workaround for contenteditable on iPad

Question

I have a web application that uses TinyMce to allow rich text editing. Some of my customers are desperate to get it to work on iPad (which doesn't support contenteditable and therefore TinyMce doesn't work)

At the moment the only choices I have are:

• Disallow rich text editing when i detect the browser is iPad. This is not much of a solution because my app relies heavily on rich text editing
• Wait for iPad to support contentEditable
• Write my own iPad app. This isn't really workable because it's a big complex app with loads of HTML and javascript and I would have to rewrite it all
• Use another browser. As far as I know none of the other browsers support contenteditable either.

I'm really keen to find some workable solution. is there such thing as a rich text editor that doesn't require contenteditable? or does anyone have a clever idea I hadn't thought of?

Thanks in advance

Andy

Answer 1

As of June 2011, it looks like there may be support coming in iOS 5

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/08/will-ios-5s-safari-deliver-better-support-for-web-editors/

this observation (that it's working in the beta) has been confirmed by a colleague of mine too.

Answer 2

Write my own iPad app. This isn't really workable because it's a big complex app with loads of HTML and javascript and I would have to rewrite it all

Not necessarily true. You can embed the working part of your web app in a UIWebView component, which is basically Safari embedded in your app, and handle the not working part in the app (providing content). It would require work for sure, but maybe a lot less than rewriting the whole app for iPad.