A fully featured library for safely integrating ProseMirror and React.
@nytimes/react-prosemirrorjust published its first stable release, v1.0.0. The code for that version of the library lives on the v1.x branch, and users of that version should view the README.md on that branch for relevant documentation.Moving forward, the main branch of this library will focus on the upcoming v2 release, previously the react-editor-view branch. This entails a significant re-write of the underlying EditorView integration, and will include some breaking API changes.
To try out the new version, install
@nytimes/react-prosemirror@next. We'd love to hear your thoughts!
npm:
npm install @nytimes/react-prosemirroryarn:
yarn add @nytimes/react-prosemirrorTo make updates efficient, React separates updates into phases so that it can process updates in batches. In the first phase, application code renders a virtual document. In the second phase, the React DOM renderer finalizes the update by reconciling the real document with the virtual document.
On the other hand, the ProseMirror View library renders ProseMirror documents in a single-phase update. Unlike React, it also allows built-in editing features of the browser to modify the document under some circumstances, deriving state updates from view updates rather than the other way around.
It is possible to use both React DOM and ProseMirror View, but using React DOM to render ProseMirror View components safely requires careful consideration of differences between the rendering approaches taken by each framework. The first phase of a React update should be free of side effects, which requires that updates to the ProseMirror View happen in the second phase. This means that during the first phase, React components actually have access to a different (newer) version of the EditorState than the one in the Editorview. As a result code that dispatches transactions may dispatch transactions based on incorrect state. Code that invokes methods of the ProseMirror view may make bad assumptions about its state that cause incorrect behavior or errors.
It's also challenging to effectively use React to define node views for ProseMirror documents. Both ProseMirror and React expect to have full control over their respective parts of the DOM. They both modify and destroy DOM nodes as needed. Previous solutions (including previous iterations of this library) have attempted to work around this power struggle by producing wrapper elements to hand to ProseMirror, and then mounting React nodes within these (usually with React Portals).
This approach works, but tenuously. Having additional nodes in the document that ProseMirror isn't strictly aware of can cause issues with its change detection system, leading to challenging edge cases. Here's an example. These extra wrapping elements also make it challenging to produce semantic markup and introduce challenges when styling.
This library provides an alternate implementation of ProseMirror's EditorView. It uses React as the rendering engine, rather than ProseMirror's home-brewed DOM update system. This allows us to provide a more comfortable integration with ProseMirror's powerful data model, transformations, and event management systems.
This library provides a set of React contexts and hooks for consuming them that ensure safe access to the EditorView from React components. This allows us to build React applications that contain ProseMirror Views, even when the EditorState is lifted into React state, or a global state management system like Redux.
The simplest way to make use of these contexts is with the <ProseMirror />
component. The <ProseMirror /> component can be used controlled (via the
state prop) or uncontrolled (via the defaultState prop).
import { EditorState } from "prosemirror-state";
import {
ProseMirror,
ProseMirrorDoc,
reactKeys,
} from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
export function ProseMirrorEditor() {
return (
<ProseMirror
defaultState={EditorState.create({
schema,
plugins: [
// The reactKeys plugin is required for the ProseMirror component to work!
reactKeys(),
],
})}
>
<ProseMirrorDoc />
</ProseMirror>
);
}The EditorState can also easily be lifted out of the ProseMirror component and passed as a prop.
import { EditorState } from "prosemirror-state";
import { schema } from "prosemirror-schema-basic";
import {
ProseMirror,
ProseMirrorDoc,
reactKeys,
} from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
export function ProseMirrorEditor() {
const [editorState, setEditorState] = useState(
EditorState.create({ schema, plugins: [reactKeys()] })
);
return (
<ProseMirror
state={editorState}
dispatchTransaction={(tr) => {
setEditorState((s) => s.apply(tr));
}}
>
<ProseMirrorDoc />
</ProseMirror>
);
}The EditorView interface exposes several useful methods that provide access to
the DOM or data derived from its layout, such as coordsFromPos. These methods
should only be accessed outside of the render cycle, to ensure that the DOM has
been updated to match the latest state. React ProseMirror provides two hooks to
enable this access pattern: useEditorEffect and useEditorEventCallback. Both
of these hooks can be used from any children of the ProseMirror component.
