Brennan’s Blog

I have worked with tools like FreeTextBox and TinyMCE which are graphical HTML editors which run in multiple browsers. Developing these applications are difficult because of various browser incompatibilities and shortcomings. For a while the Apple made browser Safari did not have the necessary features for these graphical editors to work. If that were still true today and there was a Sliverlight editor it would automatically work in Safari using the Silverlight plugin which has been ported to the Mac for Firefox and Safari.

Since the Silverlight applications can be developed with C# it can conveniently avoid browser incompatibilities so the effort to produce a WYSIWYG editor would significantly be reduced. And with a Silverlight interface you may be able to add a few additional features that a browser cannot offer with an HTML/JS only solution.

For starters it could incorporate a smart uploading feature. Such an upload control has already been created. A Silverlight upload control could have pause and resume capabilities along with a queued multiple file upload system. Perhaps it could allow you to sync up all of your content with a local repository so that you can work in an offline mode (think Gears) so that you post your changes when you go back online. Such an editor could easily lend itself to formats other than HTML. Any structured data could be organized this way, such as a calendar.

You could implement a richer layout engine for arranging images. Beyond just controlling the layout of the content you are editing the editor could also communicate with the website to adjust the master layout and theme for the website as well. Perhaps the Silverlight editor would have access to a repository of free designs much like the theme repositories for the popular blogging applications like Wordpress and MT. A website like CSSeasy.com comes to mind.

To integrate the website with the editor running within the browser as a Silverlight plugin you would need to communicate with the server. You could use WCF but in this case you may be better off just using POX (Plain Old XML).

Perhaps when .NET 3.5 is released such a control will be a part of the standard suite of controls. I have not seen anything announced for it yet. It would be a welcome surprise.