Ajaxify: EnhancedEntryEditing
UPDATE: EnhancedEntryEditing has been bumped up to v1.01 to fix a bug where popup windows wouldn't disappear after you were done with them. Grab the update, you only need to upload EnhancedEntryEditing.pl
Ajaxify is a series of BigPAPI plugins that adds various javascript and AJAX widgets into Movable Type's interface. It has, of course, been built for Movable Type 3.2. The first of which is EnhancedEntryEditing. This plugin adds two widgets into the entry screen:
- Resizable Textareas - I personally find the textareas on the entry screen too small and find it annoying to hack the stylesheet everytime I upgrade Movable Type. This plugin now adds "Increase Size" and "Decrease Size" controls to the Entry Body and Extended Entry fields that enlarge and shrink the textareas respectively.
- WYSIWYG Editor - One of the most popular hacks on Movalog is the one to implement HTMLArea into the entry screen. Unfortunately, it can be quite intimidating to hack the files, and is highly annoying when you lose them during an upgrade. As a result, EnhancedEntryEditing implements a WYSIWYG editor directly into the entry screen for you, all you need to is drop the plugin in the correct directories. It doesn't implement HTMLArea but TinyMCE . This is a similar editor but far more powerful and it also solves the problem of the editor loading on older entries.
For a better idea of how it is integrated, take a look at this screenshot. In the coming days, I will be releasing more plugins that are part of Ajaxify, these include a plugin that provides a seach suggestion feature and a plugin that adds several inline editing controls.
Go grab your copy of the first Ajaxify plugin.
A big thank you to Brad Choate who implemented several improvements.
13 Comments
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Tim said:
on Aug 28, 2005 12:31 AM | Reply
Great utility!
There is one annoyance in it, and I'm not sure if this is a problem with the plugin or with TinyMCE, but each time I hit Enter or Backspace in FireFox the screen flickers. It gets really annoying really quickly.
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Aug 28, 2005 8:31 AM | Reply
I believe the problem is with Firefox, I've experienced this problem when I implemented HTMLArea as well as now with TinyMCE. I'm not entirely sure why it happens.
Tim said:
on Aug 28, 2005 9:18 PM | Reply
I think you're right about the TinyMCE problem in Firefox. Thankfully it still works fine even if it is a bit annoying.
Would it be possible, in a future version, to add the HTML button to the tools (or perhaps even allow people to choose which buttons they'd like to see? I enjoy using the WYSIWYG but really like to see the code at times as well. This is especially helpful when editing older posts that were not made through the WYSIWYG.
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Aug 28, 2005 9:21 PM | Reply
Hi Tim, that's precisely why I chose TinyMCE, it already has the built in functionality (but be warned it produced optimized, hard to read code). I've even built the controls into MT. When the WYSIWYG loads, you should get toggle controls where the old quicktags used to be. Hit the remove button and the wysiwyg disappears and you get the old textareas, quicktags et al. You can easily toggle back and forth using those buttons.
Tim said:
on Aug 29, 2005 12:49 AM | Reply
Ah, right. Of course. I should have noticed that! :)
Tim said:
on Aug 30, 2005 4:08 AM | Reply
A client of mine is really enjoying this plugin but also desperately wants the ability to change font and color. What's the best way of allowing him that capability?
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Aug 30, 2005 8:10 AM | Reply
Hi Tim, take a look at the configuration docs for TinyMCE.
Shaya said:
on Aug 30, 2005 8:27 PM | Reply
Arvind, it be nice if EnhancedEntry could also expand it horizontally, not just vertically.
lou said:
on Aug 31, 2005 4:30 AM | Reply
This is a great plugin, I've been waiting along time for something like this.
I'm experiencing a problem, if anyone has a clue, plz give me a hint.
The problem is with adding images, and smilies, when added, the only thing it displays is a small blank icon, and when published, they are utterly ignored.
Does anyone know why this is happening?
lou said:
on Sep 7, 2005 9:06 AM | Reply
Hi Arvind, as I said before I really love this plugin, so I've added some of the things that people were requesting such as the font color, the html source code etc.
Like Tim, I rushed to install this for my clients, and friends, just to find that they wanted more :)
The new enhancedentryediting.pl can be found here.
Also, I wanted to ask you, what plugin are you using to allow user formatting in the comments.
Anyway, thanks alot for all your great plugins.
Richstyles said:
on Sep 9, 2005 2:59 AM | Reply
This is really nice and really shows it's worth when laying out images. This and the "better preview plug-in" has made blogging more enjoyable.
Some suggestions, especially for non-technical people: 1. a settings menu for the plug in with easy modification of the configuration file 2. a settings menu to select or unselect buttons to be displayed for the editor.
Is there any way to keep the text area expanded between sessions? I used to just hack the edit_entry.tmpl but if I do that with ajaxify I can't toggle between WYSIWYG and normal mode.
Lee, Joon said:
on Nov 12, 2005 6:40 PM | Reply
Hi, EEE users!
My alogblogMTinterface plugin collided with your EEE. So I prepared some methods.
If EEE is used with alogblogMTinterface, in Firefox some flickering doesn't show. And in MS IE, Increase/Decrese size menu doesn't seem to work properly. So I added a makeshift, although it is best for solving that problem.
I want EEE users to enjoy it even in my MT interface.
Ron said:
on Jul 15, 2006 5:13 AM | Reply
Hi, which EnhancedEntryEditing - plugin work with MT 3.3? Best regards Ron