Often, it's necessary to position React components relative to specific
positions in the ProseMirror document. For example, you might have some widget
that needs to be positioned at the user's cursor. In order to ensure that this
positioning happens when the DOM is in sync with the latest EditorState, we can
use useEditorEffect.
// SelectionWidget.tsx
import { useRef } from "react";
import { useEditorEffect } from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
export function SelectionWidget() {
const ref = useRef();
useEditorEffect((view) => {
if (!view || !ref.current) return;
const viewClientRect = view.dom.getBoundingClientRect();
const coords = view.coordsAtPos(view.state.selection.anchor));
ref.current.style.top = coords.top - viewClientRect.top;
ref.current.style.left = coords.left - viewClientRect.left;
})
return (
<div
ref={ref}
style={{
position: "absolute"
}}
/>
);
}
// ProseMirrorEditor.tsx
import {
ProseMirror,
ProseMirrorDoc,
reactKeys
} from '@nytimes/react-prosemirror';
import { EditorState } from "prosemirror-state";
import { schema } from "prosemirror-schema-basic";
import { SelectionWidget } from "./SelectionWidget.tsx";
export function ProseMirrorEditor() {
const [editorState, setEditorState] = useState(
EditorState.create({ schema, plugins: [reactKeys()] })
);
return (
<ProseMirror
state={editorState}
dispatchTransaction={(tr) => {
setEditorState(s => s.apply(tr))
}}
>
<ProseMirrorDoc />
{/*
We have to mount all components that need to access the
EditorView as children of the ProseMirror component
*/}
<SelectionWidget />
</ProseMirror>
);
}It's also often necessary to dispatch transactions or execute side effects in
response to user actions, like mouse clicks and keyboard events. Note: if you
need to respond to keyboard events from within the contenteditable element,
you should instead use useEditorEventListener.
However, if you need to dispatch a transaction in response to some event
dispatched from a React component, like a tooltip or a toolbar button, you can
use useEditorEventCallback to create a stable function reference that can
safely access the latest value of the EditorView.
// BoldButton.tsx
import { toggleMark } from "prosemirror-commands";
import { useEditorEventCallback } from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
export function BoldButton() {
const onClick = useEditorEventCallback((view) => {
if (!view) return;
const toggleBoldMark = toggleMark(view.state.schema.marks.bold);
toggleBoldMark(view.state, view.dispatch, view);
});
return <button onClick={onClick}>Bold</button>;
}
// ProseMirrorEditor.tsx
import {
ProseMirror,
ProseMirrorDoc,
reactKeys,
} from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
import { EditorState } from "prosemirror-state";
import { schema } from "prosemirror-schema-basic";
import { BoldButton } from "./BoldButton.tsx";
export function ProseMirrorEditor() {
const [editorState, setEditorState] = useState(
EditorState.create({ schema, plugins: [reactKeys()] })
);
return (
<ProseMirror
state={editorState}
dispatchTransaction={(tr) => {
setEditorState((s) => s.apply(tr));
}}
>
<ProseMirrorDoc />
{/*
We have to mount all components that need to access the
EditorView as children of the ProseMirror component
*/}
<BoldButton />
</ProseMirror>
);
}useEditorEventCallback produces functions that can be passed to React
components as event handlers. If you need to listen to events that originate
within the contenteditable node, however, those event listeners need to be
registered with the EditorView's handleDOMEvents prop.
You can use the useEditorEventListener hook to accomplish this. It takes an
eventType and an event listener. The event listener follows the usual
semantics for ProseMirror's handleDOMEvents prop:
- Returning
trueor callingevent.preventDefaultwill prevent other listeners from running. - Returning
truewill not automatically callevent.preventDefault; if you want to prevent the default contenteditable behavior, you must callevent.preventDefault.
