Editable Web

The Editable Web is an easy way to edit your web-pages online, within a web browser. It adds a small "editing mark" † on your page. Click on this to edit the page. The page switches to a simple web-based wordprocessor. There's also a toolbar to change fonts, styles, colours, to upload pictures and to insert tables. Power users can click on the editing mark a second time to switch into raw html editing ‡.

It's like in the Sandra Bullock movie The Net but with † instead of π.

The Web-based wordprocessor makes it easy for non-technical users to edit their own site. Try it! -- click the editing mark † (at the top right) to start. Of course you won't be allowed to save o your changes here or revert < to an earlier version: just click cancel x instead. One scenario is that you set up a website for a friend or family member, and leave them to make changes.

Pages are stored in plain html on the webserver. Unlike a wiki, you can still edit them with Frontpage or Dreamweaver or Emacs or whatever, and back them up straightforwardly. They don't need any server-side processor, and so pages will load quickly. You can use normal html markup - no need to learn any additional wiki-markup.

Security and changes are handled by the webserver. All of the editing is done client-side in javascript. When you click the "submit" button it sends a small Ajax request to the webserver. You use normal apache .htaccess directives to protect the Ajax servelet: no need to worry about additional security concerns. The Ajax servlet is tiny, just 500 lines long.

(Note: Editable Web allows you to insert any html you want, including css and javascript. It's designed for trusted users to collaboratively edit their website, not for wiki-style editing by the general public.)

Feedback

This is the first preliminary release of the Editable Web. If you have suggestions, feedback or comments, please email them to the author, Lucian Wischik, or add them below. I am most interested in fixing bugs and making it simple and approachable for non-technical users. I'm not at all interested in adding more power-user features (e.g. file management, advanced editing features) because you're better off doing these with bash, scp and emacs. The code is all copyright (c) 2007 Lucian Wischik, but everyone's free to use/alter/redistribute it however they wish and with no restrictions. If there is enough interest, I will set it up as a sourceforge project or similar.