Interactive Tools, former providors of HTMLArea (a popular WYSIWYG editor that we adapted for use in Conversant), have announced HTMLArea's demise.

I'm not sure how they can do that, since it was open source, and the lack of explanation was maddening. Here's the entirety of their comments on the matter:

htmlArea.com has been re-launched as a resource directory of browser-based WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editors with over 50 listed so far

In case you didn't know, htmlArea was a free open-source wysiwyg editor component that we made available for developers building web applications.

If you build web applications or you're looking for a wysiwyg editor component, check out the new htmlarea.com and let us know what you think:

Bah! Since we use HTMLArea in Conversant, I've been keeping up with it over the years. Once they released it under the BSD License, the worst they could really do was screw up the web site... others are still free to use and/or distribute their own versions. (They don't claim otherwise, thankfully.)

dynarch.com had taken over HTMLArea and rewritten it from scratch for version 3. Here's what they've had to say on the matter:

Update, March 8 2005. Some time ago, InteractiveTools expressed the will to take over the project. We provided some fixes that we made and were not in the CVS version and a RC2 was released at htmlarea.com; however, soon thereafter InteractiveTools announced the project closed and forums discontinued. Bang!

Our position on this is that the editor will keep going; we are actually making quite some progress in its development, but only in house at this time. We are still planning to release version 3.0, quite possibly under a different name (so it might actually be a 1.0) but still free, at least for the core editor--some plugins might be released under a commercial license. We can't provide explicit deadlines, so please bear with us.

I'm betting that the problem is that dynarch.com took way, way to long to release HTMLArea... they took over years ago, and there really hasn't been any progress in a very long time. This looks like interactivetools.com's way of delivering a spanking.

Updates to HTMLArea (and all of the other x-platform WYSIWYG editors) are going to be required soon, in order to be compatible with Safari 2.0's editor features.

Finally, though I don't like their tactics, I'll admit that the directory of WYSIWYG editors is quite well done. There certainly are a lot of them.

(Conversant users needn't worry about any this. We're still maintaining our version, and will be re-releasing the source to it soon. If dynarch.com ever does move beyind 3.0-rc1, we may roll their changes in with our own.)

Daniel got a job.

Excellent news. Congratulations!

Corinne scared the snot out of me last night.

I returned home from Bible class (followed by some ping pong) at about 11:00 PM. Corinne is usually asleep by this time, and all of the lights were out in the house so I had no reason to think otherwise.

As I entered the darkened kitchen from the garage, a large beast crept out from behind the "table of stuff" to the left of the door, growling hungrily and screaming with anticipation of its next kill (and to frighten its prey).

It all happened very quickly, but here's what I remember.

Me (thinking): "Dum de dum de dum, I'm just an innocent man returning home to my sleeping wife from a pleasant evening with the ecclesia..."

Evil Hungry Beast: "Grrrrrr... Growl! Arrrr!! ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!!!!"

Me: "AAAAAaaaaaaaaahhh!"

Me: "Good Grief Corinne!"

Evil Hungry Beast: :::ROTFLMBOPIMP:::

I think she got the biggest kick out of the "Good Grief Corinne!" It's not the first time I've said that. She once took an egg "thing" out of the microwave and offered me a taste, only to have it explode when she touched it with the fork. Apparently, the totally shocked look on my face and my now-familiar utterance of "Good Grief Corinne!" is the funniest thing she ever expierenced.

Gee, I'm glad I can still make you laugh, honey (a.k.a. Evil Hungry Beast). Now where are the tissues?