Abandon TinyMCE in Test & Assessment question creation process

1 Explanation of Feature

The TinyMCE RTE was used for creating test questions, feedback, and hints as a WYSIWYG editor. It gave the test question creator the ability to format the question text, the answer options, and the feedback, e.g., with italic or bold text. In former ILIAS versions, the editor also has plugins to upload and add pictures inline and to add LaTeX code with a copy & paste window.

2 Reasons to Abandon Feature

2.1 Conceptual Perspective

The Test & Assessment has 3 different editor options: Unformatted input field, TinyMCE and IPE.
We want to abandon TinyMCE because we have no person who maintains this editor in ILIAS currently. There is no real concept of how to securely output escape this kind of content.
Also, it is a nightmare to maintain three different "editors" in T&A. We do not have the resources for that.

In the question creation process, the TinyMCE is superseded by the markdown input field and for feedback and at other positions the ILIAS Page Editor.

We propose to keep the TinyMCE for answering Essay Questions. Markdown seems to be the wrong solution to enter text in an exam situation where you want to stick as close as possible to the input methods learners are used to. We would use the dependency directly, without using the RTE component and we would remove the option to disable it, so that TinyMCE will always be active in this case. The TinyMCE library is needed for the ILIAS Page Editor in any case.

2.2 Technical Perspective

Technically, with the (Project) Revision of Test Question Creation, the TinyMCE will already be removed from the process; the only change is that we remove the administration for the Test & Assessment in the TinyMCE administration node (Administration > Editing > TinyMCE Editor).

Mock

We would use the dependency directly for answering essay questions, without using the RTE component, and we would remove the option to disable it so that TinyMCE will always be active in this case. The TinyMCE library is needed for the ILIAS Page Editor in any case. The feature set will be the same minimal set as today: format "bold" and "italic," change the background color, and clear formatting.

3 Integration of Stakeholders

All stakeholders should be involved through the (Project) Revision of Test Question Creation

4 Additional Information

4.1 Involved Authorities

If this request is related to multiple components, please list both authorities for all related components.

4.2 Contact

Person to be contacted in case of questions about the request or for funding offers:  Strassner, Denis [dstrassner]

4.3 Funding

Funding status and funding parties are listed in the block 'Status of Feature' in the right column of this page.

If you are interested to give funding for abandon this feature, please get into contact with the person mentioned above as 'Contact'.

5 Discussion

Use the following discussion section to express your objections against this request or your consent to get rid of this feature.

Slotosch, Sven [sven.slotosch] : I have questions about this.
At the moment, almost all our teachers use TinyMCE to create their questions, especially in the context of exams, because it is almost impossible to format texts in a simple way with the unformatted input field and the IPE is not available in the input mask of a question. In the worst case scenario, individual teachers would have to rewrite several hundred questions.
- What options will teachers have in future for simply formatting question texts?
- Can questions created with TinyMCE continue to be used after it is discontinued?

We should initiate a discussion on this in the SIG EA forum.

Strassner, Denis [dstrassner], 2026 AUG 13:  I updated the article to reflect the changes through the (Project) Revision of Test Question Creation. The removal will be carried out once all other work on the project has been completed.

6 Implementation

{ Short description of the final implementation and possible consequences for existing installations. }

Removed Testcases

The following testcases have been removed from Testrail or modified because the feature is no longer part of the ILIAS core.

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.