Configure the Rich Text Editor plug-ins

RTE functionalities are made available via a series of plug-ins, each with features property. You can configure the features property to enable or disable, one or more RTE features. This article describes how to specifically configure the RTE plug-ins.

For details about the other RTE configurations, see Configure Rich Text Editor.

Activate a plug-in and configure the features property

To activate a plug-in, follow these steps. Some steps are needed only when you configure a plug-in for the first time, as the corresponding nodes do not exist.

By default, format, link, list, justify, and control plugins and all their features are enabled in RTE.

1. Using CRXDE Lite, locate the text component for your project.

2. Create the parent node of <rtePlugins-node> if it does not exist, before configuring any RTE plug-ins:

   • Depending on your component, the parent nodes are:

     • config: .../text/cq:editConfig/cq:inplaceEditing/config
     • an alternative configuration node: .../text/cq:editConfig/cq:inplaceEditing/inplaceEditingTextConfig
     • text: .../text/dialog/items/tab1/items/text

   • Are of type: jcr:primaryType cq:Widget

   • Both have the following property:

     • Name name
     • Type String
     • Value ./text

3. Depending on the interface you are configuring for, create a node <rtePlugins-node>, if it does not exist:

   • Name rtePlugins
   • Type nt:unstructured

4. Below this, create a node for each plug-in that you want to activate:

   • Type nt:unstructured
   • Name the Plug-in ID of the plug-in required

After activating a plug-in, follow these guidelines to configure the features property.

Understand the findreplace plug-in

The findreplace plug-in does not need any configuration. It works out of the box.

When using the replace functionality, the replace string to be replaced should be entered at the same time as find string. However you can still click find to search for the string before replacing it. If the replace string is entered after clicking find, the search is reset to the beginning of the text.

The find and replace dialog becomes transparent when find is clicked and becomes opaque when replace is clicked. This allows the author to review the text that the author will replace. If users click replace all, the dialog closes and displays the number of replacements made.

Configure the paste modes

When using RTE, authors can paste content in one of the following three modes:

• Browser mode: Paste text using the browser’s default paste implementation. It is not a recommended method as it may introduce unwanted markup.

• Plain text mode: Paste the clipboard content as plain text. It strips all elements of style and formatting from the copied content before inserting in Experience Manager component.

• MS Word mode: Paste the text, including tables, with formatting when copying from MS Word. Copying and pasting text from another source such as a web page or MS Excel is not supported and retain only partial formatting.

Configure Paste options available on the RTE toolbar

You can provide some, all, or none of these three icons to your authors in the RTE toolbar:

• Paste (Ctrl+V): Can be pre-configured to correspond to one of the above three Paste modes.

• Paste as Text: Provides plain text mode functionality.

• Paste from Word: Provides MS Word mode functionality.

To configure RTE to display the required icons, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to your component, say for example /apps/<myProject>/components/text.
2. Navigate to the node rtePlugins/edit. See activate a plug-in if the node does not exist.
3. Create the features property on the edit node and add one or more of the features. Save all changes.

Configure the behavior of the Paste (Ctrl+V) icon and shortcut

You can pre-configure the behavior of the Paste (Ctrl+V) icon, using the following steps. This configuration also defines the behavior of keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V that Authors use to paste content.

The configuration allows for the following three types of use cases:

• Paste text using the browser’s default paste implementation. It is not a recommended method as it may introduce unwanted markup. Configured using browser below.

• Paste the clipboard content as plain text. It strips all elements of style and formatting from the copied content before inserting in AEM component. Configured using plaintext below.

• Paste the text, including tables, with formatting when copying from MS Word. Copying and pasting text from another source such as a web page or MS Excel is not supported and retain only partial formatting. Configured using wordhtml below.

1. In your component, navigate to <rtePlugins-node>/edit node. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more information, see activate a plug-in.

2. In the edit node create a property using the following details:

   • Name defaultPasteMode
   • Type String
   • Value One of the required paste mode browser, plaintext, or wordhtml.

Configure the formats allowed when pasting content

The paste-as-Microsoft-Word (paste-wordhtml) mode can be further configured so that you can explicitly define which styles are allowed when pasting in AEM from another program, such as Microsoft Word.

For example, if only bold formats and lists should be allowed when pasting in AEM, you can filter out the other formats. This is called configurable paste filtering, which can be done for both:

• Text
• Links

For links, you can also define the protocols that are automatically accepted.

To configure which formats are allowed when pasting text into AEM from another program:

1. In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/edit. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. Create a node under the edit node to hold the HTML paste rules:

   • Name htmlPasteRules
   • Type nt:unstructured

3. Create a node under htmlPasteRules, to hold details of the basic formats allowed:

   • Name allowBasics
   • Type nt:unstructured

4. To control the individual formats accepted, create one, or more, of the following properties on the allowBasics node:

   • Name bold
   • Name italic
   • Name underline
   • Name anchor (for both links and named anchors)
   • Name image

   All properties are of Type Boolean, so in the appropriate Value you can either select or remove the check mark to enable or disable the functionality.

