Here’s some of my notes on how the TinyMCE embedded html editor functions in Blackboard 9. This info was gleaned from a stand-alone version of TinyMCE(v3.5.6), then comparing that to what is delivered in Blackboard.
TinyMCE can run in two modes: with the ‘fullpage’ plugin and without. Without is the default.
With the fullpage plugin, html, head, and body tags are enforced (that is, if they don’t exist, they are created). css and js is fully supported anywhere and isn’t mangled. In a sense, TinyMCE in ‘fullpage’ mode operates the same as Dreamweaver. Blackboard Content Collection seems to invokes TinyMCE in ‘fullpage’ mode.
Default TinyMCE is non-fullpage and strips ALL js and css. It’s possible to add to the default config to maintain css links (add ‘link[*]’ in the config area). There may be a way to maintain js as well, but I couldn’t find it in default TinyMCE install or docs. Blackboard LMS (editing an Item within a course) seems to invokes TinyMCE in non-fullpage mode, but with a slight change to default configuration that keeps js links, mangles inline js, and removes css links.
A nice Blackboard implementation of TinyMCE would be to keep the config mods that BB added to the LMS version of TinyMCE (which keeps js links) and add the ‘link[*]’ to the same config (to keep css links), this would go a long way to providing acceptable functionality. Our limitation is that we would have to provide js and css in external files and link to them.
Workaround for inline js:
As mentioned, inline js gets mangled in the Course version of TinyMCE. A possible workaround is to extract the js to a file and reference the file. A js file reference does not get mangled.