Possible strategies in creating a web based editor

This may not be the complete list of possible strategies, but this is my own documentation of a short exploration.

textarea

One of the simplest form of "editors" is the plain textarea. Sometimes enriched by Javascript, adding snippets of text to assist more complicated markup styles (e.g. select text, and make it bold by surrounding it with a double asterisk (in case of markdown)).

Advantages:

• robust
• simple

Disadvantages:

• No advanced markup (and/or relies on e.g. markdown, which is nice, but not for everyone)

By offering a preview of the markup, the disadvantage can be mitigated to some extend.

More information: MDN on ``

It is possible to position autocomplete helpers when the entry font is of a fixed type; as you can find the position of the caret within the text (using [selectionStart (on MDN)](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLTextAreaElement/…