TinyMCE Not Showing

Once upon a time I was running my own WordPress website for educational puposes. This experience was written on February 19, 2007.

After I posted my third entry to my WordPress website, I could no longer stand without knowing “why on earth my TinyMCE is not showing up?”. It really bothered me because there was no reason for this visual editor to just disappear without rational explanation. All the necessary files for this Visual Editor were in the directory. I checked it not twice but hundred of times!

The Case
If I had a TinyMCE in my WordPress local computer installation, there was no reason why I could not have it in my live website. The installation package installed in my host webserver is the same package and version (WordPress 2.1.1.) I installed in my local computer, and never encountered the same predicament. The kicker is if I had not seen and had not used the TinyMCE at my local installation, I would not be looking for it in my live site, would I?

Let the digging begins
Since I started using open-source software, I have learned that the best place to find an answer is at the forum-the WordPress Forum. This would be my first WordPress Forums visit. While I was typing the http://www.wordpress.org at the address bar, I was also convinced that my question had already been answered. It should be there. This is a very obvious question because users need it. Once I accessed the forum, I immediately typed tinymce in the search text box.

The Warning
“Hey, you need to make a personal habit or practice to search first, before you ask any question in the forum.” Why? because if you didn’t search and your question was obvious and maybe the same question was asked and had been answered hundred of times, I warned you, even though you and the forum users are separated, can’t see face to face and connected only with modems, wires and satellites, the comment such as “Please search!” and the link of what you’re looking for are quite an embarrassing instance.

I searched to avoid embarrassment. Searching the forums is not an easy tasks. It needs patience, discipline and just the right keyword. There were even times especially in the Joomla! Forums when searching an answer is just to much to bear. Sometimes I got lost. But with this particular problem using the search at the WordPress Forums was easy. I found this thread which eventually answered my question.

The invincible tinyMCE
My problem was, I did not check the “Use the visual editor when writing” located under Users > Profile Tab > Personal Options. Checking the box solved my problem, that simple. See what I meant about searching first? If you are interested to know about TinyMCE just go to this site, the one and only moxiecode.com, the home of TinyMCE and other cool open-source software.

Filed under: WordPress