[platform-swt-dev] HTML editor in SWT

["Craig Raw" <craig@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I am interested in finding out more about the HTML rendering support in
Eclipse or its related projects. I need to not only render an HTML page
in the Eclipse workbench, but also offer WYSIWYG HTML editing as a
normal Eclipse editor. Ideally, an HTML page would be edited with 3
panes of Preview, WYSIWYG editor and HTML source. I have done a few
searches, and come up with the following solutions:

1) Current SWT components: The StyledText Widget seems to be aimed more
at text editing, and supports only one font. Not a solution.

2) Embedded COM objects: This is of course a Windows only solution,
where Internet Explorer would be used for rendering and Word could
possibly be used as an editor. Word produces poor HTML however, so a
RTF->HTML converter may be necessary. Alternatively, there are many
ActiveX HTML editors out there.

  Pros:
    Rendering -> IE is the default browser
    Editing -> Word has a familiar interface, and many features
  Cons:
    Only Windows
    MS Office must be installed for editing in Word

3) John Ponzo posted a message to [platform-help-dev] about a SWT widget
he has created supporting an embedded IE/Mozilla rendering engine
(http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/platform-help-dev/msg00172.html).
The IE edit modes are also surfaced supporting rudimentary WYSIWYG
editing. This seems to be a far better solution, at least in terms of
rendering, especially if the Mozilla implementation has progressed as
described in Johns post. I am unsure of how capable an editor could be
constructed.

4) Roll your own SWT widget, possibly with GEF? The complexity of
accurately rendering HTML makes this almost impossible.


John, anyone, if you have any other ideas or could point me in the right
direction, I'd be grateful.

tia

Craig