Font color code with "span" instead of "font"

This would be handy, purely for the purposes of validating the code as XHTML.

However think of the reasons that the font tag was deprecated. In this scenario, your span tag is just a font tag in disguise!

The reason font tags are bad is because they do not seperate the formatting from the content. Sure, the span might validate better, but just using the word SPAN instead of FONT does not change the fact that the user is embedding styling information directly in the content.

I suppose if you want the users to be able to format any of the 216 colours you don't have much choice. However usually there are a handful of valid uses for color in content, and if that is the case you are better off creating some CSS classes for these, and disabling the color picker completely.

There is a very valid reason for using SPAN instead of FONT for changing the text color. Using FONT to select color will not override your CSS style definitions and so the text color will not change. It's quite funny how, in FCKeditor, the background color is set using SPAN, but the font color is set using FONT. I consider this poor design. I cannot understand the developer's thinking behind this choice.

Most clients don't care about "separating style from content" anyway. They just want to have complete control and the ability to pick whatever color they like. I could be a purist and say to the client that, "No, I will not let you mix style and content!", but then I'll loose my customers...