This is part 2 of series where I explore Markdown/Html/Wysiwyg editors for mobile/web apps, specifically for Steem Based web apps (Steemit, eSteem, Busy, etc).
If you have missed part 1, please check it here. In this post though I will be concentrating on mobile web mostly. One of the reason, I think steemit.com developers, having difficulty adopting new editor is: because not all editors are well supported for mobile users. And mobile browsers and webkit doesn't have up to date support for latest web technologies, changes.
As a developer of eSteem - mobile application for Steem platform, I have tested 15+ editors, markdown, html, wysiwyg. I am not going to list all of them, but I will talk about last few which stand out others. Remember, steemit.com is written in React and there are some react specific editors as well, which I looked into, but none seem to work quite well and have cross-platform support, as of this writing.
When deciding on Editor, what things I consider:
- Support on mobile
- Lightweight, fast, no heave library dependencies
- Easier content manipulation for user when writing
- Images, Embedded content
- Integration to AngularJS or plain JS or ReactJS
- Continues development
Markdown/HTML/Wysiwyg Editors List
CKEditor - heavy and optimized for web applications mostly, not mobile. Though it has commercial version, which I haven't touched. Also no Angularjs support.
Trix - didn't work well with mobile phone especially on iOS devices. Supports only modern devices Android 4.4+ and iOS 8.4+ which is no go for us.
Froala - commercial, also is not fully supported or in my test case didn't work well as I hope it would. But it looks promising, as development has strong support due to haveing commercial options.
Wysihtml - somewhat functional, but found few issues with it. When user highlights text.
Redactor - Commercial only, candidate for future tests. Very well organized and I think it has most coverage. From changelog, I can see that they have solved some of the issues I have been having with other editors.
TextBox.io - Honestly haven't tried this one, but I wan to give it a try. They do claim they have full support for mobile and have best product. But Angularjs support is outdated.
Quill - Winner so far, project is well supported by developers and very powerful and easy integration with AngularJS as well with external directive.
Integration of Quill comes in next update of eSteem mobile, with some more exciting changes. Stay tuned, follow me @good-karma.
Edit: While Quill integration worked decent, it also seem to fail on some devices and makes app laggy. So it looks like creating your own editor is best solution and from next release custom editor will be implemented and used without any library dependencies. Look out for v1.3.2 update.