Joomla Help

What About Joomla Article Editors?

After installing Joomla you'll notice when you go to create an Article that there is a basic editor that Joomla provides. It's a nice little program and could be fine for many.

However, there are many of us who need (and want) more options. If so, there's two things you can do, either expand the option on the editor that comes with Joomla (called TinyMCE) or you download and use one of the many editors within Joomla Extensions.

What Editor comes with Joomla?

First I'll talk about the "stock" editor that comes with Joomla, called TinyMCE and is a plugin. This is a great editor, is the most used WYSIWYG editor in the world, and is great for most people but it's usually necessary to expand it by changing a setting.

Since it is a plugin you'll go into the Plugin Manager, select the TinyMCE editor plugin, and make the needed expansion setting within there.

To do so, go to 'Extensions > Plugin Manager > click on "Editor - TinyMCE"'. Here you'll notice several Parameters in the right column for "Plugin Parameters" and "Advanced Plugin Parameters" allowing you to control the look and feel, what editor buttons are available, etc.

Under "Plugin Parameters", to expand the options choose "Extended" from the "Functionality" drop-down. Usually all the other Parameters are fine as is but you may prefer to fine-tune some of them. Once you're finished click "Save" and you'll now have many more options when editing your Article.

What if I need even more control and features?

Some, including myself, want more control. If so, it's required to download and install one of the editor Extension Components found on Joomla's website in their Extensions section.

The two main ones to look at and try are JCE and JoomlaFCK Editor. It's a matter of preference of which one is used and is recommended to install both of them to try out. It's really easy to switch back and forth between them to try.

How do you switch between editors?

Now that you have editors installed you can switch between them within the Global Configurations. To do so either click on the "Global Configuration" in the Control Panel or go to 'Site > Global Configuration'.

Once in the Global Configuration you'll see "Default WYSIWYG Editor" under the "Site" tab. Choose which editor you would like to use from the pull-down.

Which do you prefer?

I prefer JCE for several reasons. It's based on the TinyMCE code that comes stock with Joomla therefore having a similar feel, much more integrated looking (and more integrated) than JoomlaFCK, JCE is made specifically for Joomla while FCK is created for several programs and tries it's best to look integrated (why it's not as integrated looking as JCE), is more sleek than JoomlaFCK, JCE comes as a Component as well giving you much more control over the options - unlike TinyMCE and JoonlaFCK which are only plugins, has much better image control in all areas, and so on. I use JCE and install it for all others who I've installed Joomla for.

Since this is the case in my "Help" write-ups throughout I am using JCE when explaining.