Planned WYSIWYG editor only pro (paid) version?

Why is the WYSIWYG editor planned only for the paid version? I would say making it available in the free version is much better, as it will attract a lot more users ... who then possibly buy pro stuff.

Markdown is nice, but only so limited. The WYSIWYG editor is a huge selling point in Wordpress, as people can easily install WP for free and comfortably publish their content.

If the WYSIWYG editor was paid only in WP, a lot less people would use it.

Here's our thinking: Developers and web professionals generally like or even prefer markdown. So most people developing with Grav for fun, will probably prefer dealing with files, or alternatively enjoy using the markdown editor we have in the admin.

If you are developing a site for a client, who typically insist on having a WYSIWYG editor because it reminds them of MS Word, then the Pro plugin is probably something you can easily factor in the price of your development effort.

Also we've been working for over 2 years on Grav without any compensation, and really could do with people purchasing the Pro version to help fund the development effort. We are already providing a full featured CMS with way more functionality built-in that any other flat-file system out there. And it's open source and totally free to use. We want to have a 'few' things that people want in the Pro version. If we didn't why would people bother paying for it?

Of course, it's only fair to get compensated for your hard work.

However as I see it, a free WYSIWYG editor would attract more people to start working with Grav, potentially becoming full-time Grav users instead of wordpress users.
Think of the average fashion / travel blogger, who just starts to publish content and aren't sure yet if they can get an income with their website. They would most likely stick with Wordpress, as there they have a free editor build in.

It's weighing the pro and cons, and your decision of course. I just personally think that, in the end, you would get more sales when you make Grav more attractive for the average, new users.
And then get them to pay for other features like caching, task-management, extended forms, calendar function, etc.

As of right now, Grav is a cool idea and fun to use if you've a lot of technical knowledge like a professional webdeveloper.
But if I was just the average blogger, or even one who makes a living with blogging, I wouldn't really see why I should be using Grav instead of Wordpress - and even less why I should pay for it.

In terms of speed, the difference isn't THAT much that it really matters. Function wise WP has more on board. And Wordpress is just very simple to get into, you know. Grav isn't really that easy to use - especially to create a full fledged site - even for me who has a fair bit of web development knowledge.

I personally will still test Grav more and of course there are other points where Grav shines, but do they really matter for most people?

Putting the WYSIWYG editor in the free admin plugin could be quite a huge investment in the future of Grav. Because (as edgarjellyfish already mentioned) chances are higher for non-developers (regular users) to chose Grav, ultimately accelerating the growth of Gravs user base. Then more Grav users there are, then more of the commercial/premium/pro/payed (whatever they are called) plugins and templates get bought.
In the long run, this would pay off significantly.

The Grav target user base cannot be everyone.

While a Grav site can be used by everyone non-technical when shown how the Admin works, building a non-trivial Grav site is a different topic and the integrator, the one that assembles the Grav site, is expected to have some technical knowledge.

Markdown can be grasped in half a day, considering the editor has buttons that do almost everything a WYSIWYG editor can do, and you have the page preview. Plus, it's hard to mess up a Markdown document, while it's very easy to do when copy/pasting from Word in a WYSIWYG editor.

If then the site will be handed off to non-technical users, you can then add Admin Pro as a plus, which in addition to the WYSIWYG editor will have many other goodies such as a more powerful media manager, a white-label admin and more.

Totally understand your reasoning. I know it's still early, but do you have any idea what the price point will be at for the pro admin? And will that be a year license or a one time fee? For our clients, it's a lot easier to handle it as a one time fee.

It will probably be a one-time fee per deployment/usage.

I have been using WordPress for my client sites over the last few years. I was looking for something that I could use for clients where WP was overkill. You don't need a full blown WP for a few pages. I came across Grav and I like it a lot. The plugin ecosystem is great and I am working on some now. The issue I have is for non-technical folks that have developers build them a site and just want to add text and images. The editor with Markdown is a huge disadvantage. I understand wanting to get paid for your work as we all do. However, to get the wide adoption and the traction like WP this just seems like a must have in my mind. Users have grown to accustomed to the WYIWYG editor and be able to easily insert images. There is no advantage for them to lean Markdown. I would even be supportive a just being able to pay for WYISWYG plugin; however, I really feel this CMS would blow up with an easier editor. Just my two cents and why I am not pushing to a broader base of users although I would like recommend it.

