Improving Your Content Management Systems with HTML Editors

The Content Management Systems (CMS) that we know have been around since 1995 and have been a popular choice for web content creators of varying programming proficiency. 

They offer the ability to serve and create content for admins and users without coding much. This helps save plenty of time and resources for CMS developers and users. 

However, using an HTML editor can still improve CMS development and usage. And if you’re here, that means you want to find ways to make your CMS experience better for all parties involved, and that’s good. 

This article will cover the steps in improving your CMS with HTML editors. 

CMS Basics

CMS are applications that allow users to make, edit, and publish content, among others, without having to code. Instead, they will just interact with a graphical user interface (GUI) with everything they need to manage content. 

For example, a business wants to have an intranet (within the same organization) application where they can post announcements, videos, and other files, reports, and so on. They also need users to be able to interact with one another and publish content of their own.

There must also be restrictions on what users can do based on their access rights. 

Users must do all of these without touching the code. The business will choose to use a CMS. However, their developers would do little to no coding. 

Admins could also better track, announce, format, and review user-generated content. Without a CMS, they would have to resort to developing their way of managing content, which could take years. 

Since CMS is mostly about content, its content editor should be its crucial component. Therefore, a CMS’s content editor should be fast, responsive, modern, feature-rich, customizable, granular, and accessible. And the best way to accomplish this is by using WYSIWYG HTML editors. 

HTML Editors

HTML editors are software tools that allow developers to well, edit HTML. This means they let developers write code with extra convenience and efficiency. For example, HTML editors have two classifications – text editors and WYSIWYG editors. 

Text editors like Sublime Text and Notepad++ are HTML editors where developers can write code. They offer several benefits, such as syntax highlighting, error checking, project/file directory viewing, and many more. Experienced developers benefit the most from these. 

On the other hand, WYSIWYG HTML editors provide a more convenient and user-friendly way of evaluating code. For example, they usually have a GUI that resembles word processing or UI designer applications. This immensely reduces the amount of code to be written and is almost plug-and-play for most content editing needs. 

Furthermore, they’re much more intuitive and user-friendly, letting even novice programmers create beautiful, fully-functional CMSs and other content-heavy applications. For these reasons, we’ll focus on WYSIWYG HTML editors to improve your CMS. 

Using an HTML Editor to Improve Your CMS

WYSIWYG HTML editors have many features that can help improve basic CMS. From user interface and design to advanced functionality, these editors have everything you need to take your CMS experience to the next level. Here’s how you can improve your CMS with an HTML editor: 

1.   Make your CMS look and feel better

The user interface and design are the most noticeable differences between basic CMS and CMS integrated with a WYSIWYG editor. WYSIWYG editors ensure that your users see every feature they need without visually overwhelming them. 

The best ones provide a clean, beautiful, and organized interface that’s comfortable to look at. 

Using a WYSIWYG editor for your CMS removes all of your UI worries. It’s been designed to be intuitive and easy to use while keeping users engaged. Unfortunately, too many graphics or cluttered features will distract or confuse users. 

Too bare graphics or too few features will make them uninterested. However, WYSIWYG editors keep the balance between features, graphics, and usability. This translates to an easy and natural content management experience. 

2.   Optimize your CMS for mobile devices and variable screen sizes

Responsiveness is a clear advantage of WYSIWYG editors. They’re already built to fit any screen across all platforms and browsers. 

Typically, you’d have to use frameworks or libraries to define screen width for all sizes. And should you opt for pure CSS, you’d have to code and define dimensions and properties for every media screen size. 

Every piece of content within a WYSIWYG editor can adapt to varying screen sizes. Even uploaded images’ sizes can be responsive with the use of percentages. That’s another thing to worry less about for your CMS. 

3.   Add advanced features

The numerous features of using WYSIWYG editors are another way of improving CMS. They have virtually every content editing feature your users will ever need, including: 

• Autoformatting
• Autosave to prevent loss of content for various reasons like unexpected outages
• Word count to keep track of the content length
• Spelling and grammar checking for accuracy
• Paste from sources like Google Docs or MS Word while preserving the formatting
• Paste from various sources as plain text (no formatting)
• Advanced tables and image handling and styling
• Real-time collaboration
• Keyboard shortcuts

All these and more can significantly help your CMS because users will be assured that their content management needs will be satisfied. 

4.   Consider SEO for your content editing

Another essential consideration for CMS that some can easily overlook is Search Engine Optimization SEO. This will improve your website’s traffic and increase your search engine rankings. 

The leading WYSIWYG editors also take care of SEO by generating a clean output prepared for indexing by search engines. 

5.   Add inline editing for content creators’ convenience

Inline editing is one feature that makes WYSIWYG editors excellent for creating content. It allows content creators to see how their content will look while making it. 

This removes the tedious cycle of writing and publishing only to find that the formatting is off, leading to another edit and republishing. 

Implementing this without using WYSIWYG editors would surely be a hassle, and not all basic CMS offer this functionality. Hence, by using a WYSIWYG editor that supports inline editing, you can significantly improve the quality of the content being published in your CMS. 

6.   Make your CMS widely accessible

Lastly, in the past few years, websites and applications, including CMS, have been expected to cater to as many people as possible. This includes people with disabilities and people from all over the world. 

And that’s also a highly complicated feature to implement should you decide to make it yourself. For example, WYSIWYG editors come equipped with accessibility features and support for other languages. 

How to Get Started

Now we know just how beneficial WYSIWYG editors can be for Content Management Systems. They provide plenty of enhancements for a better CMS experience for users compared to basic CMSs or those made from scratch. But how do you start? 

First, you have to find the right WYSIWYG HTML editor for you. You should choose one that has all the improvements we discussed earlier. It must also be an HTML editor that’s easy to use and integrates well into existing CMS. Essentially, it should be something you and your users will love to use.