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As someone who is only barely proficient in javascript, is jQuery right for me? Is there a better library to use? I've seen lots of posts related to jQuery and it seems to be the most effective way to incorporate javascript into ASP.NET applications.
I've been out to jQuery's site and have found the tutorials and other helpful information. Any other reference material (i.e books, blogs, etc.) would be helpful.
Thanks!
The great thing about libraries like jQuery and Prototype is that they take care of a lot of the cross-browser kwirks that can make Javascript such a pain to write. Either one of those or maybe even mootools will be good to you, their respective websites being about as good as a resource as it's gonna get.
edit: as far as the 'con' of having extra loading size on your page, I suggest using Google to host these for you. Optimistically, some people will have it cached from other websites, plus Google takes care of versions/compression for you.
Pros: jQuery is a great library which lets you get what you want done in much much much less code, with a lot less hassle. The plugin architecture is incredibly simple, and the community producing plugins is very strong and active. If you can think "wouldn't it be nice if I could..." then chances are there's a plugin for it.
Cons: You are being abstracted away from the raw Javascript. Don't underestimate the effect of this "con". Though working in vanilla JS (that is, javascript without libraries), can be a massive pain, it gives you a much better understanding of what you're actually doing. You might find that your jQuery based solutions could actually be done in vanilla JS with a lot less overhead.
Pros: you don't have to deal with the tangled mess that is cross-platform Javascript compatibility. You don't have to worry about which browsers support standard event handlers and which have their own event systems. You don't have to write two hundred lines of DOM manipulation withHugeLongFunctionNamesFromHell to get nice dynamic pages.
Cons: It's an extra 15KB of code your users have to download the first time they load your page.
I just started using jQuery as well, and have found it to be very helpful. For me, the biggest advantage is having some really nice intellisense in VS for it, and not having to look up every archaic method in the world to accomplish simple tasks. To me, it just seems a lot better organized than plain old javascript, and like someone else said, it has a ton of good built in libraries.
While just beginning to learn JavaScript I looked at the various libraries with amazement. Then I looked more closely at jQuery and was hooked. No longer will I work with DOM without loading jQuery. Not just for websites, jQuery brings powerful utilities, reduced code, and simple handling of local administrator JavaScripts.
Local JavaScripts + jQuery + msHta = awesome interface driven scripts!
For more information about using jQuery on local administrator scripts check out my posts about using jQuery and HTA's...
Chris
Pros: Write less, do more.
Cons: You have to learn it ( only VS gets the intellisense, not the brain [:)] )
If you are interested in jQuery here is a good Review of jQuery Books by Rick Strahl
The biggest thing that I've found helpful in learning jQuery is other people's plugins. I'd find some stuff that you like, and read the plugin code. You may find some pretty cool stuff to learn.
Jquery is also the first javascript framework I used as well. I find the syntax rather use to pick up and the library of plugin and the support from it user very helpful in picking up this language. Although eventually I still continue to borrow books on javascript, I felt jquery is perhaps a good way to show the power of javascript.
If you are only looking for javascript tool that is browser compatible and quite small in size to do DOM manipulation and ajax, then jQuery might be the one you are looking for.
But jQuery is lack in these two areas:
Fullblown widgets (Think of extjs). Note: jQuery-UI is not as complete and quite slow.
Object oriented support (Mootools).
Pros: Cross browser, User friendly function names.
Many plug-Ins.
Only 15KB on the client Side.
Community is pretty huge to guide you.
Easy to work with Services(.svc,asmx) etc. I believe it is wonderful.
Cons:
You may forget JavaScripting
So, I suggest for beginners, learn JavaScripting first and pull your socks for JQuery.
Related
I have to present a prototype of an web app in the following days to one of my clients, the thing is I'm not so good at CSS and worst of all I'm almost never happy with the results I get.
