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Today we will take an in depth look into the Text Editor and go over the tools of the text editor. In Part 2 we will go over the quirks and the little used (but powerful) features of the module. Finally, In Part 3 we will cover some content "best practices" so your content looks the best it can.
The Text Editor can be a bit overwhelming at first. Let's break it down into sections.
The first section consists of tools that help you with the layout and structure of your content.
This consist of the following options.
This tool allows you to insert a token into your content which will then be replaced with other content depending on who is viewing the page. For example you could place a token for the current visitors first name in your text and if the visitor is logged in the toke will be replaced by their first name. There are too many tokens to go into here so you will want to play around with it.
You may have noticed that when you paste in information from another source that your content can get messed up. This is because web browsers are built to try to interpret the formatting of any content they display. Programs such as Microsoft Word™ and Open Office™ use a similar mark-up language to web pages. When you paste it in the browser trys to interpret what it is supposed to look like. This can lead to disastrous results.
To that end we have the clipboard tools. There are three tools:
This ones pretty simple, click on undo to undo that last thing you typed, hit redo to redo the last thing you typed. Alternatively, You can use the windows hot keys Ctrl-z to undo, and Ctrl-y to redo. (or on the Mac you can use Command-z and Command-y.
The next section contains items you probably already know about. Tools that allow you to make highlighted text bold, italic etc. There are two buttons in this section that you may not know.
Indent, when used within a bulleted list allow you to create a sub-bulleted list within the main list. When you are done with the sub-list you hit the Outdent button and it will place the cursor back into the main bullet list.
Have you ever made a bulleted list and couldnt figure out how to make it stop? Outdent takes you out of whatever Bullet list you are in. Simply create one last bullet and then hit Outdent and it will exit you from the Bullet List.
When the World Wide Web was designed, it revolved around Hyperlinks: Which is a fancy way of saying a tag in your content that tells your web-browser to go somewhere else. There are four types of things a Hyperlink can point to, a page, a file, an email address, and an anchor.
An anchor is a place in the current page that has been set as the target of a hyperlink. For example, you can put an anchor at the top of the page and then have a link at the bottom that targets it. When that link is clicked it will make the browser scroll back to the top, allowing your visitor a quick way to navigate around long sections of content.
The text editor makes it easy to create links and anchors, just select the link or the anchor and when the window appears fill out the boxes. Note that you need to create your anchors first, then create your links if you are going to point your links to an anchor.
You can insert Images and Flash into your content. You can also make image maps, which are images that have "hot spots" that link you to other pages.
To create an Image Map, first place your image on the page, and then select your image. You can then select the Image Map tool and simply draw areas where you would like your links.
You can also insert Flash into the text editor as easy as selecting the flash file and hitting enter.
The Style bar allows you to format the color, font and size of your text. The "Style" drop down list has pre-designed styles that are based on your current websites theme. This ensures that your text looks uniform throughout your site. you may also use the other options to style your text manually. However, to maintain a professional looking website, we recommend using only the pre-built styles.
The last tool I want to touch on is the Table tool. This allows you to make a grid of rows and columns in which to place your content. This allows you to control the layout and look of your content in a more organized manner than normal.
In our next blog post, We will cover some of the quirks of the editor, as well as how to use some of the more advanced tools. Part 2
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