I have been looking into why WYSIWYG editors are bad for content creation. The most common reason given is that they output incorrect html. But what if I use editors with reduced functionality?
My requirements are only the ability to italicize, make text bold, create ordered/unordered lists and (maybe at a later date) add inline images.
My users will hopefully be 'persistent' users (small numbers of laypersons using the app frequently)
In this context how do I choose between Markdown (WMD editor) & a stripped down WYSIWYG editor. How would page performance be affected with each? I consider fidelity & reproduciblity of data to be important.
Best Answer
You choose by considering your audience. Wiki markup and markdown is for geeks. Your customers sound like they're probably not geeks so I would suggest CKEditor or Twiki-style editor (good, simple Wysiwyg UI) for non-geek users.
Basic concern: Why force lay-people to learn a markup language when solid alternatives exist?
See the Custom Toolbar editor in this CKEditor demo. Or check out TinyMCE.