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Ultimate TinyMCE For WordPress Review and Rating
The Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin adds all the advanced WYSIWYG editing features missing from the basic TinyMCE editor supplied with WordPress. Ultimate TinyMCE plugin brings WordPress several steps closer to becoming a full featured website Content Management System.
Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin is developed, maintained and very well supported by Josh Lobe (link to website at bottom of page).
The plugin is available in two versions; a free to use version from the WordPress.org plugin repository, and a premium version with additional features can be purchased form Josh’s website.
Ultimate TinyMCE plugin is one I find indispensable, and use it on all my own WordPress sites, as well as client sites for which I provide content management.
Features Overview
Overview of Ultimate TinyMCE Features
- Advanced Features
- Miscellaneous Options
- Table manager
- Advanced hyperlink, classes, relationships and named anchors
- More text styles e.g. font size, more text colours, subscript and superscript
- Advanced control over images including link relationships
- CSS styling
- In the latest versions 3 button <div> tag insertion.
- WordPress content ID in page/post lists (doing away for the need for another plugin)
- PHP widgets
- Moods Add-on
Review Rating
Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin Rating
Requires WP: 3.3.1 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.5
Last Updated: 2012-8-30
Downloads: 592,804
Stats Date: Sept 04, 2012
This rating is based on the free version available from WordPress.org The latest plugin version available at the time of this review is version 3.1.
Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin works and is mainly bug free.
As with many WordPress plugins, a few other plugins can cause conflicts. Josh addresses these whenever possible. At least one issue with the Mystique 3.2.1 theme was identified and the fix is detailed on the plugin forum ( Other Miscellaneous Options Button Missing ).
Support by the developer Josh Lobe is excellent, with a high percentage of reported issues resolved within a few days. Plugin updates are regular to fix any bugs discovered. In addition to the WordPress plugin forum, the developer has a Support Forum on his website. Ultimate TinyMCE is one of the few plugins I rate 10/10 for support level provided.
Features: Ultimate TinyMCE plugin provides all the content editing features needed to use WordPress as a website content management system. Read the user guides on this site to find out about the full range of features included with this plugin
Installation and Set-up: Ultimate TinyMCE plugin installation is the usual easy install and activate process for most WordPress plugins. Configuring the plugin is also easy – but it does need doing manually. The user needs to select the buttons wanted, and assign them to rows. There are some optional features to decide about as well. Although there are a lot of choices to make, the process is easy – simply select a check-box in each case and assign the row from a drop-down list of 4 options.
Usage: The developer uses the plugin on his website, so 10/10, and I use it everywhere possible and test every version as soon as it’s released so 10 /10 in both instances.
Review Summary
In my opinion, this is the best content editor for WordPress. Features and especially support leave all the others way behind. From what I have read about the premium version, I would recommend this as well, particularly if you uses custom style-sheets and other CSS. It’s well worth the price.
Overall, the Ultimate TinyMCE plugin gets a near perfect rating of 9.9 / 10.
Basic Configuration
Configuring Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin
Users of the plugin can choose whether to use every additional function from the settings panel.
Ultimate TinyMCE plugin adds two rows of selectable buttons to the default editor. When first installed, none of these are active – the user must choose all the functions required. (As seen in the image below, I have selected only those I use regularly, e.g. the Cut, copy and paste buttons were left inactive as I prefer to use keyboard shortcuts for these functions).
Latest versions of Ultimate TinyMCE plugin allow button placement on any of the 4 available WordPress visual mode editor panel. A couple of buttons can only be placed on the top row – however, I have heard Josh may allow these on any row in a future update.
Setting Up Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin
The first step when installing the Ultimate TinyMCE plugin is choose the options required from the Advanced Features and Optional Features panels. These need to be checked if the feature are required:
Advanced Ultimate TinyMCE Features
- Advanced Insert/Edit Link enables the button control for advanced hyperlink markup, including the all important “nofollow” attribute.
- Advanced Custom Styles enables the “Styles” drop down menu.
- Div Clear Ability enables the div clear button useful for laying out content items within a page or post.
