CKEditor

CKEditor

CKEditor Screenshot
Developer(s) CKSource
Stable release 4.4.7[1] / January 27, 2015
Development status Active
Written in JavaScript
Operating system Cross-platform
Type HTML editor, text editor
License GPL, LGPL and MPL[2]
Website ckeditor.com

CKEditor (formerly FCKeditor) is an open source WYSIWYG text editor from CKSource designed to bring common word processor features directly to web pages, simplifying their content creation. It aims to be lightweight and requires no client-side installation. CKEditor is distributed under the GPL, LGPL and MPL licenses.[3]

Its core code is written in JavaScript, having server-side connectors with Active-FoxPro, ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, Java, JavaScript, Lasso, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails.

History of CKEditor project

The first version of CKEditor, under the name FCKeditor, was released in March 2003 by Frederico Caldeira Knabben, the creator of the editor and the project's Benevolent Dictator for Life. FCKeditor 0.8 supported XHTML, "Paste from Word" and Internet Explorer 5.0. During the next two years, partnerships with Oracle Corporation and IBM Corporation were signed. After crossing 3 million downloads, FCKeditor was completely reviewed and redesigned into CKEditor 3.0, with special attention given to performance, accessibility and a new UI. In December 2012, CKEditor 4.0 was released with an Inline Editing solution, reformatted source code, enhanced DOM and CSS performance, a new skin and an add-ons repository.[4]

Compatibility

CKEditor uses YUI Graded Browser Support as the basis for its compatibility requirements. CKEditor 3.x is compatible with most internet browsers, including Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 8.0 Quirks, 9.0 (Windows), all major Firefox releases starting from 3.†, Safari 5.†, latest stable Google Chrome, latest stable Opera and Camino 1.0+ (Macintosh).[5]

Accessibility support

CKEditor is WAI-ARIA and Section 508 compliant. It also supports high contrast and interface keyboard navigation.[6]

CKEditor features

CKEditor brings to websites popular editing features found in desktop word processors such as: styles formatting (bold, italic, underline), web resource linking, a safe undo function, paste from Word and other common HTML formatting tools.

The following new features were introduced in CKEditor 4.0: new skin; Inline Editing, which is an HTML5 feature that removes the old text areas allowing website users to edit pages directly in their final state; centralize add-ons repository where all community plugins and skins can be submitted and freely shared; CKBuilder tool for building customized editors.[7]

CKEditor customization

CKEditor 4.0 has been redesigned to provide website owners and developers new customization tools. The editor can be fitted with plugins and a skin selected from the CKEditor add-ons repository. Virtually every element of the editor is now modular, facilitating third-party plugin and skin contributions.[8]

The process of CKEditor customization is supported by CKBuilder, a special tool created for plugin, skin and language management. The result is an editor adapted to each developer’s specific needs.

Localization

CKEditor is translated into more than 60 languages, including major ones like French, German, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, as well as some less common like Welsh, Uighur and Gujarati.[9]

Project support

The CKEditor project is supported by community leaders and members rallied around a Developer Center, GitHub repository, and Forums.

CKEditor CMS modules

Native CKEditor open source integration modules are present in selected Content Management Systems: Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress.

Related products

CKSource offers a commercial version of CKEditor, which has a dedicated Ajax file manager and product packages natively integrated with Drupal or Joomla CMS.

Image and File uploading with CKEditor

CKEditor's API supports images and file uploading to server and inserting to editing document, but has no tools for doing it by default. If you want to have such functionality, you can install one of plugins to CKEditor. Here is a short list of them:

Also there is a set of another uploaders which became not compatible with CKEditor since its v. 4 had been released.

MediaWiki+FCKeditor

MediaWiki+FCKeditor was a branch of FCKeditor developed for WYSIWYG wiki editing. Support for both have been discontinued. For more information, see Extension:FCKeditor (Official).

Vulnerabilities

Versions of FCKeditor prior to 2.6.4.1 allowed remote attackers to create executable files on the hosting server via a directory traversal vulnerability. [10]

Previous versions of CKEditor, FCKeditor 2.5.1 and 2.6.6, contain a file renaming bug that allows remote code execution. Specifically, it is possible to upload ASP code via the ASP.NET connector in FCKeditor. The vulnerability requires that the remote server be running IIS.[11] The vulnerability was discovered by security researchers from Rapid7 in August 2010. Subsequent releases have fixed the problem.

Versions prior to 2.6.7 were vulnerable to a cross-site scripting vulnerability. [12]

References

  1. ↑ Changelog
  2. ↑ CKEditor licenses page
  3. ↑ CKEditor about page
  4. ↑ CKSource about page
  5. ↑ CKEditor Compatibility page
  6. ↑ CKEditor Accessibility Compliance page
  7. ↑ CKEditor Features page
  8. ↑ CKEditor Add-ons repository page
  9. ↑ CKEditor Transifex page
  10. ↑ CVE-2009-2265
  11. ↑ R7-0036: FCKEditor.NET File Upload Code Execution
  12. ↑ CVE-2012-4000

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to CKEditor.