Advanced WYSIWYG in Wordpress 2.1
If you're a Wordpress user, and have the slightest grasp of HTML, then at some point in your blogging life you're sure to have flung an insult at the built-in WYSIWYG editor that comes with Wordpress. While it suffices to accomplish the most minor formatting tasks …
Context & Ripple Effects
WordPress 2.1 arrived in January 2007 bundled with a rebuilt WYSIWYG editor, but as the release coverage in 10 Things You should Know About WordPress 2.1 showed, the shipping feature set drew scrutiny on multiple fronts. This piece joins a familiar pattern of gripes — echoing complaints like the 2005 criticism of WordPress.com's RSS feeds — that the built-in tools suffice only for minor formatting tasks.
The practical takeaway for HTML-capable users: the editor hides an advanced toolbar that exposes more direct control over markup than the default buttons suggest, making third-party editor plugins less immediately necessary.
First-order effects
- Bloggers with HTML knowledge gain a same-day fix: toggling the advanced row of the WordPress 2.1 toolbar recovers formatting control without installing or configuring an external editor plugin.
Second-order effects
- Persistent dissatisfaction with the default editor keeps demand alive for alternative editors and plugins, pressuring the WordPress project to treat editing quality as a release-defining feature rather than a checkbox.
Third-order effects
- If editing friction keeps generating complaints across releases, editor capability becomes a competitive axis among blogging platforms, and the plugin ecosystem consolidates around replacing core defaults rather than extending them.
The trend: Blogging platforms are being pushed by user criticism to iterate their built-in editors toward richer, more reliable rich-text handling with each major release.