Intro Text HTML Editor - A Grumble

[snaffle]

First off, let me say I've been using nBill for a couple of years now and it's a great product, and the version 2 series has some great new features...

...One of which is NOT the new WYSIWYG editor for the Intro Text in forms.

I've also been using JCE for years and loved that it integrates with nBill in all other areas, so why the change for the Intro Text area?

I use the Intro Text area quite a lot, including adding images for the product I might be selling or including links to other pages on the site. With JCE this is a breeze using the Insert Image and Insert Link functions, but with this new editor, there's no browser for linking to other pages on the site, or for inserting images.

Yes it has Insert Image and Link buttons, but you need to have the full url to the page or image you want to link to which isn't all that user friendly. I had been planning on showing my client how to update this area - we have a form with Posters for sale, a new one of which is added each month, and they wanted to be able to do it themselves - ie. add a thumbnail of the poster - with JCE, simple for them but I doubt they will get there with this stripped down editor.

Any chance of this being changed in future back in future?

Cheers

Nathan

[netshine]

Since nBill 2.0, the nicEdit editor has been shipped with nBill. I chose nicEdit because it is very lightweight (most editors are huge), and its license allows it to be distributed with a commercial, non-GPL product. nBill will only use your Joomla editor if you are running legacy mode, as it does not interact with the Joomla 1.5 API (the Joomla management team are averse to this for some reason). When in legacy mode, nBill does make some calls to the old Mambo API, which is why it is able to support whatever editor you are using in Joomla.

Even then though, I had lots of problems trying to incorporate different editors into the form designer in nBill, so rather than spend huge amounts of time trying to fix that, and even then, only having it work in legacy mode, I decided to just stick to nicEdit. It's not like nBill is a CMS, and it is not likely that order forms will be created or updated constantly.

My original intention had been to allow support of various different HTML editors, but as every editor works differently, and HTML editing is such a tiny part of nBill, it doesn't seem worth making it a priority, sorry!

[pbest]

HI

I would say that the new editor is not good, I am a administrator for around 150 web sites and about of 30 the use Nbill full & lite. until I upgraded some of the sites to v2.2 they was working with good user feedback, but the biggest thing that the users are saying is "we do not like the basic editor" most of the users do not what a lot, the main thing they are looking for is to be able to re size the box that you type the text in to so you can format it.

Is there any way the you can please give a option so there is away to pick the editor (even if you make it so you do not give any support for it) I use JCE on all the sites and I would say it works 100% and even when it was used with Nbill there was not issues with it.

Or is there a way in your config files you can pick the editor (same again you do not have to give support for it)

I have even tried to downgrade but all it says you need to put the licence in and it just goes around in a loop

[snaffle]

For what it's worth, and as minor as this issue seemed to the developer, I've had to abandon nBill on two sites that I was using it on, due to major complaints from the client about the HTML editor in the introtext.

For a couple or products they updated regularly they just didn't want to deal with image url paths and the like - click and insert is all the end users wants to have to do.

[netshine]

I will take your comments on board, and look into the possibility of adding support for one or more other editors, however this has been problematic when I looked at it before. Thank you for the feedback.

[snaffle]

Thanks for looking at it again.

I'm am a little perplexed though as to why it's a problem though - nearly every other third party component I've used either lets you select an editor, or uses the one selected in General Configuration by default.

Is it something to do with the forms interface?

Cheers

[netshine]

The problem arises because nBill does not use the Joomla API. The developers of Joomla believe (erroneously I contend) that because nBill is not released under the same license as Joomla, it is not allowed to interact with Joomla's API.

[snaffle]

Ok, I hear what you're saying, and have read the various pros and cons of the core Joomla developers stance on licensing etc... blah blah blah ...well not really but in the real world that's how it turns out.

I use components from developers who comply with all of the Joomla (or JED) requirements, and I use components from those who don't - whatever I need to do to provide a solution to my client - again, in the real world. Yes in Utopia I love open source but you've got to put food on the table!

So having said that, my current shopping cart of choice, Hika Shop, is currently banned from the JED (for no good reason I might add), yet it must use the Joomla API as it picks up on the editor and is pretty heavily integrated with the CMS...

...so my point is that there seem to be plenty of other commercial components, like yours, that seem to use the Joomla API, with or without explicit permission.

[netshine]

Yes, I chose to show at least some respect for the wishes of the Joomla developers, even though I strongly disagree with them. This is not only because I'm an all round Mr nice guy but also because I would like to make nBill available for other CMSs or even standalone in future, so I don't want to be too tied to Joomla's API anyway.

[pbest]

but if you added a option for the user to pick the editor this make a lot of users happy, the only thing that the users do not like that I support is the size of the text box it is to small on the quotes is there a way that I can make it bigger in your configs  as some of them need to put a lot of text in
 

[netshine]

In /administrator/components/com_nbill/framework/interop/nbill.interop.abstract.php, around line 893, on the render_editor function declaration, you could try adjusting the numbers for the height, width, cols, and rows parameters. I don't know if it will have the effect you are looking for, but that is the only short-term solution I can think of.

[pbest]

Thank you for getting back to me I have updated that and it have made it bigger and it look right to me I have asked the user to test. one more thing there is no auto return it just keeps typing in a line is there a way thet you can get it to go the next line after so many letters

[pbest]

Sorry forgot to add can you add scroll bars to the text boxs as this would be good

[netshine]

I did not write the nicEdit editor, so I don't know off the top of my head how to change its behaviour. Word wrapping seems to work fine for me though - it might depend on the browser. For the time being I'm afraid nicEdit is the only thing on offer, but as I said, I will look into improving the choice.

[pbest]

thank you for getting back to me  I have just tested your demo on your web site with IE8 IE9 and chrome on 3 pc's and if you to type any thing in the Description box (show html) and you type any thing in it will not text wrap