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Open Source, Collaborative Rich-Text, Web-Based Editor Almost Available

Posted by timothy on from the now-how-much-would-you-pay? dept.

johanneswilm writes: Open source web-based editors such as CKEditor and TinyMCE have been available for more than a decade, and some closed source collaborative editors such as Google Docs have been available since 2007. Creating open source, collaborative, rich-text, web-based editors has proven difficult due to lack of standardization of the lower-level browser features. Now Marijn Haverbeke, the developer behind the popular CodeMirror has started such an editor, called Prosemirror, financed through a crowd-funding campaign. Meanwhile the W3C has installed a task force to rapidly standardize and fix the features needed in browsers to easily create richtext and semantic editors.

11 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Installed a task force? by Bookwyrm · · Score: 3, Funny

    > Meanwhile the W3C has installed a task force to rapidly ...

    Whoa whoa... hold on there. What version of the task force did they install? It is compatible with the current W3C? (It runs on Linux, right?) Is the source for the task force available? Is it running in the cloud somewhere as a virtual task force?

    1. Re:Installed a task force? by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2

      You can read it all about in the new John Grisham - the W3C Editing Task Force

      And an edgy, noire hero with different tattoos on his fists: <pain> and </pulse>.

  2. Re:Make up your mind... by Nutria · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Do we have to explain that "has started" means that he's working on it, "(a)lmost available" means it's not done yet, and that those two conditions are not mutually exclusive?

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  3. Native binaries... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

    If they do a good job on the protocol, then it should be reasonably reasonable to make a native binary which also speaks the same protocol. That would be awesome too: you can collaborate via the web if you don't have it installed, but use a native program which doesn't hog resources like they're going out of style if you're using it a lot

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:Native binaries... by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      A document standard should be independent of any one particular person's views on how an editor for it should be implemented. Any successful format should have proof of concept tools implemented through a variety of methods.

      The data is the point, not the tool.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  4. LibreOffice Online? by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 2

    I wonder, how will this editor compare to LibreOffice Online ("LOOL"), when it's finally released?

    --
    Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
  5. Etherpad lite is pretty close by Krishnoid · · Score: 2

    I was able to spin up an instance of Etherpad Lite pretty easily. It's not very rich text, but does have programming language syntax highlighter and other plugins.

  6. Holding the code hostage? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >> ProseMirror is intended to become open source (MIT licenced), but since I need to combine writing open software and earning a living, I am running a crowd-funding campaign to fund the work I put into the implementation. Until that succeeds, all rights are reserved.

    In other words...this is the opposite of the type of open source projects we're used to, where someone writes something to "scratch an itch," releasing better and better versions into the open source community. Instead, this guy's said "hey, I'm building something cool, and I pinkie-promise swear to release it as open source, but only if you pay me $1M^H^H^H 35,000 Euro."

    1. Re:Holding the code hostage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      And that is exactly what happened here. The software is mostly done (https://github.com/prosemirror/prosemirror), the author has a great track record of releasing and maintaining solid software, and there are demos on the project page (http://prosemirror.net).

  7. Re:Make up your mind... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do we have to explain that "has started" means that he's working on it, "(a)lmost available" means it's not done yet, and that those two conditions are not mutually exclusive?

    Well, to be honest I think a car analogy would help.

  8. Re:Purpose? by nnull · · Score: 2

    I'm still asking the same question. Why would I want this?