FCKeditor: the open source online text editor

NEW DELHI: FCKeditor is the project of the month on the popular open source website Sourceforge. The result of dedicated efforts of Frederico Claderia Knabben(and hence the name FCKeditor) and other open source contributors, FCKeditor is an online text editor that delivers the features of popular editor MS-Word to the Web.

According to Frederico, he felt a real need for an easy to use text editor while he was working on a couple of CMS-based websites, back in 2003. Due to lack of an efficient online editor they had to rely on a commercial ActiveX control. It was at that time that Frederico started work on an open source online text editor.

Coded in Javascript, using AJAX for server-side integration, FCKeditor is XHTML-compliant and can work with Firefox and IE. Developers and companies working on Content Management Systems (CMS), blogs, Web mail etc, can find the product quite useful as it can give the end user a user friendly way to work with rich text online.

FCKeditor's success can be measured by the kind response it has received from the open source developers; it boasts of a large community around it that interacts with each other on a regular basis using the forums. The download numbers are close to 500,000, with an average of 2,000 downloads, each day.

A specialist in interface programming and server-side systems, Frederico works part-time on the editor, devoting about 20 hours each week. "I develop the core client-side JavaScript myself," says Frederico, who checks all the third party contributions to ensure great quality. The project has been received very well, and the open source developers have contributed immensely towards it, informed Frederico. Owing to its open source nature, many bugs are reported for, which are handled on priority by the team.

Currently available as FCKeditor version 2.0, the next release will offer more compatibility and accessibility, as well as enhancements to the documentation and the website. Frederico has urged the community to report as many bugs as possible and also offer fixes.

FCKeditor can be downloaded from here.