In order to produce your initial PLAIN text, you can select options in the Menu Bar at the top, with the exception of those indicated. Whatever you choose will be applied UNIVERSALLY throughout the text.

(This is different to usage of the Menu Bar in TAILORING Mode where the options you choose are applied to SELECTED text.)

In Editing Mode, you are in fact typing into an HTML textarea. And/or you can paste text into it from an external source. Use the keys Del, Backspace, Ctrl+c, Ctrl+v etc. as you normally would when editing.

This is for you to get into TAILORING MODE

after you have finished typing and/oe pasting

text

Once you have typed up your PLAIN text, using elaborations that are available on the entire textarea if you wish, CHECK IT CAREFULLY.

You can of course re-edit if necessary, but any bells and whistles that you might add in the following TAILORING MODE will be lost.

In practice, this usually matters very little. Typically, you don't need to make any further elaboration at all, or what you need is minimal, so it can easily be replaced. The most annoying thing is when we make silly spelling mistakes and we need to go back to correct them. If you check your writing carefully before continuing, it certainly helps.

So now you are ready to go into TAILORING MODE:

In Tailoring Mode then, as I said, you can select portions of text and make whatever detailed alterations are necessary, highlighting specific words or lines with different fonts, font sizes, font colours, font weights, styles, decorations, and of course underlining, especially if you want to provide links when you get back into the main program. Note the appearance of the "Font Backgound Colour" and "Save" buttons for you to use:

When you are satisfied with your final rich tailoring (hopefully much less than the example shown above), just click on the "Save" button to return to the main app:

Note that because there are underlined words in your rich text, you are given the opportunity to associate links with them if required.

I won't go into details of link editing here. It's very simple, exactly the same as it was under the old Rich Text Editor, and it is described in the previous Full HELP. In fact, the only thing which has changed is the Rich Text Editor itself, and nothing else. Not one letter of the WP3 Editor, or its modules, has been changed . To use the Link Editor, just click on the blue link icon at the bottom of the screen. However, there is a difference which gives you a slight advantage in comparison to the old way of doing things. Previously, if you had links in your rich text, and it was necessary to re-edit (or re-tailor) it, you had to be careful to use the Link Editor first in order to remove the links. Failure to do this could cause a mess in the HTML when re-editing. With this new editor, you don't have to do that. If the Editor finds links in the HTML it is given, it removes them immediately. Of course, if you still want the links, they need to be introduced again afterwards. A little bit of work, but no big deal.

RE-EDITING YOUR WIDGET

Double-clicking on a previously edited text widget in the main app will cause it to be opened automatically in TAILORING MODE, not in Editing Mode which occurs when the widget you give the Editor is empty. In Tailoring Mode, you can do tailoring, but not the editing of text. From there, you have 2 options. If the text is OK, just make the alterations to the tailoring that you need, and click on the Save button. But if you need to alter the text, then click on the "Edit Plain Text" button. This time, you will receive a warning:

You will get this confirmation dialogue on every occasion that you request editing for an existing rich text.

Answering "Yes" for re-editing will then give you something like this:

Now, after altering your text, re-introduce the basic universal tailoring that you need. and click on the "Tailoring" button.

On this occasion, my final elaboration consists only of an underlined word that has its own background colour.

I now click on Save to transfer it to the main app.

And here we are again with our updated rich text widget, and the opportunity once more to create a link for the underlined word if desired.

That completes our explanation of the full editing / re-editing cycle.

What follows is a few words about some of the Editor's details that you need to know about.

This new Rich Text Editor works in two modes, the first for producing plain text, and the other for producing any further rich elaborations required. Editing Mode only is sufficient for most purposes. However, one important elaboration that you might need is the underlining of selected words in order to provide a LINK upon return to the main app. This can only be done in Tailoring Mode. All texts begin in Editing Mode, regardless of whether you are typing or simply pasting text from an external source. Once your PLAIN text is complete and correct, you then kick the Editor into Tailoring Mode for further additions if necessary. Apart from underlining, you might need to highlight some portions by using different fonts, font weight, colours, sizes, and so on. Once you are in Tailoring Mode, it is then possible to return (Save) your text to the WP3 Main App.

ABOUT THE "EXTRA TAILORING MODULE"

The right mouse button has two distinct functions:

1) It reforms the HTML content of the ETM. If you encounter a difficulty while tailoring, try clicking the right mouse button.

2) UNDO restore-points are saved automatically most of the time, but you can save additional ones if you feel the need. To do this, just click on the right mouse button.

THE RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON

You can save up to 24 UNDO/REDO restore points. Thereafter, the ETM will give you the option of keeping the 24 restore points you have, or discarding them all with the exception of the LATEST version. You can then begin afresh, saving another 23 restore points until you reach the storage limit once more.

Use the REDO/UNDO buttons on the left of the toolbar at the top in order to navigate backwards or forwards through your restore points.

Because of the ETM's internal complexity, selection of text can sometimes hiccup a bit if you move the mouse quickly:

This was originally intended to be a complete Rich Text Editor, written in pure Javascript without use of the deprecated but very useful execCommand. However, with regard to keyboard editing, I found it impossible to make it 100% stable and bullet-proof. For that reason I substituted a textarea to take care of the keyboard editing. The result is a little limited, but in practical terms it works well for normal purposes.

What follows is a few tips about using the ETM. However, because it is no longer used for keyboard input, observation of them is less crucial that it might otherwise have been.

Don't let that worry you, because as soon as you release the mouse button at the end of the selection, it will be completed:

Rich Text Editor HELP

Testing under different conditions and platforms has not been carried out, just under Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) and a little in Windows. I am not a team of professional programmers but an amateur one-man band, so wider testing on my part is not feasable. I am therefore relying on any feedback that potential users are able to supply me with. However, it is a web page running in a universally used browser, not a desktop application, and for that reason it is quite likely to run successfully wherever an up-to-date Firefox is in use.

I have no intention of retiring the original Rich Text Editor and replacing it with this one. This would only become necessary if the deprecation and lack of support for the execCommand actually caused the original to stop working. The original RT Editor is old and ugly, but it works! (Currently at least.)

And who knows, by the time radical changes become necessary, I might have come up with another solution based on an alternative to employment of "the DOM", which is nothing short of a "Mission Impossible".