Using TinyMCE WYSIWYG article editor

Beginners guide to using TinyMCE WYSIWYG article editor

The default article editor on this website is the TinyMCE editor. So this is a kind of Beginners guide to using TinyMCE article editor.

TinyMCE is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that allows users a familiar word-processing interface to use when editing articles and other content. The 3-row toolbar below provides many standard editing commands:

Getting started with TinyMCE and basic things you need to know!

If you are not familiar with html, css or web publishing, here are a few simple commands you should know that will allow you to create simple but interesting articles.

Font style - Highlight your text and use these 4 buttons to make text bold, italic, underlined, or strike-through.

Font format Text Format for size and headings - To make your articles interesting, highlight your text and use this drop-down menu to create a variety of different styles of headings with different attributes. You can use this to quickly make text large, bold, italic and so on.

Edit CSS Style - This displays a pop-up dialog box that allows you to enter CSS style information for the selected text. You can use this to change text size and for a variety of other functions.

Alignment - Highlight your text or select an image and use these buttons to Align text, images or other content left, right, center, and full.

Insert/Edit Image - To insert an image, place the cursor in the desired location and press this button. A pop-up dialog box will appear that lets you enter in the Image URL and other information about how the image will display.

Insert/Edit Link - To insert or edit a link, select the linked text and press this button. A pop-up dialog displays that lets you enter details about the link.

Important note about external links! - It is important to note that any article published on this website that contains links to other websites on the Internet, the links need to open "In a new browser window" or "Target blank" for readers. This is done in the drop-down menu of the "Insert/edit link" dialog box. For target, choose the the option "Open in new window (_blank)".

To make a button or image Click-able to another article or website - To make a button or image click-able to another article or website, you can use a combination of the last three explanations. First insert the image or button into your article where you want it. Then click the image to highlight it. Then click the "Insert/edit link" button in the toolbar and enter the URL of the link and update your article. This will make the image or button click-able to the other article or website!

Unlink - To remove a link, highlight the linked text and press this button.

Insert Embedded Media - To insert embedded media such as flash files (youtube video's are flash video files), place the cursor at the desired location and press this button. A pop-up dialog will display that allows you to enter the Type, File or URL, and the dimensions of the embedded media. Here is an example URL of a youtube video you might use; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNDcMAePKYY (Video; Do you BOINC?)

TinyMCE demo editor

If you want to try out the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor or do some testing, we have a demo editor that you can use for writing test articles here; TinyMCE demo editor

Note for new users and beginners

If you want to learn more about the basics of html, css and website publishing, you should visit www.w3schools.com

If you want to edit the article html directly

There are two way that you can directly edit the html for your article if you know what you are doing!

Note; This function can also be used to quickly copy an article. You can view the html and copy it for use in a second article that is very similar. This will save a lot of time if you have spent a large amount of time formatting a particular article.

1. Edit HTML Source - If you click this button, a pop-up displays showing the HTML source code for your article and allowing you to edit the HTML source code directly.

2. You can disable the TinyMCE editor completely by going to the User menu for the website and click "Your details". In the drop-down menu for the editor, select "Editor - No editor" and click save. Now when you edit an article, you will just see the html for the article. You can re-enable the TinyMCE editor again at any stage by changing it back again.

Short explanation for each of the buttons in the TinyMCE editor

Top row

Font style - Make text bold, italic, underlined, or strike-through.

Alignment - Align text, images or other content left, right, center, and full.

Text & Image Styles - Caption and System Pagebreak styles can be set. Highlight the desired text and select the style. This will allow this text to be formatted based on CSS rules.

Font format Text Format - Select predefined formats for Paragraph, Address, Heading1, and so on.

Font Family - Select the desired font.

Second Row

Text List formatting - Unordered List, Ordered list, Out-dent (move left) and Indent (indent right).

Undo/redo - Undo (Ctrl+Z) and Re-do (Ctrl+Y) the formatting you just made to your article.

Insert/Edit Link - To insert or edit a link, select the linked text and press this button. A pop-up dialog displays that lets you enter details about the link.

Unlink - To remove a link, highlight the linked text and press this button.

Insert/edit anchor - Creates a named anchored which can be used as a target to jump to when using a link.

Insert/Edit Image - To insert an image, place the cursor in the desired location and press this button. A pop-up dialog displays that lets you enter in the Image URL and other information about how the image will display.

Cleanup Messy Code - This button allows you to clean up HTML code, perhaps from HTML text that you copied in from another source.

Edit HTML Source - A pop-up displays showing the HTML source code, allowing you to edit the HTML source code.

Find - and Find/Replace.

Insert Date, Time, or Emotions.

Insert Embedded Media - To insert embedded media (such as Flash), place the cursor at the desired location and press this button. A pop-up dialog will display that allows you to enter the Type, File or URL, and other information about the media.

Text direction - Direction Left to Right and Direction Right to Left. These buttons allow you to enter or change the text direction, for example for languages that read right to left.

Insert New Layer - Inserts a new layer of html that floats above the background html.

Layer height - Move layers forward or backward.

Toggle Absolute Position - For working with layered items.

Select Text Color - Select the color of your text. This drops down to give you a choice of colors

Third Row

Insert Horizontal Ruler - Adds a horizontal ruler to your page.

Remove Formatting - Removes formatting from text copied from somewhere else.

Toggle Guidelines/Invisible elements - Toggles the invisible elements of your article.

Subscript, Superscript - For adding scientific notation to your text.

Insert Custom Character - Choose from a selection of custom text characters.

Horizontal Rule - Applies horizontal rule

Tools for inserting and editing tables - Insert New Table, Table Row Properties, Table Cell Properties, Insert Row Before, Insert Row After, Delete Row, Insert Column Before, Insert Column After, Delete Column, Split Merged Table Cells, Merge Table Cells.