CKEditor and HTML in Xpages - ckeditor

I am understanding this better but still not there yet.
I have a notes document with a rich text field. I want to edit it in Xpages, so that the user can enter text for an email that an agent will generate. The idea is that the user should be able to enter styled text, hopefully including pasted graphics, and this is saved to the rich text field in such a way that a later agent can copy that field to the body of an email.
On the form I have checked the field "Store contents as HTML and MIME.
In the Xpage I have bound the CKEditor directly to the field (can bind it to a scope variable if necessary).
The code in my agent is as follows:
Set rtItmFrm = emlDoc.getFirstItem("Body")
Set rtItmTo = New NotesRichTextItem(mail,"Body")
Set rtItmTo = rtItmFrm.Copyitemtodocument(mail,"Body")
Any further suggestions on reading up on MIME/CKEditor etc would also be much appreciated.
Bryan
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I just discovered how to modify the CKEditor in Xpages (the Rich Text Control). I have the full menu and one or two more things turned out. However, I am really puzzled by how it treats HTML. I would like to put a template for a nice HTML email (like a newsletter). Anything even a little complicated it munges and the output is messed up.
I read enough online to understand that it is not supposed to be a HTML editor, but I am really having trouble getting the results I want. I would love to put some basic skeleton HTML in there, but everything but the simplest code doesn't work.
Is there anyway to import HTML and it not get messed up using this editor?

as Per and Stephan said, Have a look at ACF filtering that is 'server side' (This is not related to CKEditor itself, but it is related to XPages).
If you have a look at the inputRichText control you will see 2 properties.
htmlFilter
htmlFilterIn
These properties determine how to filter Html on the way in to your data, and also on the way out.
This can be used to strip styling out, and also to prevent dangerous tags like some bad code here etc.
By Default the htmlFilter is set ACF (Active Content Filtering) if you look at the default rules, you will see it strips things like 'margin' out.
see /properties/acf-config.xml-sample
There is a filter called 'identity' which means don't filter anything, however beware if you use this you are not protected from and maliciously entered html.
You should look into defining your own set of rules for your ACF filter, this way you can choose which elements to remove. There is a section in Mastering XPages book about this.
If you still have any trouble, then there are some settings in CKEditor config which also control ACF (totally separate to XPages server side)

I don't think CKE changes the HTML, it is the writing back to a RT field.
Try and bind your RichText Editor to a scoped variable instead of a RichText field. This way you have access to the raw HTML and can use that to generate a MIME email. You might want to have a look at Mustache for mail merge.
Use this article series as starter how to prepare CK editor to make this possible.
And as Per mentioned: check the filtering.

Related

Laravel Save Markdown to Database - Don't Understand

I am reluctant to post this, but I am having trouble understanding how markdown actually "saves" to a database.
When I'm creating a migration, I will add columns and specify the type of value (i.e. integer, text, string, etc.) and in the course of operation on the website, users will input different information that is then saved in the DB. No problem there.
I just can't seem to wrap my head around the process for markdown. I've read about saving the HTML or saving the markdown file, rendering at runtime, pros and cons all that.
So, say I use an editor like Tiny MCE which attaches itself to a textarea. When I click "Submit" on the form, how does that operate? How does validation work? Feel free to answer my question directly or offer some resource to help further my understanding. I have an app built on Laravel so I'm guessing I'll need to use a package like https://github.com/GrahamCampbell/Laravel-Markdown along with an editor (i.e. Tiny MCE).
Thanks!
Let's start with a more basic example: StackOverflow. When you are writing/editing a question or answer, you are typing Markdown text into a textarea field. And below that textarea is a preview, which displays the Markdown text converted to HTML.
The way this works (simplified a little) is that StackOverflow uses a JavaScript library to parse the Markdown into HTML. This parsing happens entirely client side (in the browser) and nothing is sent to the server. With each key press in the textarea the preview is updated quickly because there is no back-and-forth with the server.
However, when you submit your question/answer, the HTML in the preview is discarded and the Markdown text from the textarea is forwarded to the StackOverflow server where is is saved to the database. At some point the server also converts the Markdown to HTML so that when another user comes alone and requests to view that question/answer, the document is sent to the user as HTML by the server. I say "at some point" because this is where you have to decide when the conversion happens. You have two options:
If the server converts the HTML when is saves it to the Database, then it will save to two columns, one for the Markdown and one of for the HTML. Later, when a user requests to view the document, the HTML document will be retrieved from the database and returned to the user. However, if a user requests to edit the document, then the Markdown document will be retrieved from the database and returned to the user so that she can edit it.
If the server only stores the Markdown text to the database, then when a user requests to view the document, the Markdown document will be retrieved from the database, converted to HTML and then returned to the user. However, if a user requests to edit the document, then the Markdown document will be retrieved from the database and returned to the user (skipping the conversion step) so that she can edit it.
Note that in either option, the server is doing the conversion to HTML. The only time the conversion happens client-side (in the browser) is for preview. But the "preview" conversion is not used to display the document outside of edit mode or to store the document in the database.
The only difference between something like StackOverflow and TinyMCE is that in TinyMCE the preview is also the editor. Behind the scenes the same process is still happening and when you submit, it is the Markdown which is sent to the server. The HTML used for preview is still discarded.
The primary concern when implementing such a system is that if the Markdown implementation used for preview is dissimilar from the implementation used by the server, the preview may not be very accurate. Therefore, it is generally best to choose two implementations that are very similar or, if available, use the same implementations for both.
It is actually very simple.
Historally, in forums, there used be BBCodes, which are basically pseudo-tags that allow you to format your text in some say. For example [b][/b] used to mean "make this text bold". In Markdown, it happens the exact same thing, but with other characters like *text* or **text**.
This happens so that you only allow your users to use a specific formatting, otherwise if you'd allow to write pure HTML, XSS (cross-site scripting) issues would arise and it's not really a good idea.
You should then save the HTML on the database. You can use, for example, markdown-js which is a Markdown parser that parses Markdown to HTML.
I have seen TinyMCE does not make use of Markdown by default, since it's simple a WYSIWYG editor, however it seems like it also supports a markdown-like formatting.
Laravel-Markdown is a server-side markdown render helper, you can use this on Laravel Blade views. markdown-js is instead client-side, it can be used, for example, to show a preview of what you're writing in real-time.

