[Zope] styled text editing

[Alex Burton]

Hello All, not a pure Zope question here:

I'm investigating solutions to input and manipulate styled text that 
will end up in a SQL database. It should probably be a simple 
interface to HTML.

The goal is to allow writers to input styles into text (such as 
putting titles in italic, personal names in bold) without having them 
do HTML or structured text, nor cut&paste into a visual HTML editor. 
This SQL data will head one way back onto the web (live zope) and the 
other way into a print layout program (probably as an XML file).

What i would need is <i>, <b>, <u>, <p>, <hn>, maybe <dir> based on 
tabs, you know, just the basic stuff.

Possibilities i can think of:

  A Java applet that talks to Zope or SQL (like the new(?) hotmail editor).
  A Flash file that talks to Zope (assuming there is a Flash widget to 
do such editing)
  An SQL-aware app on the desktop (made in VBasic or something like that)
  ...?

It actually does not have to be HTML, as long as Zope can deal with 
it (can go in a SQL blob).

Anyone worked or stumbled upon something like this?

We may have some resources to do development towards this, so general 
pointers and ideas are also welcomed.

Thanks,
Alex.