Coding the business logic poses no challenge to me, the UI design however takes more than 80% of my time. I don't need nothing breathtaking, just a clean, nice and presentable environment, an example:
This is a recurring problem I've been having, I wish web UI development could have a less naked default style, an approach similar to Visual Studio or iPhone SDK would be very useful to me.
The above mockup created with Balsamiq Mockups is a great example, all the most common "components" are available to use, and best of all: there is only one good-looking style to choose from.
Is there something like this for the web? A neutral yet nice CSS or Javascript UI framework?
Options so far:
Bootstrap
Qooxdoo
jQuery UI
jQuery Tools
MochaUI
Ext JS
Yahoo! User Interface Library
BlueTrip
BluePrint
Uki (Demo)
Napkee
YAML
Baseline
iPlotz
Sproutcore
ForeUI
I'm interested in knowing if there are any CSS-only UI frameworks.
I found this page with a very nice list of Web UI Libraries, but most of them (at least the good ones) seem to be specific to Java, are there any equally good alternatives in pure CSS or JS?
PS: I'm not interested in AJAX, effects, behaviors and so on... my main (only) concern is style.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!
After a very careful consideration of all the UI libraries suggested, I've come to the conclusion that ExtJS and Qooxdoo are the ones that most closely fit my needs. jQuery UI seems promising but only offers a reduced amount of elements.
As far as CSS-only libraries go I've found BlueTrip / BluePrint and the themes suggested by tambler to be the best. Aside from that, Flex and Napkee also seem to be worth exploring.
Time to learn ExtJS now! =)
A combination of 960gs for layout and jQuery-UI for styling is probably what you are after.
You could also consider the blueprint CSS framework instead of 960gs.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned:
http://www.extjs.com/
Its a commercial js frameworks, but pretty affordable, and makes putting together a nice UI a breeze. There's a much more complete set of elements then jqueryui, and its designed to make an entire app. I've only played with it a little, but I really love it so far. Free for personal use.
If you really want to get a feel for a complete UI developed with EXT, try this url:
http://docs.sencha.com/extjs/4.2.1/extjs-build/examples/feed-viewer/feed-viewer.html
What about using dojo and dijit?
Dijit is a fast way to create widgets and elements. It also comes with 3 default themes which are easy to modify.
A good list of different widgets here
Pair up with someone who specializes in UI design.
If you are better at dealing with business logic, your time is better off spent exclusively coding business logic so you can master it. This will require you to learn how to interface with someone else who excels at presentation. (xml and json are common means)
Business logic and presentation are very different. Designing a system that not only looks good, but is intuitive and easy to use is quite difficult. Equally as difficult and time-consuming as establishing the inner workings of a complex application.
A good interface is not as simple as including a css framework.
I consider myself to be a more 'creative' programmer who does excel in presentation. I happened to be lucky enough to cross path's with someone who was, first of all... very motivated, and second of all very good at 'business logic'. He had a lot more experience planning and implementing complex systems, while I mainly have been focusing on interface design.
If you are more productive doing system architecture, planning, developing, whatever... you should push yourself in that direction. While solo development projects can be rather fulfilling, I view it as inefficient. It is very rare that someone possess skills to develop top-level applications solo.
The challenge is finding someone who you work well with.
Check out Google Web Toolkit. It has a pretty clean default look. They have examples . In particular, their Showcase example demonstrates all of the available widgets and the css styling used to achieve the look.
There are a few frameworks aimed at (G)UI Design; Qooxdoo, JQuery UI and MochaUI being a few of them (although the last is more a proof-of-concept than a usable framework). These frameworks usually offer a variety of JS-powered elements (form elements, such as input fields and submit buttons, but other elements like tabs as well). However, it will still be up to you to position these elements, and perhaps style them, to your liking.
Perhaps familiarizing yourself with a CSS framework (such as 960GS) might complement the above JS UI Frameworks.
(As a personal disclaimer; I have very little experience with any of the frameworks mentioned above. But I'm sure either Google or SO can provide answers I can't.)
