JSP Online HTML Editor
Any CMS needs an authoring tool (authorware). Most of them rely on an online HTML editor that helps the managers to add content in their system. But a good online HTML editor does more then just edit a piece of HTML. Or better, editing/creating an HTML is a little more complex then just entering some text and bold some words.
KTML 4.1.0 is a JSP Online HTML Editor that does all this and even more. It is the last version from InterAKT and it’s behavior is enhanced using AJAX for a better usability.
HTML Editing
In most of the cases a piece of content is added inside a CMS from a document already written in Word or some other office application. For this case KTML come with a ‘Paste from Word’ feature that strips down all unnecessary formatting.
KTML4 comes with a familiar looking toolbar. It resembles the Word toolbar and it has the same functionalities. One key feature is that a CSS file can be added to the KTML to be used in the style dropdown.
But adding styles and other formatting to the HTML is not all. You must be able to edit them in a simple manner, without going into the HTML source. For that purpose KTML 4 comes with a lot of property inspectors.
Of course that if you are skilled in HTML you can go into the source code and edit it to your likeing.
Templates
For reusable blocks of HTML, KTML 4 comes with a templating engine. The user can select a piece of HTML inside the KTML and save it for later use as a template. This templates are saved on the server as HTML files. One can also upload HTML files as templates.
Online File Browser
I’ve mentioned the file upload so I must say that KTML 4 comes with a very good online file browser. This file browser lets you to manage a folder structure on the server and manage the files in this structure. It has three working modes: documents, templates and media.
For the media mode the user has access from the file browser to an online image editor, so last fine tunning of an image is now possible directly on the server.
Spellchecking
No good editor is complete in our days without a spellchecking tool. So KTML 4 has a spellcheck tool that uses an aspell on the server. In addition to this, if the client does not have access to an aspell on it’s server, the KTML 4 can be set up to use the spelling web service from InterAKT.
Security
This article does not try to be a comprehensive description of all the KTML4 features. I only try to outline some of the features that caught my attention and impressed me. But there is one very important aspect that must be mentioned. KTML 4 was build to be secure. Because KTML 4 uses AJAX to power it’s usability, all the calls to the server are checked both into the client and onto the server. The online file browser was treated with special attention, no call, true or fake, can alter files outside the designated box (folder specified by the administrator on the server).
All the modules are easy to set up and using a role based security system in the CMS the admin can enable them only for some roles (eg. the file browsing can be disabled for low level clearance).
A lot can be said about KTML 4 but I suggest looking at the demo to see how it works and make an impression about it.