Miscellaneous Options
- Enable ‘NextPage’ Feature: Used to create a next page link for long articles. Using this feature automatically creates Page 1 page 2 etc
- Add Ultimate TinyMCE to Excerpt Area: with this feature enable, the custom excerpt feature of WordPress can be edited using all the feature of Ultimate TinyMCE – this feature has been removed in current versions however
- Add ID Column to page.post admin list. Page/post ID’s are sometimes required by other plugins, and are not displayed by WordPress. This feature replaces other plugins previously needed to expose the ID.
Now that the options have been selected, compare the new editing panel (top image) with the original default one (lower image)
Row 4 Buttons Suggestion
Most of the buttons shown here on row 4′s buttons are for advanced HTML/CSS functions; requiring some basic knowledge of HTML. I suggest the first time WordPress site builder activates only the Tables Control Box , for simplicity, and possibly the advanced Image control box until feeling confident enough to experiment with CSS
Video Guides
Add-Ons
Add-on Plugins for Ultimate TinyMCE
There are several add-on plugins to extend the functions of the basic Ultimate TinyMCE plugin. These add-ons are designed to integrate with Ultimate TinyMCE and are available for purchase from Joshlobe.com
Google Webfonts
Ultimate TinyMCE Google Webfonts gives you an admin interface for selecting your own Google Webfonts from almost almost 500 fonts…
Admin Colors
This plugin will change the css stylesheet for the entire admin panel, no matter which page you are viewing, and all logged-in user roles…
Predefined Styles
With over 80 different custom styles. Each of these styles was created with css and is visible in the editor screen and website front end…
Custom Styles
Ultimate Tinymce Custom Styles gives you the ability to define your own custom styles. Custom styles appear in the styleselect list…
Classes and IDs
Ultimate Tinymce Classes and IDs is a plugin for WordPress which enables the usage of CSS classes and CSS ids on HTML elements…
Adv. Configuration
Advanced Configuration to customise the Ultimate Tinymce plugin: Re-order button positions, add HTML tags previously stripped…
CMS
Ultimate TinyMCE Essential for Website CMS
The Ultimate TinyMCE for WordPress extension should be a must-have for anyone using WordPress for a website CMS. Several of the functions are indispensable for website construction. The coding related functions the plugin makes available advanced content styling without the need to code directly in HTML or CSS.
As an example, if you have ever added several images, with accompanying text only to find that sometimes the following paragraph, with its image and text, moves up next to the previous paragraph if the text in that section isn’t sufficient to wrap under the image. Without Ultimate TinyMCE the fix would be done in HTML view, adding “clear both” div tags in code. Using the extension, just click the div – clear both button without changing over to HTML view (and then having to still find the piece of content you want to add this tag to).
Using the CSS editor, div tags can be used to customise page layout. Without modding the theme, or adding any other plugin the author is no longer restricted to a single area in which to place content. Page and post content can be placed in ‘blocks’ and set to any chosen position.
These advanced content tools are safe to use as well. The only thing that may harm your site is the php widget… however if your website is secure, and you only allow trusted users to create widgets and use advanced coding and features, there are no additional dangers. Remember however PHP is powerful, and must only be used by those with the required knowledge. If you allow multiple users to access power user functions, or create content, then rather don’t activate the PHPs widget unless required.
Ultimate TInyMCE Plugin User Guides
Find out more about using the Ultimate TinyMCE plugin for WordPress with our easy to follow user guides;
Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin Buttons
Describes the function of the content editing buttons. Advanced Formatting buttons are self-explanatory, and the formatting used in the description provides a basic idea of how they work.
Code and Styling Controls buttons include tables and HTML/CSS code editing tools. Read More…
Ultimate TinyMCE Table Buttons
The Ultimate TinyMCE table control buttons adds a set of easy to use HTML table tools to the WordPress editor. New tables can be created and existing tables edited.
Rows or columns can be added or deleted, the width and height of cells and the table can be set, and cells can be split or merged. Read More…
+Mike OtgaarChapter 6: Part 1 Updated: Septy 04, 2012
The Ultimate TinyMCE plugin can be downloaded from WordPress.org ‘ Ultimate TinyMCE’ Plugin Page . or directly from the Add New Plugin panel. The Plugin author has a website at http://www.joshlobe.com/2011/10/ultimate-tinymce/ with additional information and help topics.
Ultimate TinyMCE Plugin,