Docnotes: TinyMCE, medblogs, etc

September 28, 2004

TinyMCE, medblogs, etc

I really don't like the default editor screen for MovableType. There's no way to do even elementary editing. Originally, I had HTMLArea installed as my WYSIWYG editor .. then Dave put in FCKedit .. which was fine .. but when I installed MT 3.1, he suggested I try TinyMCE and I really like it. It took about 30 seconds to install .. (ok .. 30 seconds plus about 2 weeks until I has the time to carefully trace the file location paths to make the javascript load). For MT geeks, here's how I did it:

Download the software and install it to the base MT directory.
Find header.tmpl in the /mt/tmpl/cms directory and add this code:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="<TMPL_VAR NAME=STATIC_URI>tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/tiny_mce.js"></script>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
   tinyMCE.init({
    mode : "specific_textareas"
   });
</script>
Now find edit_entry.tmpl in the same directory and add:

mce_editable="true" to the textarea definition for the Entry Body textarea ... (about line 188 or so .. but your mileage may vary .. )
Done! .. I'd like to get this workin in typepad too .. but not sure if I can get it to work. Why can't Sixapart just license one of these little editors? Seems silly that Typepad is locked into plain text entry.

I did a bit of work on medlogs .. added a week's worth of new feeds yesterday .. interesting additions: