FAQ: EditLive! for IBM Lotus Web Content Management OEM Edition

At Lotusphere 2009, IBM announced that starting with V6.1 of IBM Lotus Web Content Management, components of the Ephox EditLive! Editor will be embedded with IBM Lotus Web Content Management. The FAQ is intended to help you answer questions that you, your customers or partners may have related to this announcement:

OEM Agreement, Support and Licensing

What is the nature of the partnership between IBM and Ephox?

EditLive! is widely regarded as the best online HTML editor on the market. EditLive! for IBM LWCM has been on the market since 2005 and is in use with over 110 IBM Lotus WCM customers. An OEM version of EditLive! will ship alongside the current HTML editor in IBM Lotus WCM which is also known as the ODC editor.

When was this agreement announced?

Larry Bowden, vice president, IBM Portals and Mashups, announced that IBM is licensing EditLive! for IBM LWCM OEM edition at the opening general session at Lotusphere 2009, Monday 19 January 8:30 to 10:30 am.

What does this mean for ILWCM customers who do not own EditLive! licenses?

ILWCM customers will benefit from improved usability and a range of powerful MS Word like features including clean copy and paste from MS Word. Shipments of an updated build of ILWCM 6.1 will include the OEM version of EditLive! for IBM Lotus WCM. ILWCM customers on earlier versions of ILWCM will need to upgrade to this new build of ILWCM 6.1 or later versions. Customers can immediately download and trial a version of EditLive! at www.ephox.com/ibm. IBM customers on all versions of ILWCM will continue to have the option to purchase EditLive! Enterprise Edition at any time directly from Ephox. This may take the form of an upgrade from the OEM Edition or as a new purchase of EditLive!.

What does this mean for ILWCM customers who already own EditLive! licenses?

Additional EditLive! for IBM Lotus WCM Professional licenses are no longer available for sale. Existing customers will continue to receive support from Ephox while Annual Upgrade Subscription and Support subscriptions are current. Annual Upgrade Subscription and Support can also be renewed.

When will the OEM edition of EditLive! be available?

OEM edition was made available in March 2009 as an electronic download from IBM’s Passport Advantage website.

How do I get Ephox EditLive! for IBM LWCM OEM edition?

If you have an entitlement to IBM Lotus Web Content Management and are running on version 6.1 or later visit the IBM passport advantage website and follow the steps below:

  • Click on “Customer sign in” the right hand navigation box and sign in.
  • Click on “Software download & media access” at the top of the left navigation column.
  • Ephox should come up in your entitlements list, or, if you do not see it, run a search on "ephox".
  • For further support contact IBM eCustomer care.

Which WebSphere Portal and Lotus Web Content Management products will include the OEM Edition of EditLive!?

EditLive! OEM edition is included in both Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition versions of Lotus Web Content Management and in WebSphere Portal offerings including Enable, Extend, Express, Content Accelerator and Enterprise Suite Accelerator.

Is the OEM Edition of EditLive! available for the Domino version of IBM Lotus Web Content Management?

The entitlement is for the Java version of IBM Lotus Web Content Management 6.1 and above. Ephox does offer an integration for Domino version of IBM Lotus Web Content Management but that is not covered by the OEM agreement.

Will EditLive! Enterprise Edition ship with IBM Lotus Web Content Management?

The IBM OEM Edition of EditLive! is not the same as EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition. The OEM edition is effectively what Ephox used to sell as the Professional Edition, which is no longer available for sale.

Will EditLive! be supported by IBM support?

If you are using EditLive via the IBM OEM (i.e. you are not using EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition) IBM will be your sole source for opening support tickets for the OEM in Lotus Web Content Management. For EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition please contact Ephox.

I am an Ephox customer. How do I know whether to call IBM or Ephox for support?

For existing Ephox customers Ephox will provide support provided they remain under a support contract with Ephox. For the EditLive! OEM Edition bundled with IBM Lotus Web Content Management 6.1 and later IBM will provide support to the customer and work with Ephox as required.

We are running IBM Lotus Web Content Management 6.0.1. Can we take advantage of EditLive!?

There are two ways you can do this: upgrade to IBM Lotus Web Content Management 6.1 which will give you the entitlement to EditLive! OEM edition or purchase EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition from Ephox. EditLive! Enterprise Edition is available for versions of IBM Lotus Web Content Management above 5.1.0.1.

Does the OEM agreement cover the use of EditLive! within a custom portlet?

The OEM agreement only covers the use of EditLive! in the authoring environment that ships with WCM. Any other usage would require the purchase of a separate license of EditLive! from Ephox.

How will licensing work for development, QA and production environments?

The entitlement for EditLive! OEM will be tied to the entitlements you have with Lotus WCM 6.1.

What is EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition?

EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition adds powerful features to the OEM edition that will ship with ILWCM. It is ideal for creating rich content, online collaboration and for ensuring content is compliant with accessibility standards. EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition is available for sale directly from Ephox or from IBM business partners including Ascendant Technology, Perficient, WP Experts, Open Logic, Hyro and EOS. Contact us for a demo or to learn more.