This won't help you out for your current project, but it's worth considering for future projects. After spending many years creating GUI applications in HTML 4 and constantly wrestling against the limitations of CSS and HTML, I thought I'd try out Adobe Flex. What an improvement!
Rather than faking a tabbed page control or data grid, with Flex or Silverlight, your markup can simply specify a tabbed page control or data grid. And the frameworks come with default styles that are boring but not at all bad. I'm not saying these completely replace HTML, but if you need widgets and GUI layout, I believe they're a much better alternative.
You might consider browsing the following site:
http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-skins
There are several "Administrative" themes available for purchase here that may suit your needs.
wireframe mockups like that are a brilliant way to start.
Having used most of the UI framewroks discussed here, I'd liek to steer you towards jQueryUi for the following reasons:
jQueryUI CSS framework takes care of the consistent and cool looking CSS for you (it's really easy - just make some markup and apply the classes)
jQueryUI has tabcontrol, and heaps on neat quick easy ways to style forms.
If you are targeting modern, non IE, browsers, then you should check out Sproutcore. For mockups I use mockingbird.
A relatively new PHP framework specifically designed for development of UI-focused software. Elements you have here including Tabs, Filters and Grids are included and will take you about 20 lines of code to implement.
http://agiletoolkit.org/
Have you tried Axure? It's a tool for rapidly creating wireframes, prototypes and specifications for applications and web sites.
It works in a similar way to Balsamiq, but it allows you to export your wireframes/prototype as HTML, CSS and Javascript.
You can then upload this to a server or run it on your computer as a working example.
You can create forms, links, tabs, rollovers, Javascript effects.
If you are already using Balsamic Mockups for your prototypes then you should consider Napkee. To quote the website "Napkee lets you to export Balsamiq Mockups to HTML/CSS/JS and Adobe Flex 3 at a click of a button."
I ran into this awhile ago, and couldn't find anything, so I took it as an opportunity to learn css. But since then it seems great strides have been made towards this subject.
Summarizing your problem, there is a wikipedia page.
There is yaml-css, which takes yaml and turns it into css
There is baseline, but it assumes some css knowledge.
I'd also suggest looking at Adobe's Dreamweaver. They have a lot of css and style generation tools which produce very readable and w3c compatible code.
I hope that helps.
A combination of 960gs for layout and jQuery-UI or Jquery tools is great
i use them almost in every project but i'd like to add to http://easyframework.com/
although its not a business friendly so
make sure to check out its license
but i like it
I recently discovered a nice website called iplotz.com where you can create a mockup of your application/website/project online without installing anything.
It also has most of the common controls, along with much more features for managing thw whole project and sharing it with others online.
I must admit, i didn't try it yet myself, but i looked at it a bit and it seems pretty cool. I'll probably be using it soon enough.
Sass looks like it has potential as a way to mitigate some css headaches.
I like to add Bootstrap it's intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development.
I like RocketCSS. Nice clean design, give it a go.
I am so confused that I thought to ask you for your opinion.
I have written few jquery code with asp.net. But there is group of developer in my company who think that javascript/jquery can be turned off and is insecure
if javascript is insecure, why to use it at the first place
what are the advantages of using jquery with asp.net apart from cross-browser. why not use javascript?
should i use jquery in my asp.net applications?
There were a few posts over here that contained similar question, but not even one that contained good explanation. Please share your thoughts.
if javascript is insecure, why to use it at the first place
To provide advanced browsing experience to those who have it on.
what are the advantages of using jquery with asp.net apart from cross-browser. why not use javascript?
Rapid development. If you're not comfortable with jQuery, code in JavaScript directly, see no problem here.
should i use jquery in my asp.net applications?
That's up to you to decide. Give it a try and see if you'll like it.
• what are the advantages of using jquery with asp.net apart from cross-browser.
why not use javascript?
jQuery is javascript. The purpose of javascript is to enhance the user's browser experience. If this is something you want to include in your website then I would advise you use it. If you do opt to use it, depending on what your requirements are, jQuery would be the best option.
