WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) visual editors provide a valuable toolkit for developers building modern web and mobile applications. By enabling direct formatting of text styles and layouts through an intuitive interface, they can tremendously accelerate content creation and maintenance tasks traditionally requiring extensive HTML/CSS coding.
This article explores the key reasons you should integrate a WYSIWYG editor into your next project, highlights leading open source and commercial options, then details the critical assessment criteria depending on technical stack and use case priorities. You will gain a 360-degree perspective encompassing functionality, customization, implementation complexity and business productivity enhancements of embracing these technologies today.
Overview
- WYSIWYG Usage Growing Dramatically Among Web Developers
- Visual Editing Alleviates Tedium of manual HTML/CSS Coding
- Leading Solutions Offer Enterprise Scale and Customizations
- Seamless Framework Integrations for Rapid Uptake
- Consider License Terms, Feature Needs and Output Quality
WYSIWYG Adoption Rising Rapidly
Industry surveys reveal a substantial uptick among web developers making use of WYSIWYG visual text editors:
| Year | % Using WYSIWYGs |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 35% |
| 2020 | 48% |
| 2021 | 58% |
Key drivers for this trend include:
✔️ Avoiding burnout from repetitive HTML markup and CSS styling
✔️ Enabling less technical users to update content
✔️ Retaining layout control compared to page builders
✔️ Producing accessible and SEO-friendly code output
For teams balancing complex projects, developer sanity along with end user empowerment makes utilizing WYSIWYGs a winning combination.
Streamlined Text Editing and Styling
While basic text formatting can be achieved programmatically through snippets like bold and italic annotations, implementing precise layouts demands intricate HTML and CSS manipulation.
WYSIWYGs handle these tedious structural and styling aspects in a simple visual way:
- Clean toolbar buttons for basic formatting like headings, lists and quotes
- Menu dialogs for refined alignment options and colors
- Embedding rich media by direct drag-and-drop
- Granting only safe styling options rather than freeform code editing
This prevents developers wasting endless hours hand-coding text blocks while enabling less technical authors to publish content freely.
Assessment Criteria
With dozens of JavaScript-based WYSIWYG libraries now available, deciding the ideal solution depends on several technical and business factors:
Features
Do you require extensive formatting options or lightweight text enhancements? What custom extensions may be needed?
Integration Complexity
Ease of embedding and interacting programmatically varies greatly across editors.
Output Quality
Modern semantic HTML, clean CSS and web accessibility support are vital.
Appearance Customization
Locking into fixed UI designs or customizing look-and-feel to match branding needs.
Collaboration Support
For team multi-user editing with built-in change tracking.
Licensing Terms
Open source availability or permissible commercial usage.
Framework Compatibility
Tight integration with popular stacks like React, Vue and Angular.
Balancing these criteria against specific use case goals helps determine ideal editor selection…
Leading Open Source Options
Open source WYSIWYGs promise developer-friendly customization and freely embeddable licenses allowing commercial application.
Quill
Backed by open governance model through SaaS provider Nubole, Quill delivers slick formatting in a totally customizable package.
It harnesses Delta data structures for fine-grained control:
{
"ops": [
{"insert": "This is "},
{"insert": "bold", "attributes": {"bold": true}},
{"insert": " text"}
]
}Tight integration with major frameworks via wrappers:
- React
- Vue
- Angular
Produces clean and semantic HTML. MIT open source license allows full commercial usage.
Pros
✔️ Completely exposed API
✔️ JSON Delta format simplicity
✔️ Strong typing with TypeScript
Cons
❌ Collaboration requires custom integration
❌ Basic styling out the box
TinyMCE
Mature offering TinyMCE spearheaded by Ephox and now on version 6 remains wildly popular.
Strikes a balance between rich features and customization:
- 500+ formatting options
- GUI skinning
- Range of paying cloud services
- Ongoing community edition investment
Leverages browser native editing capabilities through ContentEditable model. GFPv2 open source licensed.
Pros
✔️ Huge production usage base
✔️ Enterprise level compliance and security certifications options
✔️ Extensive documentation
Cons
❌ React integration via wrapper only
❌ Requires TinyMCE server for premium plugins
Others
- CKEditor 5 – Complete frontend rewrite adopting modular architecture
- Summernote – Bootstrap-friendly and lightweight
- Slate – Build complex editors programmatically
Leading Commercial Solutions
Backed by formal vendors, commercial editors offer enhanced features, integrations and licensing around cloud collaboration, premium media capabilities and detailed documentation.
Froala
Javascript plugin by Froala Labs focusing on beautiful aesthetics and smooth performance.
-
Stunning modern UI with 40+ styling themes
-
IE8+ browser supportBacked by team offering subscription plans and tailored license agreements.
-
prices starting $99 per year
-
dedicated support options
Pros
✔️ Gorgeous editable themes
✔️ Lightning fast rendering
✔️ Wide range of plugins
Cons
❌ Requires commercial license purchase
❌ Less format configuration compared to others
TinyMCE Cloud
Ephox‘s leading editor provided as a turnkey SaaS solution.
Advanced capabilities to suit demanding enterprise use cases:
- User management and permissions
- Media manager
- Full change tracking and version history
- Multi-language spell checking
- Custom chemical and math formula editing
High-scale delivery backed by infrastructure and security certifications.
Pros
✔️ Instant access to premium features
✔️ Performance guarantees
✔️ World-class support and expert professional services guidence
Cons
❌ Server-based model less flexible
❌ Requires cloud commitment
Pricing
- Team plan supporting 5 editors and 2 admins = $29 per month
- Enterprise pricing on request with volume discounts
Final Thoughts
This guide only scratches the surface of the WYSIWYG editor spectrum available today from free libraries like Slate to startups like tiptap pushing fresh UI ideas.
Before embarking on time-intensive custom editor development, evaluate blending visual software capabilities fitting your exact feature needs and constraints.
structural complexity handled elegantly by specialized solutions. Then customize further utilizing exposed APIs if requiring fine-grained control, for instance with Quill or Slate.
Now empower users while accelerating development workflows!
