CKEditor 3.7m not displaying at all after install

First, a very basic question: Will CKEditor show up when the admin is editing a product description? Or is it only for when one is using the Define Pages Editor off the Tools menu? The description of this plugin may seem self-explanatory, but honestly for someone new like me it helps to spell it out. My client wants to be able to format his product descriptions without having to type the HTML code. Will CKEditor do that for him?

Here's the problem I'm having: I installed the latest CKEditor (from here: http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1098) per the readme file.

I went to Configuration > My Store > HTML Editor and selected CKEditor. I logged out of admin and logged back in, just in case it mattered. Checked the configuration and it still showed CKEditor as the HTML Editor. But nothing had changed. No CKEditor displays when I edit a product description. I get a text box and inside it is the same HTML code that has been there from before.

If I go to Tools > Define Pages Editor, CKEditor is not shown. "Text Editor" shows by default in the dropdown, and if I select CKEditor the page refreshes, but since no file was selected it doesn't do anything. If I select the file name first from the file dropdown, the file is displayed with a text box but if I then select CKEditor from the editor dropdown, the page refreshes again and the text file disappears. I cannot seem to select the file to be edited and CKEditor as the editor at the same time.

Some of the other CKEditor threads talk about Languages. What is the connection between languages and CKEditor? Is there a connection between it and the selected template? I'm using an older template (Cold Steel 1.0) and may have modified some of the language files. Which language files interact with CKEditor, so that I can check whether that's a factor?

I tried changing the template to the Classic Contemporary Green that comes with the Zen Cart install (logged out and back in again) but that did not seem to make a difference.

I'm using MySQL 5.1.56-log and PHP 5.4.20 and Zen Cart 1.5.3

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. To be clear: **My goal is to find a way for my non-techie client to edit and format product descriptions (when logged in as admin). If CKEditor isn't the answer, then none of this matters. **Please direct me to something that will help with that. Thanks again.

CKEditor works fine usually. What browser are you using and is the site running under SSL?

Also check that you have in the directory, on the server, for:
/editor

a directory for:
ckeditor

Then, in your Zen Cart Admin, go to the Tools ... Developers Tool Kit ... and in the bottom input box enter:
ckeditor

and select Catalog/Admin and click SEARCH ...

You should see something similar to:

[B]/home/yourusername/public_html/yourdirectory/yoursecretadmindirectory/includes/ckeditor.php[/B]

Line #7 : * @version $Id: Original: ckeditor.php 277 2010-05-22 14:09:32Z kuroi $

Line #22 : <script type="text/javascript" src="../<?php echo DIR_WS_EDITORS ?>ckeditor/ckeditor.js"></script>

Line #31 : CKEDITOR.replace($(this).attr('name'),
 
[B]/home/yourusername/public_html/yourdirectory/yoursecretadmindirectory/includes/init_includes/init_html_editor.php[/B]

Line #26 : if (is_dir(DIR_FS_CATALOG . DIR_WS_EDITORS . 'ckeditor')) $editors_list['CKEDITOR'] = array('desc' => EDITOR_CKEDITOR, 'handler' => 'ckeditor.php', 'special_needs' => '');
 
[B]/home/yourusername/public_html/yourdirectory/yoursecretadmindirectory/includes/languages/english/extra_definitions/ckeditor.php[/B]

Line #7 : * @version $Id: ckeditor.php 107 2010-04-28 21:28:02Z kuroi $

Line #10 : define('EDITOR_CKEDITOR', 'CKEditor'); 

stevesh:

CKEditor works fine usually. What browser are you using and is the site running under SSL?

Chrome 38.0.2125.111 m in Windows 7. A few extensions running in Chrome (ad blockers, Firebug, etc) but the demo on CKEditor.com displayed fine in my current browser.

No SSL.

Yes, thank you, Ajeh. I did the search using the Developers Tool Kit and can confirm that I got the same results (that is, I have CKEditor showing up in the same three files on my installation, and the line numbers of the code also match).

I also have the /editors/ckeditor directory in place. I started out with the plugin version that I downloaded from Zen Cart (as mentioned above). But then I saw several forum posts where people downloaded directly from CKEditor.com and replaced the editor directory with the one from there and it fixed their problems. So currently I have the ckeditor directory that I downloaded from CKEditor.com in that spot. Doesn't seem to make any difference, though.

tmdeppner:

First, a very basic question: Will CKEditor show up when the admin is editing a product description? Yes.

tmdeppner:

My client wants to be able to format his product descriptions without having to type the HTML code. Will CKEditor do that for him?Yes

tmdeppner:

No CKEditor displays when I edit a product description. I get a text box and inside it is the same HTML code that has been there from before.That usually means you've not uploaded the files to the server into the correct locations, or you've got conflicting jquery/javascript stuff added to your store that is causing a clash.

Installing as per the readme works perfectly on every brand new uncustomized ZC store I've ever used it on ... unless I've got javascript disabled in my browser, or if my browser is so old it's not supported by jQuery or CKEditor.

tmdeppner:

Some of the other CKEditor threads talk about Languages. What is the connection between languages and CKEditor?If your store is using only English, there's no connection at all. It's only an issue if your store's only language is one that's not supported yet by ckeditor.

tmdeppner:

Is there a connection between it and the selected template?No. It's admin-side only, so storefront templates are unrelated.

DrByte (and others who replied), thank you. With those answers, it helped me focus on what was more likely the problem and re-examine what I'd done. The last couple of days have been brain-intensive and I overlooked the simple things.

I had installed the ckeditor.php file in mystore/includes instead of mystore/mysecretadmin/includes. Doh!

Once it was in the right spot, CKEditor showed up.

THANK YOU for the help, it got me looking at the right things to find the problem.

(whew!) I was starting to run out of ideas!

Glad it's working. :)