It came to our attention that when used under SSL with Firefox SPAW v.2 performed in some strange way: on the first load it worked ok, but on subsequent loads editing area stayed gray and inactive unless you switch to HTML mode and back.

We have traced this behavior to some kind of bug in Gecko which is beyond our understanding (which is sadly not the first time with Firefox) but we were able to cure it with a workaround. Since there are not enough changes for the next release yet, but this bug might be affecting many users working over HTTPS, we decided to release a quick fix for this issue. You can download it here. Just overwrite the files in this archive over your current files to apply it.

We would like to thank Ampco Metal SA for sponsoring priority upgrade for this issue.

In response to our fundraising effort I’ve got a couple of emails suggesting that Safari compatibility can be developed and tested using Konqueror browser on Linux since apparently Safari is based on KHTML rendering engine. I’m not an expert in Konqueror (and Safari for that matter) but from what I’ve googled there’s no so called “designMode=on” functionality in Konqueror:

——- Additional Comment #22 From Leo Savernik 2006-03-22 19:40 ——-
Suspended indefinitely.
A merge from Webcore will be done when the infrastructure is in place. Don’t even think about expecting it before KDE 4.

So there’s no other reasonable way to implement Safari functionality than using an actual Mac and we really need your help for this to happen.

As you have probably noticed current version of SPAW supports all the main browsers except Safari. This is not due to the lack of required functionality in Safari but simply because at this moment we don’t have any Mac computers in reasonable proximity. There’s also no other immediate reason to purchase a Mac but the a/m Safari support and we can’t currently justify this expense.

So we decided to ask for your help. If you like SPAW Editor and would like to see it working under Safari, you can donate as much as you can (current minimum is ) solely for the purpose of Safari implementation. We have set up a fundraising campaign at fundable.org.

Our goal is to raise at least 1000 US dollars for Mac mini purchase (currently it’s the cheapest Mac solution over here in Lithuania), but we would prefer to purchase a MacBook to save space (currently cheapest MacBook is priced at about 1600). So, if you would like to donate and notice that the fundraising is completed but the amount is below 1600 don’t hesitate - your donation is highly appreciated.

The system at fundable.org works this way: you make a pledge to donate with your credit card (via PayPal) or PayPal account. Your credit card (or account) will be charged if the goal of the fundraising is met within 25 days from Today, February 21, 2007 (deadline is March 17, 2007), but if the goal is not met you wont be charged anything. (Keep in mind that the amount will probably be reserved in your account).

As a benefit all the donors will receive a 10% discount for any commercial license of SPAW Editor. So, in case you were planning an Enterprise license purchase and you donate 25 dollars you will get a higher discount than you’ve donated! The discount will be valid even if we don’t collect the money in time and you aren’t charged.

If Safari support is important to you, please, help us make it a reality! Visit https://www.fundable.org/groupactions/spawsafari and make a pledge Today!

In case you have any question about this initiative don’t hesitate to ask us at spaw@solmetra.com

Disclaimer: we have designed version 2 of SPAW Editor with future extendability like this in mind and we will make a serious effort to make it work under Safari, but there’s no guarantee that there won’t be any critical obstacles on the way that we won’t be able to overcome in a timely manner.

Update: the system at fundable.org doesn’t show us complete email addresses of the supporters, so if you’ve made your pledge and would like to receive your 10% discount code drop us a line at spaw@solmetra.com and provide some information (your email, name, etc) so we can identify you.

We have released a new lightweight theme called - spaw2lite. It borrows button icons from the default SPAW2 theme but rather than using separate images for each button state it uses a single transparent image for each button and applies state related effects using CSS and Javascript.

At the same time we have removed all the markup which served no functional purpose.

As a result of all these changes “spaw2lite” uses 4 times less images weighing 10 times less than “spaw2″. And the markup weighs 4 times less too.

So if you thought that it takes too long for SPAW2 to load, grab the spaw2lite theme and speed things up!

Note: spaw2lite will only function properly if you have SPAW Editor PHP Edition version 2.0.2 (just released) or later

We have released version 2.0.2 of SPAW Editor PHP Edition a little earlier than planned. The main reason for this rush is that we have made a new lightweight spaw2lite theme and it uncovered a small bug in the theming subengine of earlier versions which made it impossible to release spaw2lite for the current SPAW2 version.

So we assembled all the accumulated fixes to date, made a few more quick bugfixes and here it is - SPAW Editor PHP Edition v.2.0.2

There are 2 other important issues which influenced our decision to release 2.0.2 early: a) all the strings like $10 (dollar sign followed by digits) were removed due to a bug; b) setting hyperlink on selected image object under IE made the image disappear and produced javascript error.

Here’s a complete list of changes in this release:

1. FEATURE ADDED: SpawFm plugin: when “fsdir” parameter is set, “dir” parameter can be set to absolute URL
2. FEATURE ADDED: added semi-automatic path calculation to config file which could be used if fully automatic algorithm fails
3. FEATURE ADDED: added preformatted, address and paragraph (<p>) options to default paragraph dropdown option list
4. BUGFIX: when applying a hyperlink to selected image the image was removed under IE
5. BUGFIX: strings like $xx (where xx - some digits) were treated by the editors  PHP code as regex back references and stripped from the content
6. BUGFIX: background color setting in default wysiwyg.css file was preventing displaying of background color settings on tables and table cells
7. BUGFIX: 1.x compatibility mode: unnecessary default values for width and height removed, default (set in config file) theme will be always used in compatibility mode
8. BUGFIX: delete/backspace didn’t work under Gecko until user typed something
9. BUGFIX: CSS classes were not applied to toolbar items when defined in themes
10. BUGFIX: SpawFm plugin: DOCUMENT_ROOT was used in sample ‘fs_dir’ parameter, replaced with SPAW_ROOT
11. BUGFIX: SpawFm plugin: use of undefined variable
12. BUGFIX: added line breaks at the end of browser specific editor.js files. This was causing javascript errors in some environments.
13. COSMETIC FIX: spaw2 theme was rendered with cosmetic glitch when used in XHTML 1.1 page
14. LANGUAGE FILE ADDED: SpawFm plugin: Lithuanian
15. LANGUAGE FILE ADDED: SpawFm plugin: Russian
16. LANGUAGE FILE ADDED: SpawFm plugin: Dutch (Floris Brant)

Yet another new plugin was added to the growing plugin repository of SPAW2. This time it’s “Insert HTML” plugin.

It allows users to paste arbitrary HTML code into current selection without having to switch to HTML mode. This is especially useful when you get a piece of code from sites like Flickr to insert into your page. Now it could be done in a way that is as simple as making a word bold.

Download is available through the plugin page.

Now you can embed YouTube movie into your content by just pasting the URL into the dialog of the new YouTube plugin for SPAW Editor PHP Edition v.2.

As usual you can download the plugin from our plugin page.