wonderfull to have something to give them, Advanced HTML Editor 3 was what I used to give, so medium editor with extended functionality would be great too.
I agree that giving the option to users to add their own html code inside their pages is a very bad tactic. And this is one of the main reasons I don’t like solutions like WP etc. It is just it does not make sense, to clients mind, when you tell them that they can not add a simple table. They see such great functionality (to add an image for example) and they ask why I can not do the same with a simple table. I agree that the best would be to give an option to create the table directly from data saved inside the database, and regarding my current issue with the client is what I will try to create. But this will require a lot of time for something simple.
@Teodor I agree with you that giving the option to add HTML code inside pages from the WYGIWYS editor causes a lot of issues and personaly I hate it. Also abillity to create entire pages (with css etc) through WYGIWS editors is out of our current development scope with Wappler and DMXzone. For us the ‘made with Wappler developers’ data is more important and all final html pages are the result of data combination (and this is the way it should be). This is why (or at least me) love DMXzone and Wappler. Because it gives us the ability to create cutting edge | super easy to use data oriented Websites / Webapps. But maybe some more functionality of adding a table (through the Medium Editor) is not that bad.
Thanks
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Brad…
Can you direct me to where I can learn the details of how to insert and use the Medium Editor on my page?
Hi Randy, I am currently traveling and don’t have my computer handy to get you a screen shot. But basically just as a regular text area to your form and you will see in the property panel where to convert to medium editor.
Thanks for the start, Brad… I’ve been ‘playing’ with this and believe I’ve successfully setup the server actions. However, the Editor does not behave well - I get an “Error Uploading Image” on the page. I think I haven’t completely setup the page… perhaps I need to setup the “insert or update server action” as the DMX demo says? If this is the case, could you let me know where I’m falling short? I’ve posted the page to my testsite and am attaching 8 screen captures for you to review:
The error:
The Server Actions setups:
The App Structure/Medium Editor settings:
The Medium Editor is a VERY important feature for me but as it exists, I see no where or how to protect the area from ANYONE editing or uploading… am I missing this? Also, the “Type your text” and the Add/Image buttons are so faint, they’re barely noticeable and only show after the text area is expanded with several ‘returns’. Could we also format them so they can contrast against a designer-selected background color?
The Medium Editor, in this early stage of its development, is not as easily setup or as user-friendly as the older Online HTML Editor is - my clients like that editor very much and I like its security. I too, prefer that the content be added to a dB rather than HTML. My clients certainly have no preference between HTML or dB - they just want it to be easy and intuitive to use.
So what is the status on this important tool?
I really cannot understand what do you mean?
What do you mean how to secure it? You secure it the same way as the rest of your form elements.
Please explain your questions as I am lost and don’t know what to answer…
How about using the security provider?
Doesn’t the security provider protect the ENTIRE page and not a text area? If not, how do I protect just a form element, as Teodor says in his reply? Is there a demo for this?
The old DMX Online HTML Editor secured only delimited editable text areas, allowing the public to open and read the entire page but allowed admin access (via a key command) to the text area’s editor to edit/delete/upload its content.
Maybe I’m not understanding what the Medium Editor is designed to do (since I’ve not gotten it working yet). Since I’ve been told it replaces the older DMX Online HTML Editor, I expect to place the Medium Editor on a page and allow only an admin to be able to open its content in the editor.
Am I off base on this?
I could be wrong in this @randyrie but i have used DMX Online HTML Editor on a few projects before and more recently Medium Editor, they really do not work in the same way at all.
What you are trying to do is not going to work like you imagine in my opinion because what you have is the unsecured web page viewable to the general public, that you are wanting to hit a keyboard shortcut like ALT+SHIFT+E and a login modal appears, you enter you credentials and suddenly the webpage you are viewing gets a little pencil icon to the top right of each text field where you have set the DMX Online HTML Editor to be assigned.
Then a complete content management system was available, and it was not really database dependant, it wrote your physical changes to the actual index.html file itself, you could make tables, add images, videos, etc. Lets face it, it was pretty much a complete CMS.
Medium Editor is really not a complete CMS, hundreds of features are not available in it. Basically what it does is the following, and this is how you would have to use it in your case.
Your publicly viewable page would need to pull its content from various database fields firstly because as far as I am aware it can not write over your source file.
Then you would need to have a login button somewhere on your page, when clicked you enter your credentials.
Under each text field that pulls its data from a table field in your database, you would add a checkbox that when clicked makes the region editable, and you make these checkboxes only show when a user is logged in, so the public does not even know they are there, and all your medium editor regions are not editable to them.
If a user logs in then the editable checkboxes are displayed and they can click one, then edit the text in the field, then click a submit button to run a database update action on the server and on success of the action then refresh the page.
Here is one video that might help with at least some of the steps.
And by the way I am also very sad the DMX Online HTML Editor is now gone. But maybe I am wrong and @Teodor corrects me, well lets hope.
I TOTALLY agree… word-for-word… Medium Editor in this present state is virtually useless to me. And I too, hope the Wappler developers will take a closer look at how valuable an inline content manager/editor is to many sites where site owners/managers delegate content management responsibilities to departmental or non-regional staff.
Teodor… could you please revisit this and see if Medium Editor can be built more in line like the older Adv. HTML Editor 3 or the Online HTML Editor were and allow the designer the choice of using it or not? If not, could a tutorial be created that DETAILS all the needed steps (in both the Server Connection and the App Structure panels) that demo how to replicate the functionalities of the old Online HTML Editor and/or the Adv. HTML Editor 3 using a dB with related form structures rather than editing the HTML?
My clients and site managers REALLY want these CMS capabilities.
Medium Editor is a text editor, such as Advanced HTML Editor 3. It is not a CMS, nor it is Online Page Editor Add-on.
You use it the same way as any other HTML Editor out there - on your CMS forms. Just build your own CMS and login functionality for your users.
You can alternatively use it on the pages like: https://www.dmxzone.com/go/32933/using-app-connect-medium-editor-regions
So why not do it as a Database instead of doing it as HTML? So much easier. Unless I don’t understand what you are trying to do?