Recommended Configuration for htmlArea

By: Lucas Thurston

Another long line of configuration code here, placed in a text area for your convenience. RTE.config.tt_content.bodytext.showButtons = textstylelabel, textstyle, formatblock,left, center, justifyfull,outdent, indent, textindicator, line, link, image, findreplace, spellcheck, chMode, removeformat, copy, cut, paste, undo, redo, showhelp, about

Note how few buttons we’re showing here. I might even use fewer depending on the user’s needs: alignment options shouldn’t be necessary, and are often are at the top of the slippery slope into the WYSIWYG garbage heap in terms of looks and the fact that these buttons inject inline styles. The indentation buttons are good for hierarchical lists, but in text elements also add inline styles. The link button is crucial of course. Removeformat is nice for cleaning up HTML outputted by Word.

The rest of the buttons are tools that aid in editing, and don’t affect what htmlArea will put into the text.

If we have tt_news installed on the site, let’s set up the same styles for news articles.

RTE.config.tt_news.bodytext.showButtons = ...

If any buttons are still appearing in the RTE that you know you don’t want, get rid of them with the “hideButtons” property on the following line. Sometimes, it seems, not mentioning the button you don’t want in showButtons doesn’t convey to the extension that you really don’t want it.