Evaluation of web based WYSIWYG-editors - test result 2007

(This page belongs to the article Evaluation of WYSIWYG-editors 2007 by Peter Krantz)

Below is the detailed result for the tested editors. If you find an error, please leave a comment or send an email to pete at standards-schmandards.com. The test criteria evaluate markup functionality rather than formatting features. Each editor was used to create the a sample document after which the resulting code was inspected.

Test result
Test XStandard TinyMCE EditOnPro FCK-editor WYMeditor Loki Xinha Cute Editor
Version tested 1.7.1 2.0.9 4.3.134.19 2.4 0.2 2.0b 2 rev 647 5.3
Headings Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No (6) Yes Yes
Paragraph Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Link title Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
List Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Nested list Yes No (9) Yes Yes Yes Yes (7) Yes No (9)
Nested list (mixed type) Yes No (9) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No (9)
Table headers Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes (8) No Yes (11)
Table caption Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No
Table summary Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Language Yes (1) No No (6) No No No Yes No
Acronym Yes Yes No No No No No (3) No
Emphasis Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Strong emphasis Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Quote, inline Yes Yes No No No No No No
Quote, block Yes Yes (4) Yes (4) Yes (4) Yes Yes Yes (4) Yes (4)
Image alt-text Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (5) Yes
IE 6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Firefox 2.0.0.1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No (11)
Safari Yes (2) Yes (10) Yes No No No No No
Requires client installation Yes No No (12) No No No No No
Score (out of 19) 19 15 16 14 14 13 13 10
Previous score 14 13 16 9 - - - 14

Notes:

  1. Language can be set for any html element. For arbitraty text, a custom element must be slected (e.g. span) and then the language can be set properly. In Xstandard this does not require manual HTML editing.
  2. Currently in beta, but seems to work in the same way as the main editor.
  3. Abbreviations can be created.
  4. Blockquote can be created but the icon indicates indenting instead of quoting. This can lead to misuse of the blockquote element for formatting purposes.
  5. Alt-text can be edited. However, the editor suggests the filename as default alt-text. This is bad as it may create the wrong alt text in many cases.
  6. Only h3 headings can be created.
  7. Sometimes it seems to break and produce invalid nested lists.
  8. Only column headers can be created.
  9. It looks like a nested list kan be created, but the HTML list elements are incorrectly nested and thus creates invalid markup.
  10. Experimental support for Safari. The editor froze a couple of times during editing.
  11. Uses a cumbersome method to create table headers. Does not work in Firefox. Header scope can not be edited.
  12. Requires java on the client computer.