TinyMCE WYSIWYG Mobile Integration Feasibility

NikoElGatito · 2023-12-25T05:03:28.932Z

Being new to Joplin, I was going through the list of features to see if they meet my requirements and noticed that, although the demand was high for a WYSIWYG editor on mobile, none had been integrated yet.

After reviewing several discussions and feature requests on the subject, I realized that it was due to the fact that there was no reliable open-source WYSIWYG editor available for mobile at the time.

Therefore, I searched the web to see if anything new would have been released in the last few years and discovered TinyMCE Mobile.

Based on the information that I could find, it seems that TinyMCE Mobile could be a reliable WYSIWYG editor for the mobile version and may even allow creating tables via the "Table plugin".

TinyMCE Mobile:
www.tiny.cloud/docs/mobile/

Table Plugin:
www.tiny.cloud/docs/plugins/opensource/table/

However, I can see that TinyMCE Mobile was deprecated with the release of TinyMCE 5.1 and has been removed in TinyMCE 6.0. Based on the documentation, the latest TinyMCE versions would provide an improved mobile experience, which is enabled by default.

TinyMCE for touch-enabled and mobile devices:
www.tiny.cloud/docs/tinymce/6/tinymce-for-mobile/

Since the desktop version already uses TinyMCE, integrating it on the mobile version should be achievable.

@Daeraxa and @tessus, I would appreciate if you could share your opinions regarding the feasibility of this integration and/or any potential issues preventing it.

I truly believe that having a WYSIWYG editor on the mobile version would attract a much larger user base to Joplin. It is also worth considering that less tech savvy users may be more inclined to opt for a turnkey solution, which is likely to include subscribing to a Joplin Cloud plan.

graphit0 · 2023-12-25T16:49:51.137Z

Another similar thread about the topic

TinyMCE version 6 Development

I saw that an attempt was made to update TinyMCE to version 6 (Github #7277), but has since been rolled back due to complexities (Github:Chore: Downgrade TinyMCE back to v5) Any word on future updates for TinyMCE?

NikoElGatito · 2023-12-25T22:33:45.405Z

Thank you @graphit0 for referencing this thread. I had noticed it as well while searching for related feature requests. However, since there is no mention of the mobile version, I assumed that it was referring to updating TinyMCE to version 6 on the desktop version specifically. Once the desktop version will use TinyMCE version 6, it could bring an opportunity to use it across platforms, similarly to the CodeMirror 6 integration. Using the same editors would result in a more consistent experience across platforms and also has the advantage of reducing maintenance requirements.

tomasz86 · 2023-12-26T07:16:00.835Z

Honestly, the lack of a WYSIWYG editor on mobile is the main reason why I only use Joplin on Android to view notes basically, as editing Markdown on a small screen with a mobile keyboard is just too cumbersome. I personally also just prefer WYSIWYG in general, and I'm sure that there are others like me as well. It would be fantastic if a proper WYSIWYG editor was implemented in the Joplin app, however it's understandable that it will likely require a lot of work that someone needs to do in their free time, so I'm not really crossing my fingers for this one, at least not in the short future.

tessus · 2024-01-10T14:31:23.959Z

Sorry for not replying earlier.

I don't think my opinion is much wanted in this discussion. I dislike any form of WYSIWYG with the heat of a thousand suns. Be it word processors like Word or LibreOffice, or editors like TinyMCE, TextEdit, Notepad.