[development] Status update: WYSIWYG support in Drupal core

[Damien Tournoud]

On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Daniel F. Kudwien
<news at unleashedmind.com>wrote:

> [...] Long IRC message from Daniel
>

Erm. WYSIWYG support not being in Drupal core because the core queue could
not handle the support requests? That seems a little bit far fetched.

My own explanation is more simple:

- We haven't found yet a non-crappy jQuery WYSIWYG editor licensed under the
GPL (and a even just a non-crappy WYSIWYG editor, for that matter)
- It is doubtful that a WYSIWYG editor improve usability
- On the other hand it is certain that a (non correctly configured) WYSIWYG
editor can decrease the efficiency, by (1) encouraging people to use
inadequate markup, and (2) allowing them to copy/paste from some brain-dead
desktop applications

In a nutshell, the WYSIWYG editors, as we currently know them, doesn't fit
every need, so there is no reason to bother to have one in core.

I have said that a few times already, but the answer to questions like
"everyone needs a WYSIWYG editor, Drupal should support that out of the box"
(feel free to replace "WYSIWYG editor" by "a better forum", "trackback
support" or "a pony stable") is *not* "that should be in core", but "people
should step up to create and maintain a Drupal distribution that fits these
particular needs". Because, no, not everyone needs that, and core is already
sufficiently large so that a few areas are already poorly maintained.

Damien
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