One of the best tools in web development is WYSIWYG HTML Editors (“What You See Is What You Get” Editors). They allow for real-time viewing of code changes.
The creator can immediately check the changes upon editing a code without saving the file and opening or reloading the page.
These tools help developers work more efficiently by making the user interface accessible.
For instance, they work well with blogs and CMS (Content Management Systems), software tools that let users create and manage content on their website without much coding.
This is because WYSIWYG HTML Editors can provide unique and sleek rich text editors and are easy to plug into many website projects. You will spend less time worrying about the design using WYSIWYG HTML editors. Instead, it’ll let you focus more on designing database schemas, writing functions, scripts, queries, and other coding tasks.
If you’re a creative web developer who loves using tools that boost your productivity by making development easier, then you should check out WYSIWYG editors.
Now, how do you choose which WYSIWYG HTML editor is for you? The answer is that you will need to review and assess their features first. You will need to know which features take the highest priority when looking for the right WYSIWYG editors and which features are not-so-necessary at the current time.
Ultimately, you should look for those who will best help you complete your development work in less time and effort.
This article describes some of the best features you should look for in such editors so that you’ll spend less time browsing and comparing different editors online.
#1. Easy integration
This should be among the top features the creator should be looking for. For example, when looking for a WYSIWYG HTML editor, you’ll want something that takes as little time as possible to implement, allowing you to use it almost immediately after integration.
You will also want something that requires little coding knowledge to save time and effort on coding the interface and more time on the logic of the program.
#2. Modern, clean, and responsive design
Nowadays, websites are usually built mobile-first, then made scalable to larger screens. Sleek, clean, artistic, and customizable designs have also taken the spotlight in designing modern websites, and the creator must design interfaces with the users’ comfort and experience in mind.
Now, should you opt to do all these from scratch using a text editor, it will take additional time unless you have modern design templates. On the other hand, using WYSIWYG HTML editors gives you the responsive, modern design you want without much effort.
For instance, this modern WYSIWYG HTML Editor offers a balance between simplicity and elegance in its design, allowing developers to create modern-looking rich text editors that don’t overwhelm the eyes.
In addition to modern and clean designs, responsiveness is one of the most important factors of modern web development. Images, text, form elements, toolbars, and other HTML elements must always be visible conveniently and user-friendly.
With a WYSIWYG HTML editor that’s also responsive, you’ll need to worry less about making your page’s contents look excellent and visible for every screen size.
Finally, customization is a desired feature for those who want to implement WYSIWYG editors. It helps differentiate your site from others on the internet, establishing your website’s identity while preserving its look and feel.
#3. Fast and lightweight
Another desirable feature you should look for in such editors is how good and optimized the performance is. To give users a smooth and pleasant experience, software that integrates a WYSIWYG HTML editor should be fast, which means that the editor itself should be initialized quickly.
Smaller file size also dramatically helps the editor’s performance and lets developers add more instances of the same editor on a page if needed. Even a well-made, feature-packed, and graphically beautiful WYSIWYG editor won’t cut it if it performs poorly and slowly.
#4. Advanced formatting and rich text capabilities
In blogs and CMS, users often have to add images or videos, format and highlight texts, and apply various font styles and page formatting. This is where WYSIWYG HTML editors shine, giving you just what you need with less work.
When searching for your ideal editor, you must assess whether an editor's formatting and rich text capabilities are sufficient (or more than enough) for your current and upcoming projects. These are generally the formatting and rich text functionalities that you need:
● Basic font styling (bold, italics, underline)
● Paragraph formatting
● Responsive font sizes
● Font family
● Font colors, background colors, and highlighting
● Undo/Redo
● Support for links and email links
● Support for images, videos, and other media
● Image editing
● Tables, table editing, table formatting
● Support for file uploading
● Spelling and grammar checker
● Character counter
● Support for mathematical symbols and notations
● Export to PDF or other formats
● Other features such as quotes, emoticons, page/section dividers
#5. Content saving
This is another one of the essential features for CMS, website builders, and blogs that use WYSIWYG HTML editors. When users of such websites work using the editors, they will most likely be writing/creating for a considerable amount of time, especially compared to users who are merely submitting a form or filing a report on a website.
They will be formatting text and layouts, adding images and sections, or stating several links. Now, it’s highly likely that they will have a backup power system or that they’re using a laptop for their work, but what if they don’t have backup power, and what if they’re using a pc and a power outage occurs?
Their hard work would have been lost, and there would probably be no way of returning to its previous state. So that is one of the things that automatic content saving solves.
Content saving, as the name implies, can save the contents of the WYSIWYG HTML editor and pass them over to your server from time to time. When the users’ work is saved, they’ll be able to focus more on the quality of their content than the survivability or safety of their content.
Be it automatic saving every once in a while via HTTP requests, using a save button and AJAX for a smooth yet manual save method, or keeping within a form element (which will require the page to be reloaded), a way of saving your content in a WYSIWYG HTML editor is something you should look for if you want you and your users to have a peace of mind.
#6. Collaboration
Collaboration among groups has always been essential to finishing projects and various business tasks. For example, in the recent pandemic-stricken era, it has become even more necessary for a company to ensure that its production and development teams are well-informed, communicating correctly, and working together to achieve the same goals.
That is why collaboration tools, especially those that can be accessed remotely through the internet, have seen a drastic increase in usage over the past few years, such as this online word processing tool that allows for easy collaboration.
The same goes for WYSIWYG HTML editors. Developers will want editors with whom they can collaborate well and write, review, edit, and publish together.
This will allow teams to accomplish their tasks more efficiently with minimal manual file sharing and tracking changes more accurately.
With this feature on a WYSIWYG HTML editor, users won’t have to download the contents whenever they need them checked, trimming a lot of time from manual processes and, in turn, giving you more time to work on other, more critical tasks.
#7. Reliable support and rich documentation
Another feature of utmost importance for a WYSIWYG HTML editor is how reliable its technical support is and how well-developed its documentation is. You will want your editor to offer support throughout a year (or whenever your contract renews, if applicable, for SaaS editors) or when needed (for perpetual licenses, which could bill support separately).
Chances are, you will still need assistance to make a complicated vision work or fix a major bug related to the editor.
Furthermore, having an editor with reliable support means that whenever you have questions that the documentation and websites can’t answer, you’ll have some product experts who can assist you.
Of course, checking the documentation first (if any) is wise to avoid spending on support tickets (if support is not freely given) or wasting an expert’s time.
And when looking for a WYSIWYG editor, you should check whether it has robust, substantial, and easy-to-understand documentation and tutorials. If it does, you will have less trouble implementing and using the editor on your projects, and maybe you won’t even need the support.
#8. Accessibility and Internationalization
Another feature that most modern software should include is accessibility and internationalization. They ensure that your software can be used by everyone in your target market, including people with disabilities and people with different languages or alphabets.
Everyone should feel comfortable using your software, which applies to WYSIWYG editors.
Now that you know about the most sought-after features in WYSIWYG editors, you can make better-informed decisions when choosing the best WYSIWYG HTML editor for you.
Most likely, not all these features will be present in a single editor (but it would be nice if there is one with all of these), so you will have to find an editor with as many features on this list as possible.
One thing is sure - if you want to save more development time, you should consider using a WYSIWYG HTML editor on your following projects.
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