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It's a shame this is being abandoned, because if you want a rich text editor that truly is Gmail's compose editor as it has existed for the past decade - that e
by btown 2y ago
It's a shame this is being abandoned, because if you want a rich text editor that truly is Gmail's compose editor as it has existed for the past decade - that emits the same structures that Gmail would, handles copy-pasted rich text the same way Gmail does, has the same behavior in typing inside links etc... which is especially useful if you're building an email client that Gmail users need to feel familiar on every keystroke... then following https://github.com/google/closure-library/blob/master/closure/goog/demos/editor/editor.html https://github.com/google/closure-library/blob/master/closur... line-for-line is still the gold standard, because it grew from the same codebase as Gmail.
I've had great success at a previous startup referencing a prebuilt Closure Library from a modern ES6+ codebase and creating a React-friendly wrapper around the editor component, and using this to power an email templating experience. Ironically, I'm within weeks of needing to do it again, thanks to Zawinski's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law - "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." I'll give you one guess what I'll be reaching for, archived or not.
Others have more context on the history and have written more detailed obituaries - but it's a true testament to the engineers that worked on it, that a library can be so ahead of its time that it's still an industry-leading experience 14 years after its initial release.
- esprehn 2y agoFun fact: the code name for the editor was TrogEdit, with Trogdor the Burninator as their mascot. I believe they even had a life size cardboard Trogdor by their desks. It's one of the oldest, most stable, and never rewritten parts of the Gmail codebase.
- dataflow 2y ago> It's one of the oldest, most stable, and never rewritten parts of the Gmail codebase. Sorry to be negative, but I guess the lack of maintenance explains why the undo/redo is so atrocious, both in speed and in correctness.
- jmathai 2y agoSometimes, simple feedback like this leads to a complete refactoring which addresses the main point of the refactor but misses the mark on so much more...for all of eternity.
- dmd 2y agoWhat does “life size” mean here?
- srockets 2y agoAnother fun fact: this isn't the only software named after Trogdor: Apache Kafka's test framework is also called Trogdor[0]. -- [0] https://github.com/apache/kafka/tree/trunk/trogdor https://github.com/apache/kafka/tree/trunk/trogdor
- 1659447091 2y agoFor anyone else also interested in knowing what this Trogdor the Burninator is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90X5NJleYJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90X5NJleYJQ (Strong Bad Email #58)
- niutech 2y agoYou can still use the goog.editor, even if the repo is archived, you can still fork it.