Simple WYSIWYG Editor

Creating a WYSIWYG textbox for your website is actually quite simple.

Thanks to the html iframe component that contains the execCommand function, which enables us to access html tags in real time.

The following snippets shows how to implement this function:

editor.js

 
var Editor;
 
function Format(action)
{
	Editor.execCommand(action, false, null);
}
 
function Colour(colour)
{		
	Editor.execCommand("forecolor",false, colour);
}
 
window.onload = function()
{
	Editor = document.getElementById('textbox').contentWindow.document;
	Editor.designMode = "on";
	document.forms[0].onsubmit = function()
	{
		var text = document.getElementById('text');
		text.value = Editor.body.innerHTML;
	}
}
 

In the top script we attach anonymous methods to the page load event and one on the form submit event (assigns the contents of the iframe to a form control - since we need to submit it via the page)

editor.html
 
<html>
	<head>
	<title>Simple Javascript WYSIWYG Editor</title>
		<script language="Javascript" src="editor.js"></script>
	</head>
	<body>
		<form method="POST">
			<div>
				<input type="button" onclick="Colour('Green')" style="background-color:Green;" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Colour('Red')" style="background-color:Red;" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Colour('Blue')" style="background-color:Blue;" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Colour('Black')" style="background-color:Black;" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Format('bold')" value="B" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Format('italic')" value="I" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Format('Underline')" value="U" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Format('justifycenter')" value="C" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Format('justifyleft')" value="L" />
				<input type="button" onclick="Format('justifyright')" value="R" /><br/>
				<iframe id="textbox" style="width:300px; height:150px"></iframe><br/>
				<input type="submit" value="Go" />
				<input type="hidden" id="text" name="text" />
			</div>
		</form>
	</body>
</html>
 
This is just a basic implementation of the execCommand function, here is a small list of properties one can use as well, things like cut/paste inserting tables/links/images etc:

BackColor: Get or set the background color of the selected region.
(this property shows some weird behavior in Firefox 2.0)
Copy: Copies the selected region to the clipboard.
Cut: Removes the selected region from the document.
Paste: Adds data from clipboard to region (if applicable).
InsertHorizontalRule: Adds a horizontal rule to the region.
InsertImage: Displays an IE defined modal dialog that contains full image selection features, alt tag modification, border setting, etc.
InsertMarquee: Converts the selected text into a marque.
InsertSelectDropDown: Adds a drop down list to the region.
Print: Displays the windows print dialog so that the region can be printed.
Refresh: Refreshes the region.
CreateLink: Displays an IE defined modal dialog that lets you add a hyperlink using either selected text or new text.
InsertUnorderedList: Toggles between the selected text being an unordered list and normal text.




2009-08-17: I went through all the comments I received regarding this post and wrote some additional code that can be downloaded from here, which will be featured in a future article.



Comments

Createlink

I had a look at it a bit just now, quite an annoying thing, the createlink displays a dialog in IE, but a dialog isnt available in firefox, soooo you have to create your own dialog in firefox, plus the createlink command doesn't work as expected in firefox - so I rather swapped it for the inserthtml command in firefox I came up with the following code: function createURL() { if (window.attachEvent == undefined) { var url = prompt("Enter an url",""); if(!url.match("(^(http|https|ftp|ftps)://)")) { url="http://"+url; } Editor.execCommand("inserthtml", false, '<a href="' + url + '">' + url + '</a>'); } else { document.getElementById('textbox').contentWindow.focus(); Editor.execCommand("CreateLink",true); } } You can invoke it like this: <input type="button" value="Create an url" onclick="createURL()" /> Give it a try, let me know, there must be a better way to use the createlink command in firefox though, but It gave me a few weird issues.


create link function

Please can you write out the code addition for "create link" Thanks a million!


browser's info

can i know wich browser's are supported by this editor. ???????????


help

hi, how I can change the font name?


How!!

HOW ICAN WRITE A DEFAULT VALUE TOI DE EDITOR, AS "Please, write your text here..." Thanks.


wow

Hey! This was beatiful and soooo simple! I'm using it right now (put your name in the .js and a link to this page ;)) I added a function to change the font size trough a Select, with values from 1 to 6. In the js I just made a function like this: function changeFontSize(size)


brilliant

Hi, this example is simply perferct. Many thanks, its very helpful. P.


DEFAULT TEXT

To have some default text do the following... document.getElementById('textbox').contentWindow.document.write('your defualt text'); Where textbox is the name of the iframe


DEFAULT TEXT

In my post above, take out the backslashes And thanks for this script


Thank you

This is a amazing, you've touched the key aspect of the issue. How to make it able to deal with multiple forms on one screen?


1 2 3 4 

Post comment

Name *
Email
Title
Body *
Security Code
*
* Required fields