[xwiki-devs] [VOTE] Replace embed HTML elements with static image placeholder in WYSIWYG edit mode

Embed HTML elements pose some problems: * they are loaded asynchronously and any attempt to access even the simplest DOM property like nodeType through JavaScript raises an exception if the object is not fully loaded (closed to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=331672 ). * they can't be fully controlled from JavaScript. The specific plugin that handles each of them decides the display and behavior (e.g. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=250855 a flash movie might auto start in edit mode and, unless you want to see a movie while editing, that's not nice). * they aren't reloaded after they are detached and reattached to the DOM tree using JavaScript which means that any DOM manipulation involving one of the ancestors of a embed node can lead to the disappearance of the embedded object. Sadly, appendChild, insertBefore and replaceChild detach the target node before attaching it to the new location. As a consequence there's no way to move an embed node inside the DOM tree without detaching it. So I propose we replace the embed HTML elements with static image placeholders just after the edited document finishes loading. The placeholder will have the same size as the embedded object in view mode. Note, ckeditor already does this. You can check by copying the HTML from http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-3975 to the source of http://ckeditor.com/demo . I'm +1. Thanks, Marius