What specific features are not in the OEM edition that are part of the Enterprise edition?

The EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition offers the following additional features:

  • Inline image editor
  • Accessibility checker
  • Track changes
  • Thesaurus
  • Auto correct
  • Equation editor
  • Plugin APIs for extending and customizing the

The feature comparison table explains this in detail. 

Is EditLive! available for IBM Lotus Quickr and Connections?

Yes. You would need to purchase a license from Ephox for Quickr. An integration for Connections is not currently available.

Features

If someone changes content in a document will that change be reflected in the document history within WCM?

By default, IBM Lotus Web Content Management versions content items when they are Published or when people make a change to a published item. Track Changes is used to manage the changes to a document between published versions. Given this scenario, Track Changes content would not be part of the version history in Lotus WCM. Track Changes is part of EditLive! Enterprise Edition.

How does Track Changes fit in workflow, for example Author in stage 1 and Approver in stage 2, where the Approver does not have edit access?

Anyone who wished to work with Track Changes will need to have Edit access to the item. One nice feature of the Authoring Templates in IBM Lotus Web Content Management is that you can control which elements on the Authoring Template are editable. With this granularity you could limit an approver’s edit rights to the rich text fields only.

Will the Accessibility checking feature be consistent with a JAWS reader software?

EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition accessibility checker enables users to recognize and correct accessibility issues more easily. Our accessibility-checking algorithm helps to ensure that the content created in EditLive meets accessibility guidelines (Section 508 and/or WCAG). A JAWS screen reader should have no issue with reading content that adheres to Section 508 or WCAG guidelines.

Is the dictionary the same for all users? If a user adds a word to the dictionary is it added for all users? Can you add words to the dictionary at an administrative level?

The main dictionary is a JAR file that is distributed to all clients. There are separate JAR files for each language – but all users of a given language will have the same dictionary. When a user selects our “Add to Dictionary” function they are adding a word to a local word list – the list is not shared outside of that computer. If you have a variety of words you want to add to the dictionary for all users, we support the ability to add words to the standard dictionary. This process updates the JAR file so the changes are automatically pushed to all users.

If you use a language which is not supported can you turn the dictionary off?

Yes, you can disable the spell checker via the configuration file.

How are links to content added and edited?

EditLive uses the IBM-provided dialog box for creating links.

Can you link to other portal pages or other file components?

While you can do this, EditLive does not provide an out of the box solution to this issue as there are many ways to implement this depending on the requirements. Many of our clients have used our APIs to add such a feature to the editor.

Does paste images from clipboard work as well as paste images from Microsoft® Word?

Yes. In reality there is no direct copy/paste from Microsoft® Word (or any application). In all cases the source application places its contents in intermediary clipboard storage and we then paste content from the clipboard into EditLive!. Any application that can place content in the clipboard can be the source of content for EditLive.

How does the ease of use of EditLive! compare to Microsoft® Office SharePoint®?

EditLive! is generally acknowledged to be the leading online Rich Text Editor for web content management. The best measure is to try EditLive! for yourself or contact the IBM Sales Rep or Ephox at www.ephox.com/contactus.html for a session with Ephox’s web content experts.

What Microsoft® Office products and versions are supported for copying and pasting content?

Both the OEM and Enterprise versions of EditLive! support Microsoft® Word 2000 and newer for our clean copy/paste capabilities. We are constantly working to ensure that we have the most comprehensive solution for pasting in Microsoft® Word content. If you have a document that is not performing as you expect please open a support case so we can identify the issue. If you are using EditLive through the OEM this support case will be opened via IBM. If you are an EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition customer you can open a ticket directly with Ephox.

Is there a way to import Microsoft® Word content into the editor by browsing to a file, as opposed to copy & pasting the text?

According to current plans this feature will be added to EditLive! for IBM LWCM Enterprise Edition in an upcoming release later in 2009.

Does the author have to redo the formatting after pasting content from a Word document?

The removal of formatting from Microsoft® Word documents is precisely what is meant by our “clean” copy/paste from Microsoft® Word. In most web content management systems, the visual design / layout is tightly controlled/managed through style sheets. Our clean mode brings over the structure of the document but not the styling. Once the document is in EditLive, the content creator can apply styles to the content that are consistent with those of the web content management system. EditLive! applies these styles so the author has not additional work to do after pasting the content.

Can the EditLive! load automatically without clicking the big pencil?

The feature that causes you to click into the editor before using it is an EditLive feature called “Inline Editing”. Inline Editing was implemented for two reasons. First, if the content creator does not want to modify the rich text they do not have to wait for the editor to load. Second, many of our clients have multiple rich text fields in a single form – some as many as 7 or 8! In these situations, Inline Editing eliminates the need to wait for all 7 or 8 rich text fields to load in parallel. This significantly improves the load time of the Authoring Template. If you want to disable this capability you can indeed do that but it will require some light customizations to the integration. Please contact Ephox or one of the business partners for more details.