I agree with allpurposeninja. I would love to recommend Grav to NGOs and a lot of different users, especially creatives who just need a simple but good looking portfolio. But I just can't do that, as none would want to pay just for a WYSIWYG editor, when there's a free alternative.

So instead I am recommending them October CMS, which has a WYSIWYG editor for free. They even offer different ones free of choice as plugins.

This is something we will re-evaluate after the Pro admin plugin is released. Of course, anyone can create a WYSIWYG editor plugin of their own. We're not doing magic here :)

Och, reading this just killed any hope of using Grav in school environment.

Personally think you are shooting yourself in the foot.

You would attract a lot more users to buy pro plugins with a simple WYSIWYG editor like http://nicedit.com/ or one of the many other open source ones.

Just my two cents.

Och, reading this just killed any hope of using Grav in school environment.

I wouldn't be so sure about that, for two reasons :

1. Markdown has precisely been designed to be easy to learn for anyone as long as you have a 2 minute intro about it and a cheatsheet nearby. It's actually quite educational to teach them Markdown as a gateway from mathematical analysis to IT. On a TI calculator, you define functions and pass parameters to display stuff. Here you do just the same but with text (and most functions you need already exist).

2. If you absolutely needed a stupid WYSIWYG editor, then you can use just about any Markdown editor. But in our case an editor is just a form with a title and a body field, which displays a rendered version of whatever Markdown it produces on the go. This is really not so different or harder to implement from the WYSIWYG editors you find bundled with CMS (except they usually use shortcodes not Markdown).

Can totally understand "2. If you absolutely needed a stupid WYSIWYG editor,"

But I work with special needs people (mostly young kids) and they seem to work better with "visual" and do very well with WYSIWYG editors. Trying to explain markdown to many of them would be akin to teaching them heart surgery.

Anyway, Grav is not for everyone ans also understand that.

I get that there are users/clients that need a WYSIWYG. I also get developers desire to have free products. I think that Grav needs to be a bit careful that they do not go the WP route of free everything. This is one of the issues with WP. Too many hacks creating things.
Perhaps having a developer's license/copy that is a relatively good price would be a good option.
There are a lot of WYSIWYG on the market that can be used/implemented.
My fav is Pen - http://sofish.github.io/pen take a look has a nice feel to it.

I agree mslfire.

I have decided not to recommend our school district use Grav. So everyone can scratch and forget my request for a WYSIWYG editor.. Sorry to have stirred up the thread.

It rather depends on how you define visual in conjunction with WYSIWYG. Most Markdown editors are hybrids which display both the visual element and formatting at the same time - e.g. StackEdit - ostensibly giving more insight into and control of the formatting and resulting code than a pure WYSIWYG-editor. As have been discussed on this forum before, it could be made pure by hiding the formatting, but not clear solution exists yet.

In my opinion, most of the hybrid editors are as much WYSIWYG as you'd need for writing content. Whether the process of writing content can be thought to young kids in a non-specialized web-interface I am doubtful of, and few to no tools that I can recall are set up for this.

As also has been noted, the licensing allows for white label use, and implementing paid alternative editors is therefore possible.

I cannot agree with you Gingah. I have been teaching for about 30 years now and in special education for the last 15 years. Perhaps you should become a special education teacher and explain the concept of visual to kids that have a hard time multiplying 5x5:)

Anyway Grav is a n excellent platform and actually is way more than we need. Certainly going to use it for some main sites but cannot for the kids blogs.

But I work with special needs people

Sorry if my comment sounded rude. I can see your point about how Markdown may not work well with certain people. I was just trying to point out it's actually possible to make it all "transparent" to the users (the way Wordpress for example does when you write a post).

WYSIWYG editors can just offer Markdown as a format in which to export (although most don't).

I know this is not ideal but there are ways around the missing WYSYWIG in Grav.
You can work on your HTML or Markdown with any desktop tool you like and once you saved the file you can drag and drop it right into the editor. We have the editor so that it reads the content of the file you are dragging and automatically populates it.

Jul-14-2016 22-27-17

This is to say that even if you don't have a WYSYWIG in Grav, right now, you can still easily use external tools to do so. Like I said, this is far from ideal, but definitely opens up possibilities if you just cannot do without a WYSYWIG editor.

We are looking into WYSYWIG for Admin PRO like it's been said numerous times, it's not a trivial task and we want to do it right.