You can use this hook to implement custom behavior in your NodeViews:
import { forwardRef, Ref } from "react";
import {
useEditorEventListener,
NodeViewComponentProps,
} from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
const Paragraph = forwardRef<HTMLParagraphElement, NodeViewComponentProps>(
function Paragraph({ children, nodeProps, ...props }, ref) {
useEditorEventListener("keydown", (view, event) => {
const { pos, node } = nodeProps;
if (event.code !== "ArrowDown") {
return false;
}
const nodeEnd = pos + node.nodeSize;
const { selection } = view.state;
if (selection.anchor < pos || selection.anchor > nodeEnd) {
return false;
}
event.preventDefault();
alert("No down keys allowed!");
return true;
});
return (
<p ref={ref} {...props}>
{children}
</p>
);
}
);The other way to integrate React and ProseMirror is to have ProseMirror render
node views using React components. Because React ProseMirror renders the
ProseMirror document with React, node view components don't need to do anything
special other than fulfill the
NodeViewComponentProps interface.
import { forwardRef, Ref } from "react";
import {
ProseMirror,
ProseMirrorDoc,
useEditorEventCallback,
NodeViewComponentProps,
reactKeys,
} from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
import { EditorState } from "prosemirror-state";
import { schema } from "prosemirror-schema-basic";
// Paragraph is more or less a normal React component, taking and rendering
// its children. All node view components _must_ forward refs to their top-level
// DOM elements. All node view components _should_ spread all of the props that they
// receive onto their top-level DOM elements; this is required for node Decorations
// that apply attributes rather than wrapping nodes in an additional element.
const Paragraph = forwardRef<HTMLParagraphElement, NodeViewComponentProps>(
function Paragraph({ children, nodeProps, ...props }, ref) {
const onClick = useEditorEventCallback((view) =>
view.dispatch(view.state.tr.deleteSelection())
);
return (
<p ref={ref} {...props} onClick={onClick}>
{children}
</p>
);
}
);
function ProseMirrorEditor() {
return (
<ProseMirror
defaultState={EditorState.create({ schema, plugins: [reactKeys()] })}
nodeViews={{
paragraph: Paragraph,
}}
>
<ProseMirrorDoc />
</ProseMirror>
);
}The upcoming v2 release constitutes a significant re-write of the library.
Previously, React ProseMirror relied on ProseMirror's EditorView to manage the DOM for the editor. To integrate it with React, we used React portals to render components into ProseMirror-managed DOM nodes, and a useLayoutEffect to sync state updates with the EditorView instance.
This approach provided some challenges. First, portals have to be rendered into existing, stable DOM nodes, so all React-based custom node views ended up wrapped in extra HTML elements. This made styling and producing valid DOM more challenging than it should be, and introduced corner cases in browser contenteditable implementations. Second, we induced a double render for every ProseMirror update, and during the first render, React-based custom node views will be rendered with the previous state. This is technically another form of the state tearing that this library was designed to prevent, as all other React components will be rendered with the new state!
To overcome these challenges, the new release moves rendering responsibility entirely into React. We disabled the EditorView's DOM update cycle, and implemented the same update algorithm that prosemirror-view uses with React components. The result is a more idiomatic, React-based library, which doesn't have any of the issues of the original implementation.
- The
ProseMirrorcomponent API has changed slightly:- Instead of passing a
mountprop with a ref to a child element, users must render aProseMirrorDoccomponent as a child of theProseMirrorcomponent. - The
nodeViewsprop no longer matches the ProseMirror API. Instead,nodeViewsshould be a map from node type name to React components, each of which must takeNodeViewComponentPropsas props. This map should be memoized, or defined outside the React component entirely. - To pass standard ProseMirror node view constructors, use the
customNodeViewsprop
- Instead of passing a
- The API that React-based node views must implement has changed:
- There is no longer any need to provide a ProseMirror node view constructor
function. React-based node views are now just React components that accept
NodeViewComponentPropsas props. - Props related to the ProseMirror node, such as the node itself, the
getPosfunction, and decorations, now live in thenodePropsproperty. All other props must be spread onto the root element of the node view component, aside fromchildren, which may be rendered anywhere in the component, as appropriate. - All node view components must forward their ref to the root element of the component.
- To implement features that would normally live in the node view spec, there
are new hooks, such as
useStopEventanduseSelectNode
- There is no longer any need to provide a ProseMirror node view constructor
function. React-based node views are now just React components that accept
- There is a new export,
widget, which behaves similarly toDecoration.widgetfromprosemirror-view, but takes a React component instead of atoDOMmethod.
type ProseMirror = (
props: DirectEditorProps &
({ defaultState: EditorState } | { state: EditorState }) & {
children: ReactNode;
nodeViews?: {
[nodeType: string]: ForwardRefExoticComponent<
NodeViewComponentProps & RefAttributes<any>
>;
};
customNodeViews?: {
[nodeType: string]: NodeViewConstructor;
};
}
) => JSX.Element;Renders the ProseMirror editor.