Technical

What customization does EditLive! offer? What features are available in the EditLive! API library?

EditLive! OEM Edition provides two means of customization. The primary means is via the editor's configuration file. The configuration file enables the addition or removal of any commands and some adjustments to the editor's behaviour.

A JavaScript API is also supported by the OEM Edition, this enables clients to make basic programmatic extensions to EditLive! and includes a set of JavaScript events for setting and getting content

The EditLive! Enterprise Edition, available directly from Ephox, provides an Advanced API for ultimate flexibility and customization. Using this API developers can create custom Java dialogs, filters and interact and modify editor behaviour to a significant degree. This API enables developers to access and adapt all events, including key strokes and button presses, that occur within EditLive!. This is recommended for implementation of editor extensions with complex requirements and usability that won't be impaired by browser constraints such as popup blockers.

Learn more about Ephox APIs

How is the configuration of EditLive! managed?

There is no IBM Lotus Web Content Management-based administration interface for working with EditLive’s configuration. The configuration for EditLive! can be edited simply by opening the file using a text editor as it is very easy to read and understand. The mapping of user groups to configuration is handled through a simple text properties file so there is no administrative console for that process either. This capability is common to all versions and editions of EditLive!

If we use the IBM Lotus Web Content Management API to pull the value of the EditLive! element does it contain pure text or is it HTML that can be displayed to the screen or parsed some other way?

The content from EditLive! is stored in IBM Lotus Web Content Management as either HTML or XHTML. There is a configuration setting in EditLive! that tells us whether or not to store the content as HTML vs. XHTML.

Where is the dictionary stored on the server? Will this work in clustered server environment?

The main dictionary is a JAR file that is downloaded to the client computer the first time a client uses EditLive! Once it is downloaded, the JAR is cached on the client computer. The editor will work in clustered environments.

How does the editor support attachments?

IBM Lotus Web Content Management provides a dialog box to create links to Files and Images stored in the Component Library. EditLive! automatically leverages this dialog box to create links. For items other than images, the document must be stored in the repository prior to creating the link.

What does EditLive! do with images?

Our IBM Lotus Web Content Management integration leverages a built-in capability of IBM Lotus Web Content Management to automatically upload local images and store them in the repository on-the-fly as content is saved. The path is replaced with a IBM Lotus Web Content Management-provided link to the item’s location in the repository.

The image editor performs all of its tasks on the browser – there is no interaction with the server until the content item is saved. The image editor will resample / resize / modify the image as needed based on the editing tasks performed. The updated image will be sent to the server when the content is saved – so the end result is the new image is stored in the repository.

How do you install EditLive!?

The integration is a zip that you download from the IBM or Ephox web site. The installation process is a simple shell script (.bat or .sh) that copies files to the appropriate locations on the IBM Lotus Web Content Management server. All servers running IBM Lotus Web Content Management need to have the integration files installed.

What are the system requirements to run EditLive!?

See the system requirements for EditLive! for IBM Lotus Web Content Management.

How does EditLive! handle custom WCM tags (e.g. <component/> or <element/>) amd certain "invalid" HTML (e.g. embedding custom tags in other HTML tags such as <a href="<component name='fileCmpnt'/>">link</a>?

Custom tags in attributes can be made to work. See the liveworks article discussing the use of custom tags in EditLive!

Does clean copy and paste work for importing HTML that contains inline styles? Can EditLive! remove inline styles?

There are explicit settings for how pasted content is handled when it comes from Microsoft® Word and HTML. There are “clean” settings for both of these sources.

How does the Portal Theme CSS affect the content in EditLive? Can authors see the styles in the EditLive editor?

EditLive! is used only during the task of content creation – so it is unaware of the Portal Themes, Skins, and other styling artefacts. The Authoring Template in IBM Lotus Web Content Management can link to a Style Sheet Component. If a Style Sheet Component is referenced in the Authoring Template this CSS is passed through to EditLive!. EditLive! will use this in its WYSISYG (Design) mode. In addition, EditLive! will make these styles available in the styles drop down list. A best practice is to make sure the Style Sheet component used in the Authoring Template is a subset of the real Portal styles focused on those styles needed for rendering or styling IBM Lotus Web Content Management-provided content.

What is the underlying technology for EditLive!?

EditLive! is a Java applet. Using Java allows us to provide a consistent user experience across all browsers and operating systems. EditLive! works on all major operating systems including Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

What file output formats are available with EditLive!?

EditLive! content is always maintained as HTML or XHTML depending on how you configure the editor.

Is it possible to have more than one rich text editor instance on an Authoring Template?

Yes. IBM Lotus Web Content Management supports this capability. This capability was one of the main reasons we added our Inline Editing capability to EditLive! – it maintains a consistent load time for Authoring Templates regardless of how many rich text fields are on an Authoring Template.

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