Xinha is a compelling Open Source WYSIWYG editor component. It is one of the most powerful as its configuration and extensibility make it easy to customize. Its liberal licence makes it an ideal candidate for integration into any kind of project.(Xinha-Trac) [Small note: when writing on the web, it's my personal style preference try to embed ALL links in the text of the sentence.  Otherwise they're just wasted words that water down your writing.]

[Bigger note: what is the purpose of this as an introductory paragraph?  What are you trying to tell your audience here?]

[trim]OpenPlans committed to using Xinha for its wiki, blogs and possibly comments early in 2007. Ian Bicking blogged about his findings and the advantages it had over the Plone equivalent of Kupu.[/trim] It’s been integral to our work ever since and, well, we love it. [trim]After a year of intense use, we’ve garnered extensive user feedback. This shapes a lot of suggestions on improvements we would like to contribute to the community.[/trim] Design and functionality changes would really help push Xinha over the edge into becoming the greatest open source WISYWIG editor out there. This wiki houses some of the reasons why and how we would like to see development in the tool.

Desktop vs. Web Editing

Desktop word processors moved from being light weight text editing tools to user interface(UI) driven applications. Applications like Microsoft Word were some of the first to give a considerable amount of importance to WYSIWYG. They stressed on simplification of functions to a click of a button! Users were now used to fine formatting their documents without really having to worry about the code used to carry this function.

As the web becomes more and more the platform for writing and collaborating, we see the beginnings of rich text editing being implemented. Starting with email clients and followed by blogging software, collaborative wiki platforms and ocassionally commenting and mapping tools, there is an expectation for toolbars that allows for basic formatting.

Google has started a suite of tools parallel to Microsoft for their online documentation products that is a robust WYSIWYG editor these are not available for integration with other online editing tools.

The space for open source, web-based editing is broad and we should be in a place to provide users with intuitive and elegant tools that do the job!

[I like the way you've set this off now!  I wish you could set it off even more with, say, a background color and a smaller right margin, but unfortunately the OpenPlans wiki doesn't give you that degree of control.  How would you feel about moving the pages of this "wiki presentatio" you're writing about Xinha to somewhere else, like Google Pages for example?]

Defining the User for WYSIWYG Tools

There are three types of users who employ online editing tools.

1. Writers who are comfortable writing directly online a la bloggers and commenters. They are comfortable using text editors, but may not be able to fine tune using the HTML editor.
   
2. Power users who edit often and are comfortable with keyboard shortcuts. These users work with editors that easily allow them to toggle between tools like Bold and Underline.
3. Users who would like to control the look of a page to a finer degree using HTML. They use tools like color, tables, insertion of links and images on a regular basis as it plays a key role in information presentation.
   

So embarking on the challenge of creating a comprehensive WYSIWYG editor I have collected a set of examples that have cropped up on the internet over the last year in the WYSIWYG Examples page. [How does this sentence relate to your list of "user types"?  You need to make that connection more explicit.]

Goals

1. Make Xinha the most sought after open source WYSIWYG Editor out there!
   
2. Providing an INTUITIVE tool set to the users who would find editing a seamless process.
   
3. Customizing the tool set so they provide maximum advantage to the community that is targeted. (math, music, writing, design etc.)

Examples from other tools:

WYSIWYG Examples

What we are currently working with:

What is current default set on Xinha-Nightly Demo. Some of the trouble here is area lies in the fact that there are
just too many tools. By keeping the default set concise the user is presented with less of an overwhelming and
more cohesive experience.

List of tools from left to right:

1. Maximize
2. Pre-formats
3. Font
4. Size
5. Bold
6. Italic
7. Underline
8. Strike through
   
9. Font Color
   
10. Fill Color
11. Current Style
12. Subscrpit
13. Superscript
14. Left Align
15. Center Align
16. Right Align
17. Justified
    
18. Numbered List
    
19. Bulleted List
    
20. Indent out
    
21. Indent in
22. Horizontal Rule
23. Link
    
24. Image
25. Table
26. Undo last Action
27. Redo last action
28. Select all
29. Print
    
30. Clear MS Office Tags
31. Clear Font specifications
32. Remove formatting
    
33. Toggle Borders
34. Split Block
    
35. Direction Left to right
    
36. Direction Right to Left
37. Toggle HTML view
38. Help using the editor
39. About this Editor

The Entire XINHA set

When all the plugins are turned on this is what you see in Xinha-nightly. This is not accounting for some of the plugins that gave errors on load.

List of tools from left to right:

1. Page Cleaner
2. Layout
3. Language
4. Emoticos
5. Page Break
6. Insert scroling marquee
7. Save
8. Maximize/Minimize Editor
9. HTML Tidy
   
10. Document Properties
11. Syntax
12. Info
13. CSS
14. Find and Replace
15. Pre-formats
    
16. Font
17. Size
18. Bold
19. Italics
20. Underline
    
21. Strike through
22. Text color
    
23. Fill color
24. Super Script
    
25. Sub Script
    
26. Insert Keyword
27. Drop down label
28. Left Align
29. Center
    
30. Right Align
31. Justify
    
32. Numbered List
33. Decimal Numbers
34. Bullet list
35. Left indent
36. Right indent
37. Formula Editor
38. Horizontal Rule
39. Set page background image
40. Abbreviation
41. Insert Special Character
    
42. Insert web link
43. Set web ID
44. Insert Anchor
45. Insert File link
46. Insert Snippet
47. Insert Image
48. Insert Guido music notation
49. Undo your last action
    
50. Redo your last action
51. Select All
52. Print
53. Clean up HTML
54. Paste as Plain text
55. Clear inline font specifications
    
56. Remove formatting
57. Filter
58. Split block
    
59. Direction Left to Right
    
60. Direction Right to Left
61. Toggle HTML Source
62. Spell Check
63. Smart replace
    
64. Quick Tag editor
65. Edit HTML for selected text
66. Help using Editor
67. About this Editor
68. Definition list
69. Definition term
    
70. Definition description
71. Insert Form
72. Insert a text password or hidden field
73. Insert a multiline text field
74. Insert a select field
    
75. Insert a check box
    
76. Insert a radio button
    
77. Insert a submit or ok button
    
78. Form
79. Text Area
80. Selection Field
81. Check box
82. Radio button
    
83. Text field
    
84. Password field
    
85. File field
86. Button
    
87. Submit Button
    
88. Reset Button
    
89. Image Button
    
90. Hidden Field
91. Label
    
92. Field Set
93. Insert Table
    
94. Toggle Borders
    
95. Table Properties
96. Row Properties
97. Insert Row Before
    
98. Insert Row After
    
99. Delete Row
100. Split Row
101. Insert Col Before
102. Insert Col After
     
103. Delete Col
104. Split Col

Clearly this is an overwhelming experience! Where does one start? The need to simplify and customize are apparent here. There are ways to simplify without really loosing functionality. Here are some attempts to do so:

xinha details

 

[This isn't a great way to convey the overwhelming experience!  Make the audience FEEL it, don't just TELL them about it.  Seriously, I'd recommend presenting this whole thing in a more visual way where you can really take advantage of the format to convey just how scary it really is.  The goal is to call the reader's attention to what's really going on in his head when he SEES xinha.  Maybe think about jumbling the words together in a five-column layout .. or putting them in a "legend" on the screenshot itself, complete with (overwhelming, impossible to digest) color keys for each, or (cluttering, difficult to trace) red arrows linking the explanatory text to each button.]