Javascript is no less secure than using the Internet. I would definitely recommend it for the sheer purpose of enhancing the user experience. However, it is also important to make sure your application functions properly with Javascript disabled.
How you write your Javascript is up to you. I use jQuery because I am much more productive with it, primarily because I don't waste time dealing with the inherent short-comings of Javascript, as well as the numerous cross-browser oddities. jQuery is, in fact, Javascript, by the way.
Javascript is not insecure per se -- but you can certainly create insecure code with it, if you're not careful. All code that is 'critical' security-wise should be run in the server, not in the user's browser, because it can be turned off.
To provide a better experience for the users. People today expect web pages to be interactive. The idea of having a totally static site died a while ago. It should also be said, that if someone is really skilled at compromising systems, whether you use JavaScript or not is inconsequential. With cross site scripting attacks etc. someone can embed JavaScript into your site. Using JavaScript might make it easier to compromise a page, but not using, doesn't mean that it is fool proof protection against it.
JQuery is a JavaScript framework, and it abstracts a lot of the necessities from knowing the ins and outs of JavaScript and cross browser support. It also abstracts a lot about what you need to know when manipulating the DOM, which can be extremely frustrating at times. It makes development a lot easier unless you really know what you are doing, and then it still makes development easier in a lot of cases.
I would recommend using some sort of a framework unless you are really good with JavaScript. Jquery may not be the way to go for you, but it is a good one to use. There are others like Prototype and YUI.
For some reason, it never dawned on me that there could be frameworks for CSS. I have been working on my own personal site, and I just really hate 'designing' with CSS (I think more then a few programmers might agree with me). Anyways, I understand the benefits of a framework for a language such as Java, PHP, [insert language]. I downloaded a couple different CSS frameworks and couldnt really figure out how to use them. I guess I might be expecting an API or something (which obviously doesnt make sense given the lack of logic in CSS)...
Has anyone here used (and would reccomend) a CSS framework? Is it overkill for a relatively simple layout?
Please do not post links to other sites, I know how to use Google. I would rather hear the opinions and insights of the community. Thanks.
Please understand framework here simply as 'a collection of helpers for getting things done'. So what will you get in most cases is a set of CSS definitions, resetters and hacks, which you will probably need to code for yourself anyway when having cross-browser compatibility on mind.
No links? K. First, you should get familiar with Grid Design techniques. My fellow front-end developers recommend Blueprint for handling CSS-based layouts, no matter how complex they are. Hope this helps a little.
Caveat: I haven't really looked into this subject in a few years, the landscape may have changed.
The few CSS frameworks I've played with in the past have been more or less hideous things designed for snapping to grids, wrongheaded desires to bring WYSIWYG into the picture, and providing things like generic rounded corners and such. They tend to have some semantic issues (.italic FTL) and require a lot of manual tinkering for a framework.
More practical for the CSS beginner or rapid dev site, are perhaps the CSS reset which functions to baseline CSS across browsers (yahoo's) (Erik Meyer's). But this is not without it's own controversy and never seemed to be enough.
Basically. I find CSS requires a toolbox of common techniques of your own, but something you'll pick and choose and modify constantly. As in much of web dev I think the more experienced you get the more you find yourself wanting to roll your own.
I used YAML (Yet Another Multicolumn Layout) in a few projects, because I didn't like to "fight" with the Internet Explorer 6 HACKS.
There is a good explanation of how to use it and you can customize it to your needs (as long as you're going to use a multicolumn (2 or 3) layout).
960.gs seems to be fairly popular with designers lately, although I have never quite seen the point to CSS frameworks myself.
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As a little side project, I am starting to build a new website for a certain organization I am affiliated to, which current site is simply outdated.
I am regularly a Java developer, and last time I really did some web development was back in the late 90s, when <p> was still more popular than <div> and Javascript was cutting-edge technology (JQuery is for lazy bums these days :) ).
