ZHyperTextArea FAQ

What is ZHyperTextArea?

ZHyperTextArea is an implementation of HyperTextArea as a Zope product.  By installing the Zope product and creating a single instance of "HyperTextArea Support", you can have WYSIWYG HTML editors on any page of your Zope site.

What is HyperTextArea?

See the FAQ.

How do I install ZHyperTextArea?

  1. Download ZHyperTextArea from SourceForge.
  2. Expand the tar.gz or zip file in your Products directory
  3. Restart Zope
  4. Create an instance of "HyperTextArea Support" somewhere on your site (the recommended setup is to create an instance called "hyper" at the root of your site).

How do I create a WYSIWYG HTML editor once I install ZHyperTextArea?

There is a short answer and a long answer to this question.  Both assume that you have already created an instance of HyperTextArea Support called "hyper" at the root of your site.

Short

Add the following to any DTML document or method inside an HTML form tag:
<form>
<dtml-with hyper>
 <dtml-var renderHyperTextArea>
</dtml-with>
</form>

That's it! You now have a working WYSIWYG editor on your page.
Note that this will work with Page Templates as well.

Long

Any of the following arguments can be passed into the renderHyperTextArea() method for greater control over the area.  See the HyperTextArea FAQ for more information.
 Parmeter Description  Default 
 areaName The "javascript" name used to refer to this particular HyperTextArea.    "area"
 content The HTML that will be rendered (and thus editable) inside the HyperTextArea.  "" 
 width The physical Width (in pixels) of the HyperTextArea.  520 
 height The physical Height (in pixels) of the HyperTextArea.  200
 styleSheetPath The URL of the Style Sheet used to render the HTML inside the HyperTextArea  "" 



What does ZHyperTextArea do that HyperTextArea does not?

Currently, the main difference is that the image control allows you to upload images from your local machine to Zope and insert them directly into the HTML that you are editing.  Other features may be added in the future.

How is ZHyperTextArea different from other WYSIWYG tools available for Zope?

Essentially, I wanted a drop in replacement for a <textarea/> element.  ZHyperTextArea accomplishes that without dpendencies on any other Zope product.