XStandard XHTML Editor

XStandard is the leading standards-compliant plug-in WYSIWYG editor for all major browsers (IE/Firefox/Safari/Opera) and Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X.

The XStandard XHTML editor is a standards-compliant editor that generates XHTML Strict or 1.1 markup and uses CSS for formatting. This ensures clean separation of content from presentation. The markup generated by the editor meets the most demanding accessibility requirements.

The editor toolbar is customizable and buttons can shown or hidden based on user permissions and AssetNow NX editor configuration settings. You can have different configurations for different users.

The editor provides context-sensitive pop-up menus. These menus are accessed by right-clicking your mouse. For example right-clicking your mouse with the cursor inside a table provides options to add/delete row and columns and set table

properties.

Why XHTML Strict / 1.1 is important

The XStandard XHTML editor ensures that non-technical users always generate clean XHTML Strict or 1.1 markup when editing content. Only XHTML Strict and 1.1 guarantee the complete separation of data from formatting. This ensures availability of data for use by other systems. The separation of data from formatting is achieved by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for styling content. Stylesheets are developed and maintained by your site designers and cannot be altered by non-technical users. This ensures that all content is consistent and supports your brand.

Limitations of HTML 4 editors running code clean-up routines

Most WYSIWYG editors are just JavaScript wrappers around the editing control built into many browsers such as the MSHTML control found in Internet Explorer. These types of editor (which generate HTML 4 and then run code clean-up routines against it) have significant limitations.

The XStandard site provides a comprehensive list of XStandard features.

Installing XStandard

For most web browsers XStandard will be downloaded and installed from your AssetNow NX site. Microsoft Internet Explorer downloads an add-on (cab), Mozilla-based browser will detect a plug-in (xpi). If you are using Apple OS X you have to download the editor and install it locally using a dmg executable.

If you have trouble downloading the editor, or automatic installation is not possible due to network restrictions or other factor you can download and install the editor directly on your machine using the exe for Windows and dmg for OS X.

You can download the editor from our site. AssetNow NX uses XStandard version 2.

Editing Content with XStandard

To access the editor you must sign in to the AssetNow NX tools and have permissions to access the Content tool. The Content tools allows you to manage the site structure (categories) and pages (content).

When editing a Category or Page a Body field is displayed. The XStandard editor is launched in a pop-up window when you click the Body field.

The XStandard editor provides a simplified toolbar and familiar WYSIWYG interface:

• Type or copy/paste text directly into the editor
• Format text using predefined styles from the style drop down menu
• Insert lists and tables by clicking the icons on the editor toolbar
• Insert images and files from the toolbar or by drag/drop or copy/paste into the editor
• Select advanced content items including special symbols, document templates, internal site links, library images/files using the editor toolbar directory button.
• Switch between Edit, Source, and Accessibility Preview modes.
• Spell checking

The XStandard End-User Guide provides detailed instructions and information.

XStandard Styles

XStandard provides a drop down menu of styles that can be customized to suit your site and author requirements. The styles are set in the styles.xml file located in the /sys/config/xs directory. This file also caters for internationalization (i18n) by supporting different language codes.

The xseditor.css stylesheet, loated in the /css/tools directory controls formatting of content displayed in the editor. Since XStandard produces markup that separates content from presentation the editor styles can be optimized for editing and do not have to be the same as the styles used to format content for the site.

Special Characters, Symbols, and Templates

Special characters, symbols and templates can be inserted into the editor via the editor toolbar directory button.

When selecting a special character, symbol or template the editor web services and located in the /sys/ws/directory directory send the requested data to the editor.

Special Characters are set in the special.xml file, symbols in the symbol.xml file and templates in the templates.xml file. Developers can edit these files as required.

These files must be valid XML documents and reserved XML entities must be escaped.

Markers and Locking

In WYSIWYG mode, areas of content can be flagged with markers. Markers are labels that denote the start and end of a specific element. The XStandard developer documentation provides details on setting markers. Markers can make it much easier for non-technical users to edit content by clearly showing different elements such as formatting containers.

In WYSIWYG mode, areas of content can be locked (made read-only). The XStandard developer documentation provides details on locking elements.

Markers and locking are defined in the xsmarkers.css stylesheet located in the /css/tools directory.

Subdocuments

Subdocuments are chunks of reusable content that authors insert into documents as required. Subdocuments are essentially custom elements that act as placeholders for content stored outside the document. However, whereas placeholders appear in the document as icons, subdocuments display the content itself inside the document. One example of a reusable subdocument is an author's biography that can be inserted at the end of a number of articles.

In AssetNow NX you can insert any content page as a subdocument in another page. Subdocuments are selected via the editor toolbar directory button. Two options are provided:

1. Teaser - the title and teaser of the selected page will be inserted
2. Body - the body of the selected page will be inserted.

Subdocuments are locked and can not be edited.

Further Customization

XStandard offer numerous extensions and hooks for developers to customize and extend the editor to specific requirements. The XStandard site provides detailed Developer documentation.