Anyway, I feel really outdated. The website basically is going to be:
Django based
mostly serve static information pages
it will have a dynamic news and updates page (based on Django admin capabilites)
and some basic apps I'll develop myself (polls, small registration app, etc...)
My problem is designing the whole thing. I found some nice web-based CSS layout generators that got me going, but I still feel I'm wasting my time smoothing out the CSS files and aligning <div>s.
Are there any tools - the simpler and faster, the better - that you recommend I can use to speed up the design part of the site so I can concentrate on the real work?
I don't need anything fancy, just a nice looking layout and design that I can tweak a bit so the site will look presentable.
I second Brandon's suggestion to use a CSS framework. It won't give you 100% freedom to design anything you like, but it can speed up your design process greatly and free up your hands to do the coding you really want.
Suggestions Updated July 2013:
Twitter Bootstrap http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/ - complete grid, typo, UI widget prototyping framework
ZURB Foundation http://foundation.zurb.com/ - responsive grid, type, UI widget prototyping framework (similar in scope to Twitter Bootstrap, but feels 'cleaner' in some ways)
960 http://960.gs/ - grid layout system
Tripoli http://devkick.com/lab/tripoli/ - really good typography, but no grid system
YUI Grids http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/ - very customizable (to the point of overkill) grid system
Blueprint http://www.blueprintcss.org/ - grid system and basic typography
BlueTrip http://www.bluetrip.org - a hybrid system, mixing the best of the Blueprint grid with the best of the Tripoli typography
I won't lie to you. This website isn't the best place to go if you're looking for reliable Web Design advice. Stack Overflow is a programming community and programmers rarely know anything about design. If you want to get some real advice then I would strongly recommend the main Web Design/Development forums on the Internet, especially SitePoint.
That being said, as a former freelance Web Designer/Developer I'll offer my input on the issue. Not that you should value it, of course. After all, this is a programming website.
NEVER EVER SAY CSS LAYOUT GENERATOR EVER AGAIN! If you're going to seriously get into designing web pages then you need to learn semantic XHTML and CSS first. Whilst many people tout W3Schools as the definitive resource I see it as a programmers answer (i.e. not very good) and would prefer that you read up on the subject using...Google. There are countless examples of great websites to pick up the basics of Web Design/Development that Google is probably the best website for the job. Also, with a plethora of new websites offering this information you know it's going to be more improved than W3Schools. You'll seriously want to get clued-up on writing your design because it'll be much harder to fix things later on in the project.
If you're going to be designing web pages it would be a good idea to learn what actually makes a good design. Check out CSS Vault for a fantastic resource of some of the best-designed web pages around, of course with all the source code intact so you can have a play around with their code and see how they've managed some of the wonderful effects they've produced. I've learnt more than a thing or two from websites that have been featured on CSS Vault. On top of that you should read up on Web Design from the big Web Design/Development sites. Two of my favourites are SitePoint and A List Apart, two names that you'll near time and time again when you hear people talk about resources. Browse those websites, check their forums, see what REAL Web Designers/Developers are using, not what programmers are using.
On the subject of CSS Frameworks; they do help! The problem with using them is that you'll often spend so much time looking for a worthwhile framework that you could have finished most of the CSS for your website yourself. You'll either love them or hate them, but many people will say that they're not necessary.
Once you've got your mind set on what a good design looks like and you've got the resources you need to make something of value I suggest that you get to work! In reality when you're designing a web page all you really need is a text editor with a save function, an image manipulation program, a browser window and FireBug. An IDE helps a lot of people, but if you do use one then you'll definitely want to work in its text mode. I use NotePad++ or Emacs exclusively but a lot of people like to use Aptana Studio, so it may be worth a look.
When you're getting to actually building the code behind your website you can't really go much worse than your favourite IDE/Text Editor and a source control tool. As a Java programmer you're better suited to talk about programming so I won't lecture you on a subject you already know.
