37signals Unveils Lexxy: A New Rich Text Editor for Rails with Emphasis on Live Markdown

Chicago, IL – 37signals, the renowned web software company behind Basecamp and HEY, has officially released Lexxy, a new rich text editor for Rails' Action Text, into early beta. The announcement, spearheaded by developer Jorge Manrubia, signals a strategic move to enhance the text editing experience within Rails applications, focusing on improved semantics and user ergonomics.

The release has already garnered positive feedback from early adopters, including a tweet from "Bhumi" stating, > "Congrats on the release @jorgemanru Very excited about the live markdown and other features Trying out Lexxy beta in an app now..." This highlights the immediate appeal of Lexxy's key functionalities. The editor promises features such as "good HTML semantics," "better ergonomics," robust "markdown support" with shortcuts and auto-formatting, "prompt menus," and "attachment previews."

Lexxy is built upon Meta's open-source Lexical framework, an extensible JavaScript text editor designed with an emphasis on reliability, accessibility, and performance. Lexical powers text editing experiences across Meta's vast ecosystem, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, serving hundreds of millions of users daily. Its modular architecture allows for the development of custom features via plugins and optimizes performance by updating only necessary parts of the Document Object Model (DOM).

The development of Lexxy stems from 37signals' assessment that their previous editor, Trix, was "falling short of expectations" and presented "technical barriers" to achieving their desired editing experience. According to 37signals, Lexxy provides a "fantastic foundation to build on," aligning with their long-standing philosophy of creating robust, efficient, and user-centric tools. The inclusion of "live markdown" is a significant feature, allowing users to see formatted text instantly as they type markdown syntax, streamlining the content creation process.

This new editor is poised to offer Rails developers a modern, performant, and accessible solution for rich text editing. Its foundation on a battle-tested framework like Meta's Lexical suggests a commitment to long-term stability and continuous improvement, addressing the evolving needs of web content creation.