WordPress 2.0 & WYSIWYG

Mark asked earlier how the upgrade to 2.0 went, and I thought some of what I’ve expeirenced thus far might have some value for other folks using WordPress as their blogging tool. For the most part, my upgrade went smoothly. I backed up my database and what files I wanted to back-up just in case, waited until the rest of the family went to bed, and then went for it.

Once I uploaded the new version of my theme I was halfway there, and started re-activating plugins. I had to update a few, but everything seems to be working fine. The only plugin that didn’t make the cut was the PHP Exec plugin I used to move my links and blogrolls to separate pages. But I replaced it with Links Page plugin from RedAlt, which actually works much better. I left the Cat 2 Tags plugin off, since 2.0 allows for creating categories on the fly.

The only thing left was the new WYSIWYG editor c/o TinyMCE. That’s where things started to get a little hairy.

First, a word about WYSIWYG. From what gather from some WordPress users, many are less than thrilled with it. Some even advise against using it. In fact there seem to be some strong feelings about WYSIWYG among bloggers that almost registers as a kind of machismo, complete with stances that could be paraphrased as “WYSIWYG is for wimps” and “Real bloggers do their own code.” It almost amounts to a kind of bias, and think it probably serves as somethign of a barrier to people who just want to blog as a writing platform without having to become code afficiandos. I haven’t quite figured out what the problem is, but then I happen to like WYSIWYG interfaces when they work well.

Don’t get me wrong, I know more than enough HTML to do my own coding. But to tell the truth, most of the time I don’t feel like it. I’d rather spend my time writing and not thinking about code. In fact, I’d prefer not to even see the coding if I don’t have to. It’s much easier to review and edit without having to discerne code from content. So, gimme a good WYSIWYG any day. And I think the WYSIWYG in 2.0 is pretty good except for one thing. It doesn’t come with a spellcheck installed. As a writer who’s not a naturally good speller, I really appreciate having spellcheck. So I set out to get it set up in the new WordPress WYSIWYG.

It’s a long saga, and I posted most of it on the support forum. I don’t expect any quick responses, but maybe someone will see it and have an answer. I’ve found, however that it’s hard for someone whose not a developer or a programmer to get helpful advice. You get “oh, it’s easy if you know thus-and-so you can do it” or a vague description that doesn’t tell you what to do. I find I usually have to go back and say “Tell me how.” And this is coming from someone who often serves as a bridge between tech gurus and the not-so-technologically-inclined. Anyway, there are so many barriers to posting there (paraphrased, “Ask here only as a last resort, and then do it just this way, and you still may not get an answer”) that I probably did it wrong and it will get ignored anyway.
What it boils down to is this. I spent several hours trying to add the spellcheck plugin for TinyMCE. I got it uploaded into the right directory and everything. Then I uploaded and activated an advanced editing plugin for 2.0 that would make it easier to add buttons to the WYSIWYG. After several tries, I had three rows of buttons with a whole array of features. It looked something like this.

The only button missing was the spellcheck button. As far as I know, I did everything I was supposed to do, but it refuses to show up. I’ve tried everything I can think of and went through the steps over and over again, but to no avail. It’s’ a shame, because the WYSIWYG feature was the one I was most looking forward to. And without spellcheck it has far less value for me than it otherwise might.

So, I’m kind of at a loss. For a long time I used ecto, and got used to the WYSIWYG interface, but it started acting wonky on me after a while and I was never able to figure out why, so I went back to doing my blogging in WordPress. But I missed the spellcheck feature in ecto. Missed it alot. So, I turned to the Google toolbar extension for Firefox, which includes a spellcheck feature. I’ve been using it without a WYSIWYG interface, and that means having to discerne code from content and just ignore Google’s spellcheck when it counts HTML tags as misspellings.

Now that I’m using 2.0 I’m finding that the Google toolbar spellcheck behaves kinda weirdly. Once you correct a misspelling by choosing a word from the dropdown list that appears when you click on the mispelled word, the spellcheck leaves a weird “ghosty box” that looks something like this.

You have to delete it, otherwise it will insert some nasty looking code that you’ll have to go in and delete later. Kinda like this.

It’s almost not worth trying. And I’m not sure I’m going to continue trying, but I’m also tired of trying to edit while simultaneously trying to discern content from code.

Oh yeah. I tried downgrading from Firefox 1.5 to an older version, but still couldn’t get the spellcheck extensions to work. I even considered switching browsers because I heard that Safari has built-in spell check. Safari, however, also has this nice way of removing the WYSIWYG formatting bars and the quicktag buttons that show up when the WYSIWYG is shut off.

I wouldn’t even have quicktags. I’d have to code everything by hand. There’s a solution, but it’s one that involves — you guessed it — more coding/programming.

So, I have a WYSIWYG that doesn’t do the one thing I need it to most. I have a spellcheck that doesn’t work all that well, unless I’m willing to keep sorting code from content. I could go back to ecto, but I’m not sure it wouldn’t have the same problems that I don’t know how to fix.

Why does technology hate me? Why does this have to be so hard? Why is the bar set so high that you have to be a developer or progammer to get your blogging platform to do what you want it to do?

Why did I upgrade in the first place?