In the end, Web Design is going to take time and many of the tools that we choose to use that we claim will "save time" save very little in reality. If you're not a design guru then it will take you a substantial amount of time to create a great-looking website. It's a fact of life. Call me old-fashioned (a funny word coming from a 21 year old) but I still think that the quickest way is to sketch a design out on a piece of paper (a image program if really necessary) and to just get out there and make the damn thing! Again, I'll have to take this hunting for the silver bullet mentality as a programmers trait, one that really won't help that much when designing, because designing a web page is vastly different to writing a Java program.
In short, ignore everything you read here, read what REAL designers are doing and just make the damn thing!
There's one piece of advice that saves more time than any other when it comes to rapid development of CSS styled sites and that's KEEP IT SIMPLE
Use an attractive simple layout that doesn't require pixel perfection and that can 'gracefully' degrade in less compliant browsers (IE6). Minimise the amount of CSS and fix the basic bugs mentioned by meouw above. Then get on an concentrate on content and functionality...the real work
In my previous employment I created dozens of templates for websites.
The most useful too I ever discovered is the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar.
It has a wealth of small useful tools. My favorite feature is the ability to edit the CSS and see the results in real-time. This saves on the whole edit - upload - refresh cycle. Watch out for ie CSS inconsistencies though!
Off the top of my head, these are the most important gotchas.
double margin bug [google: double margin bug]
incorrect (but more intuitive) box model [google: box model]
incorrect (but more intuitive) float clearing [google: clearfix]
FireBug is another really usefull Firefox plugin for more in depth analysis.
I've always found Open Source Web Design to be a good resource when looking to get started trying to design something.
- http://patterntap.com/
- http://www.dotemplate.com/ (interesting concept of customizing template)
- http://www.templatemonster.com/
- http://www.freelayouts.com/websites/html-templates
- http://www.templateyes.com/
No idea what the site is going to be, but have you thought of using a pre-build CMS like Drupal, Joomla etc etc.? You can then tweak templates etc, rather than worrying about making it from scratch.
This question is pretty old, but since we're in 2012, it's only proper that I answer my own question with the exact thing I was looking for, back in 2009.
Twitter Bootstrap
Have you looked into any CSS frameworks? If you are competent enough with CSS something like a framework could help speed things up.
Don't forget firebug :) if you're worried about tweaking the design it's really great. With the inspect feature allowing you to real-time edit the CSS of your page.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
I second Jens Roland's list of CSS frameworks.
But I would also suggest you have a look at websites such as Smashing Magazine. You might find this article of interest, amongst a lot of others. They tend to do a lot of nice and long mash-ups for the web developers that will at least give you inspiration if not a direct solution.
A colleague of mine has been trying to convince me all week that Dreamweaver, 5 years after I was last forced to use it at gunpoint, is actually now worthwhile for knocking up a design quickly and painlessly, and is also now competent at producing the HTML for that design.
I refuse to invest the 10 minutes it would take to find out based on my previous experiences of it, but you might like to give the demo a quick run around the block :)
I'd recommend finding a CMS package, since you're using Django, look into django-cms. It has TinyMCE and Markdown Support so updating your pages should be easy. Also django-cms integrates well with the Django admin interface.
A piece of paper to sketch your design
A text editor (preferably set up to save directly to a development server local or otherwise) to write up the initial HTML/CSS
FireBug/IEDeveloperToolbar to inspect each element that looks wrong and edit its CSS directly in the browser until it looks fine, followed by commits with the text editor
If you're doing any JavaScript development, use an advanced editor that highlights errors and warnings as you type. This kind of functionality has until recently been the province of static language editors only, but the free NetBeans 6 achieves this amazing feat. Traditionally, you first discovered JavaScript typos and simple bugs when first loading the parent page into a browser. The speed-up you get from being able to short-cut these iterations is profound.