Example usage:
import { EditorState } from "prosemirror-state";
import {
ProseMirror,
ProseMirrorDoc,
reactKeys,
} from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
export function ProseMirrorEditor() {
return (
<ProseMirror
defaultState={EditorState.create({ schema, plugins: [reactKeys()] })}
>
<ProseMirrorDoc />
</ProseMirror>
);
}type ProseMirrorDoc = (props: { as?: ReactElement }) => JSX.Element;Renders the actual editable ProseMirror document.
This must be passed as a child to the ProseMirror component. It may be
wrapped in any other components, and other children may be passed before or
after
Example usage:
import { EditorState } from "prosemirror-state";
import {
ProseMirror,
ProseMirrorDoc,
reactKeys,
} from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror";
export function ProseMirrorEditor() {
return (
<ProseMirror
defaultState={EditorState.create({ schema, plugins: [reactKeys()] })}
>
<ToolBar />
<SomeWrapper>
<ProseMirrorDoc as={<article />} />
</SomeWrapper>
<Footnotes />
</ProseMirror>
);
}type useEditorState = () => EditorState | null;Provides access to the current EditorState value.
type useEditorEventCallback = <T extends unknown[]>(
callback: (view: EditorView | null, ...args: T) => void
) => void;Returns a stable function reference to be used as an event handler callback.
The callback will be called with the EditorView instance as its first argument.
This hook is dependent on both the EditorContext.Provider and the
LayoutGroup. It can only be used in a component that is mounted as a child of
both of these providers.
type useEditorEventListener = <EventType extends DOMEventMap>(
eventType: EventType,
listener: (view: EditorView, event: DOMEventMap[EventType]) => boolean
) => void;Attaches an event listener at the EditorView's DOM node. See
the ProseMirror docs
for more details.
type useEditorEffect = (
effect: (editorView: EditorView | null) => void | (() => void),
dependencies?: React.DependencyList
) => void;Registers a layout effect to run after the EditorView has been updated with the latest EditorState and Decorations.
Effects can take an EditorView instance as an argument. This hook should be used to execute layout effects that depend on the EditorView, such as for positioning DOM nodes based on ProseMirror positions.
Layout effects registered with this hook still fire synchronously after all DOM mutations, but they do so after the EditorView has been updated, even when the EditorView lives in an ancestor component.
Example usage:
import { useRef } from "react"
import { useEditorEffect } from "@nytimes/react-prosemirror"
export function SelectionWidget() {
const ref = useRef()
useEditorEffect((view) => {
if (!view || !ref.current) return
const viewClientRect = view.dom.getBoundingClientRect()
const coords = view.coordsAtPos(view.state.selection.anchor))
ref.current.style.top = coords.top - viewClientRect.top;
ref.current.style.left = coords.left - viewClientRect.left;
})
return (
<div
ref={ref}
style={{
position: "absolute"
}}
/>
)
}type NodeViewComponentProps = {
nodeProps: {
decorations: readonly Decoration[];
innerDecorations: DecorationSource;
node: Node;
children?: ReactNode | ReactNode[];
getPos: () => number;
};
} & HTMLAttributes<HTMLElement>;The props that will be passed to all node view components. These props map
directly to the arguments passed to
NodeViewConstructor functions
by the default ProseMirror EditorView implementation.
Node view components may also be passed any other valid HTML attribute props, and should pass them through to their top-level DOM element. See the above example for more details.
In addition to accepting these props, all node view components must forward their ref to their top-level DOM element.
type useStopEvent = (stopEvent: (view: EditorView, event: Event) => boolean): voidThis hook can be used within a node view component to register a stopEvent handler. Events for which this returns true are not handled by the editor.
type useSelectNode = (selectNode: () => void, deselectNode?: () => void): voidThis hook can be used within a node view component to register selectNode and deselectNode handlers. The selectNode handler will only be called when a NodeSelection is created whose node is this one.
type widget = (
pos: number,
component: ForwardRefExoticComponent<
RefAttributes<HTMLElement> & WidgetComponentProps
>,
spec?: ReactWidgetSpec
) => Decoration(pos, pos, new ReactWidgetType(component, spec))Like ProseMirror View's Decoration.widget, but with support for React
components.