I would also strongly prefer a simple text area. While the current solution does provide some sort of syntax highlihting, it does not support copy & paste:
pasting with shift+insert does not work (paste clipboard)
pasting with middle mouse button does not work (paste selection, used mostly to paste from consoles)

Copying works only partially - you can copy into clipboard, but if you just mark a selection and then use middle mouse button to paste it into console - it does not work

Ordinary text area does not suffer from any of these shortcomings.

And due to major bugs in the visual editor (the visual editor somehow fails to grab keyboard shortcuts used by browser that are disabled in text areas or in other visual editors on other sites, so pressing "c" will open cookie manager, pressing "z" will go back to previous page (and instantly losing all the changes you've edited), etc .... the visual editor is even less usable than the source editor (at least copying and pasting works there though).

I use the FIrefox ViewSourceWith extension which does the same as "It's All Text!" but with a slightly different interface. I would rather use wiki text than XHTML--after all, this sort of collaborative editing is what it was designed for--but I can handle XHTML. As others have written, it is extremely useful and efficient to be able to open a text area in a powerful external editor. Anything else, however pretty, is just clumsy.

My organization has already "upgraded" to version 4.3. For the time being, I will just cut/copy-and-paste back and forth between the Confluence editor and my external editor, but being able to use one of FIrefox's extensions would be a lot easier, faster and less error-prone.

"It's All Text!" is a great plugin, I don't use it for Confluence. If someone removed my ability to use it from the webapps I do use it on, it would be like chopping off my arm. For that reason I have to sympathise with Nicole.

The source editor would be infinitely more useful to such users if it just had a big dumb textarea (seems like a simple solution to me). Perhaps this could be a user preference that persists each time you access it? Also opening the source editor by default would be an ideal option for such users.

For all it's benefits, XML is never going to be as human readable as wiki markup, so the least you could do is try and ease the pain as much as possible for people trying to make the transition.

Hi Craig,
I just want a multi-line text field to work with Firefox extensions like "It's All Text!" and "Save Text Area". My colleagues and I often have to edit very long and complex pages and can do this much more efficiently with an external editor (where I can use all my usual key short cuts, split the buffer, etc.).

I'm sure that for non-technical users it's great that you have improved the RTE, but the removal of the Wiki editor is going to cost you technical customers like us. I will hold on to version 3 as long as we can and meanwhile look at the alternatives you suggest at
https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+Alternatives

Cheers, Nicole

Unfortunately Wiki Markup won't be coming back (and I know this is not the answer you want to here). There's page discussing why we changed, and why we won't be going back. Feel free to have a read if you haven't already.

redaschi - what is the most useful solution for you - on the basis of providing the XHTML storage format to a browser plugin?

Is a Javascript interface more useful? Or do you just want the source editor to be replaced by a multi-line text field?

I am the unfortunate one of the Collaborators that Nicole referred who had Confluence updated. Source Editor is not a good solution either. I would love the simply full Wiki Markup so I could edit the full page with markup code. Meanwhile I will try the link she mentioned.