NetBeans 6 also highlights CSS errors and is a more than capable editor for most all languages a web developer is likely to use these days.
You can also use www.zbugs.com - it will help you speed up a process of compressing and gzipping your CSS and Javascript files
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We've used the no-longer-supported RichTextBox control as part of our (ASP.NET-based) CMS for a long time, and we'd like to replace it with something lighter-weight and with better cross-browser support. We were originally looking at various ASP.NET components, but I'm wondering if we'd be better off just using an open-source, all-Javascript solution instead.
I'm a recent convert to jQuery, and I've been amazed at what can be done purely on the client side with very compact add-ons like Flexigrid and of course the excellent WMD. I've done a little poking around for all-Javascript editors, and this is what I've found so far:
Batiste jQueryEditor
Xinha
YUI Rich Text Editor
Tiny MCE
FCKeditor
After a superficial review, Tiny MCE looks like a good choice; but I'd be interested in hearing from people in the SO community who have actually used these. Let me know what you think.
I've used TinyMCE. Great across browsers; easy to configure to be extremely light weight and allows you to control what your user can do. Some of the plug-ins (such as the image manager) are great and easy to implement. Nice that it also support the Google Spellchecker so you don't need any libraries installed on your server.
I've used TinyMCE and I must say I'm not a fan. The main issue with it is that when new versions are released, the API can change drastically, making it very difficult to manage upgrades. There seems to be little regard for backwards compatibility.
The YUI editor is quite nice, and really easy to use. It's still beta as far as I know, so I'm not sure I would necessarily recommend it in a production environment.
FCK is a nice editor, and it has ASP.NET support.
I've used FCKeditor, it's a good editor. Pretty easy to use. The newer versions have very good cross browser support.
It's been mentioned, but the memories of that year lost to RadEditor still haunts me.
On the bright side, they have an incredibly vigilant, and apparently numerous support-staff;
so whenever you need to find that little whatnot that's causing that particular day's RadBugs;
you know you can always have them brew up some custom and obscure mini-fix.
After one year of tangoing with that beast, I had to retreat to pastoral C64 GOTO adventures to preserve my sanity...
Alas, we all need our WYSIWYG editors from time to time, and after trying out both (F)CKeditor and TinyMCE in .NET settings, I am humbled by both.
Would choose TinyMCE at gunpoint though...
I was looking for a good editor too last week, tried WMD but is just not easily customized enough compared to markItUp. It's so easy to extend and customize markItUp, function-wise and theme-wise.
OpenWYSIWYG was on my list too but after trying markItUp I got stuck with it. Plus OpenWYSIWYG is not jQuery, it's JavaScript, but open-source and cross-browser.
WebKit.org has a demo of a very nice/subtle text editor, but i don't know if it works in IE at all (It does work in WebKit based browsers (obviously) and Firefox)
I can't tell if you're specifically looking for a free/open-source solution or not. Others have mentioned many great open-source editors.
If you're willing to look at commercial solutions, Telerik offers the RadEditor. It is highly integrated with ASP.NET and supports all the major browsers.
Event if you will have a lot of connection bandwidth and patience :)
Actually, Telerik is an ASP.NET product and it require asp.net ajax frameworks for runtime and it need to ajax scriptmananer on the running page.
In my opinion, Telerik not good example for this subject.
i'm currently looking for the same kind of editor - lightweight, jQuery and with ASP.Net support. i've came accross Batiste Bieler's jQuery Lightweight Rich Text Editor which seems very simple, nice, pure jQuery lightweight editor.
and there is interpid studios variation that states to be ASP.Net compatible and based on the original above mentioned library (although, doesn't explain what is the thing with being ASP.Net compatible and what doesn't make the original compatible with it too...)
i haven't tried any of those yet, but it seems that i will in the next several days, because i'm looking to replace FCK Editor because it has some quirks and strange behavior to my app users. so i might update this post with my own experience with this/these editor(s).
If someone tried those already, please comment to let others know what do you feel about this.