CKEditor Stripping Out Some of Our CSS classes

We are having a problem with CKEditor (ver 4.1.1.5) stripping out some of our css classes when we are editing in the FULL HTML mode using SOURCE. From looking at some of the other questions posed on this, the Advanced Content Filter is the place we should be going. And, if I read this correctly, we need to edit the config.js file to add: CKEDITOR.config.allowedContent=true;
Am I going in the right direction? I want the WYSIWYG to still work for people with no html experience. However, when we go into source, I want all classes to remain and not be stripped out, no matter what.
You are partially right:
Yes, Advanced Content Filter (ACF) is the mechanism responsible for this.
But no, setting config.allowedContent to true is not a correct solution.
In short, ACF is a useful mechanism that lets you easily control the content that your users add to your site with CKEditor. Instead of disabling it, however, you should extend the filter configuration to accept whatever additional elements, classes, styles, attributes you want to allow.
In your case, if you want to additionally allow all classes for all elements, use this in your editor configuration:
config.extraAllowedContent = '*(*)';
Read more about ACF here:
Content Filtering (ACF) - introduction
Demo of Automatic Mode and Custom Mode
Advanced Content Filter - more advanced
Allowed Content Rules - syntax for ACF rules

How can I preview Virtuemart2 Order verification email layout changes?

I am trying to change the layout ( css/html structure) of Virtuemart 2 order verification emails. Problem is that I have to make a fake purchase each and every time I do a change in the 10 different files (located # components/com_virtuemart/views/invoice/order/tmpl) that create this email template.
The closest "preview" I got was this direct access url "http://domain.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=invoice&layout=invoice&format=html&tmpl=component&virtuemart_order_id=1401"
But again it loads Joomla's head/body elements not the actual email template.
So how can I have a "preview" of how the template looks like with my new changes BEFORE make an actual test purchase? Is this possible?
You shouldn't change the core files otherwise the next update of VirtueMart (of which there are many) will erase your changes.
You should use Joomla!'s template overrides which VM2 supports that way you can update as needed to new versions without loosing your changes. See this article on docs.joomla.org on "How to override the output from the Joomla! core" and this one on template overrides.
3. You need to add the &format=raw at the end of the link to retrieve just the output of the component with out the template/html body wrapped around it. Of course that relies on the component as well.
I was going to suggest using raw, but looking at the current VM2 it doesn't properly support the format=raw option. Looking at the mail layout in the invoice view it not structured to return it the way you expect, it actually generates a HTML version by default with a matching text only version.
The best I could come up given those two options
Return a close equivalent of the HTML email
http://domain.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=invoice&layout=mail&virtuemart_order_id=1401&tmpl=component
Return the text version, albeit wrapped in the html page... you may have to view the source to see your invoice text.
http://shop.craigphillips.biz/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=invoice&layout=mail_raw&virtuemart_order_id=4&tmpl=component

Saving wysiwyg Editor content with Ajax

I am writing a cms (on .net) and have structured the whole page to work client side.
There is a treeview that lets you add/remove/move items and define their names in the languages defined. For each language I save the names of the category defined, but when there is HTML content associated with it, i fall into the JavaScript serializer problem that finds the content too long to be serialized.
What would be the best approach to make sth like this work. Shall I change everything to work with postbacks, or try to manually call _doPostBack for the editor content (which I don't want). Thank you in advance.
I guess would be great to make auto-save with time interval which will submit only diffs between current state and previous save. It will do the key if the user will edit it manually, not for copy/paste, of course. It is if we talk about really big data that we need to save.
Otherwise need to find some ways to compress the data before submitting: json+base64, etc.

With Prototype how do I disable autocomplete for a given input text box?

I am sure this is on here already...
I want to be able to disable autocomplete for some CMS generated form fields with some frontend javascript code, preferably Prototype but neat javascript will do if it has no cross-browser problems.
I have ids for my boxes and I am not using some clever 'prototype autocomplete' (that seems to stuff the Google results on this). Regular browser autocomplete is what I want to turn off and not for the entire form.
Knew I would find it as soon as I asked:
$$('.MacGuffin')[1].setAttribute('autocomplete', 'off');
$$('.MacGuffin')[7].setAttribute('autocomplete', 'off');
That is specifying elements by class rather than id.

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