CoreMedia Case Study
The Challenge
The combination of a massive growth in the consumption of online content and the introduction of new digital channels and devices has resulted in a dramatically different landscape for editorial staff. Maintaining a consistent brand experience across all channels has become a significant challenge. This includes the appearance and impact for formatted text.
As a leading Digital Experience (DX) company with almost 20 years of experience helping companies manage their online content, CoreMedia is committed to providing editorial teams with the tools they need to create engaging content with rich text to be delivered over any channel from web to mobile and print. The rich text format used by CoreMedia is a subset of HTML, using the XLink standard for internal links between documents and for embedding pictures.
To increase the creativity and efficiency of editors working with this rich text format, CoreMedia was looking for a rich text editor that:
- could be customized to load and store a custom format (HTML subset, special hyperlinks),
- could be embedded seamlessly into the CoreMedia Studio, the company’s a rich Web-based editorial interface created with Ext JS,
- demonstrates outstanding usability capabilities including keyboard shortcuts,
- maintains tremendous stability across different browsers,
- provides a well-documented API to add functionality and
- combines cost effectiveness with OEM license solutions and commercial professional support.
Our main focus was to find a rich text editor that could be implemented using a Web UI technology (Ext JS) and deployed as a reusable component within our existing editorial interface. We wanted our developers to have the ability to implement it with Ext JS controlling all relevant functions of the rich text editor so that business user would see a consistent look and feel across all toolbars and dialog boxes.
The Solution
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After evaluating multiple vendors, CoreMedia determined that CKEditor was the only Web-based rich text editor that could fulfill all of these requirements. No other solution could be seamlessly integrated into CoreMedia’s existing editorial user interface. Most other candidates failed to provide a clear separation of the user interface (toolbar, dialogs) from the back-end rich text editing component. Nor could they provide a detailed API that would allow CoreMedia developers to bypass the built-in UI and control the text editing functions directly. Most of the other vendors were “black box” components that provided business users with limited abilities to modify HTML using their built-in toolbar, context menu, and dialogs. CoreMedia was also pleased with CKEditor’s well documented custom storage format.
The Results
CoreMedia first deployed CKEditor as the rich text editor of choice in CoreMedia Studio, the company’s Web-based editorial interface, in 2009. Since that time, user satisfaction has drastically increased and complaints caused by the previous rich text editor solution have essentially vanished.
Over the years, CoreMedia has updated CKEditor several times and each time, the upgrade process has been as smooth and seamless as claimed by CKSource.
Some of CoreMedia’s specific user requirements, (e.g. applying multiple styles to block elements), have been implemented by CKEditor community members and some of these features have even made it into CKEditor’s source base.
CoreMedia Studio is designed to be a highly customizable interface. Project developers benefit from the ability to modify the rich text editor toolbar and dialogs in the same way as any other CoreMedia Studio component, resulting in both a consistent programming model for the developer and a consistent look and feel for the user. This is only possible due to CKEditor’s flexible integration model that allows it act as a pure rich text editor without a required dependency on the built-in UI.
CoreMedia is happy to have discovered a reliable and fully-featured solution for meeting the rich text editing challenges of its demanding customer base. Only CKEditor could provide them with the flexibility and extensibility needed to meet the real-time demands of their Web visitors for visually appealing and deeply engaging online experiences.
Our customers are creating and publishing online content in an increasingly demanding multi-channel environment. Their editors are under intense pressure to prepare visually attractive and consistent rich text content quickly and easily. Only CKEditor could help us provide them with the speed and usability they require to accomplish their goals.
Technical recap
- Product: CKEditor Premium, Custom development
- Environment: CoreMedia Studio (Web Content Management Editorial Backend)
- Environment languages: JActionScript, JavaScript, Java EE
- Development time: a few weeks for migration from previous rich-editor tool and adaptation to CoreMedia Studio framework
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