Whenever we want to add text in Moodle, we click on the editing icon. It often resembles a pen and hand, but varies according to your chosen theme. This takes us to a screen we can type into. The textbox we type into is known as the HTML editor, although for most of the part we just compose our sentences; change the font styles, colors, and sizes in a WYSIWYG way. A few of the icons in the toolbar of this HTML editor are similar to the ones we might use in regular Word processing programs such as MS Word or Open Office.

In Moodle 2.0, the HTML editor has been replaced with a version known as Tiny MCE, a very popular Open Source editor you might have encountered in content management systems or blogging software such as WordPress. Along with Internet Explorer and Firefox, it will work with web browsers such as Safari, Chrome, and Opera, unlike Moodle's previous HTML editor. The following screenshot shows the new editor (on the bottom) with the original editor (on the top):

Let's take a brief look at what's changed in this new editor. The following screenshot highlights existing features which have new icons and new features not which were present before. Those aspects which have not been altered have been ignored:

Feature number           Description

           Find and replace words/phrases

           Toggle full screen mode

           Citations/abbreviations/acronym

           Select all

           Clean up messy code

           Remove formatting

           Paste as plain text

           Paste from MS Word

           Select text color

           Select background color

           Insert or edit image

           Add Moodle media

           Horizontal rule

           Non-breaking space character

           Insert a custom character (for example. symbol/accent)

           Insert a table

           Insert a new layer

           Edit CSS style

           Visual control characters on/off

           Edit the HTML source code

           Preview what you've typed

           Toggle languages of the spellchecker

As you can see then, there are many more options available to us when adding descriptions of our materials or summaries of our courses. However, one of the most powerful new features is the ability to add and embed media directly from within this new HTML editor.