I am going crazy, I have been trying to get a functional text editor working for months now. I've spent days on every one out there and can't get a consistent functional result from any of them.
I've been working with the HTMLEditor which is great and works, but the problem is when you hit a button nothing changes if you continue typing. You can only type everything you want, then go back and highlight stuff to change the formatting after the fact. This is no good because the user will just see that the buttons don't do anything and assume it doesn't work.
Now I'm on to the htmleditorextender. Doesn't look as good and doesn't give the option to specify a target for link creation (which in my case always has to be _blank because it's displayed in a frame.) I've accepted the fact that I have to dynamically add the target at runtime, but every time a link is submitted in the form it adds style="display:none;" to the link and disappears. If I edit it out in the code view of the editor, it puts it back in, or sometimes worse, translates everything to HTML friendly display codes so the mark up appears in plain text. This is maddening.
So I think maybe I need to enable the sanitizer. I know I don't actually, because only paying members will be using this thing, but maybe that's why the code is being jacked up. I have the latest September 2012 release of the toolkit. The only documentation I can find about enabling the sanitizer comes from an older release with three dll files to include, where the new release has only two different files included.
When I look to the online documentation for the controls on the newest release here http://www.asp.net/ajaxlibrary/act_tutorials.ashx, it only lists the HTMLEditor, no HTMLEditorExtender. The old version here http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/HTMLEditor/HTMLEditor.aspx says not to use the HTMLEditor any more because it's been replaced. Arrrrrgh!
I don't care which one I use, I just want one to work! The HTMLEditor would be my first choice purely based on looks. If so, how do I get a button push to immediately affect the typing? I'm okay with the HTMLEditorExtender too, but how do I get links to not add style="display:none;" when submitted, and if possible add target="_blank"? Is the sanitizer absolutely necessary? If so, how do I enable it with the 2 new files included with the new release? If anyone can help you will have my eternal gratitude!