   NOTE

   If not explicitly defined the default value of true is used and the format accepted.

5. Other formats can also be defined using a range of other properties or nodes, also applied to the htmlPasteRules node. Save all changes.

You can use the following properties for htmlPasteRules.

An example of a valid htmlPasteRules structure is below.

"htmlPasteRules": {
    "allowBasics": {
        "italic": true,
        "link": true
    },
    "allowBlockTags": [
        "p", "h1", "h2", "h3"
    ],
    "list": {
        "allow": false,
        "ignoreMode": "paragraph"
    },
    "table": {
        "allow": true,
        "ignoreMode": "paragraph"
    }
}

Configure text styles

Authors can apply Styles to change the appearance of a portion of text. The styles are based on CSS classes that you pre-define in your CSS style sheet. Stylized content is enclosed in span tags using the class attribute to refer to the CSS class. For example, <span class=monospaced>Monospaced Text Here</span>.

When the Styles plug-in is enabled for the first time, no default Styles are available. The pop-up list is empty. To provide the authors with Styles, do the following:

• Enable the Style drop-down selector.
• Specify the location(s) of the style sheet(s).
• Specify the individual styles that can be selected from the Style drop down list.

For later configurations, say to add more styles, follow only the instructions to reference a new style sheet and to specify the additional styles.

Enable the Style drop-down selector list

This is done by enabling the styles plug-in.

1. In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/styles. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. Create the features property on the styles node:

   • Name features
   • Type String
   • Value * (asterisk)

3. Save all changes.

Specify the style sheet location

Then, specify the location(s) of the style sheet(s) you want to reference:

1. Navigate to the root node of your text component, for example /apps/<myProject>/components/text.

2. Add the property externalStyleSheets to the parent node of <rtePlugins-node>:

   • Name externalStyleSheets
   • Type String[] (multi-string; click Multi in CRXDE)
   • Value(s) The path and filename of every style sheet you want to include. Use repository paths.
   NOTE

   You can add references to additional style sheets at any later time.

3. Save all changes.

When using RTE in a dialog (Classic UI), you can specify stylesheets that are optimized for rich text editing. Due to technical restrictions the CSS context is lost in the editor, so you can emulate this context to improve the WYSIWYG experience. The Rich Text Editor uses a container DOM element with an ID of CQrte that can be used to provide different styles for viewing and editing:

#CQ td {
// defines the style for viewing }

#CQrte td {
// defines the style for editing }

Specify the available Styles in the pop-up list

1. In the component definition, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/styles, as created in Enabling the style drop-down selector.

2. Under the node styles, create a new node (also called styles) to hold the list being made available:

   • Name styles
   • Type cq:WidgetCollection

3. Create a new node under the styles node to represent an individual style:

   • Name, you can specify the name, but it should be suitable for the style
   • Type nt:unstructured

4. Add the property cssName to this node to reference the CSS class:

   • Name cssName
   • Type String
   • Value The name of the CSS class (without a preceding ‘.’; for example, cssClass instead of .cssClass)

5. Add the property text to the same node; this defines the text shown in the selection box:

   • Name text
   • Type String
   • Value Description of the style; appears in the Style drop-down selection box.

6. Save the changes.

   Repeat the above steps for each required style.

Configure the paragraph formats

Any text authored in RTE is placed within a block tag, the default being <p>. By enabling the paraformat plug-in, you specify additional block tags that can be assigned to paragraphs, using a drop-down selection list. Paragraph formats determine the paragraph type by assigning the correct block tag. The author can select and assign them using the Format selector. The example block tags include, amongst others, the standard paragraph <p> and headings <h1>, <h2>, and so on.

When the Paragraph Formats plug-in is enabled for the first time, no default Paragraph Formats are available. The pop-up list is empty. To provide the authors with Paragraph Formats, do the following:

• Enable the Format drop-down selector list.
• Specify the block tags that can be selected as paragraph formats from the drop-down.

For later (re-)configurations, say to add more formats, follow only the relevant part of the instructions.

Enable the Format drop-down selector

First enable the paraformat plug-in:

1. In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/paraformat. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. Create the features property on the paraformat node:

   • Name features
   • Type String
   • Value * (asterisk)

Specify the available Paragraph Formats

Paragraph formats may be made available for selection by:

1. In the component definition, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/paraformat, as created in Enabling the format drop-down selector.

2. Under the paraformat node create a new node, to hold the list of formats:

   • Name formats
   • Type cq:WidgetCollection

3. Create a new node under the formats node, this holds details for an individual format:

   • Name, you can specify the name, but it should be suitable for the format (for example, myparagraph, myheading1).
   • Type nt:unstructured

4. To this node, add the property to define the block tag used:

   • Name tag

   • Type String

   • Value The block tag for the format; for example: p, h1, h2, etc.

     You do not need to enter the delimiting angle-brackets.

5. To the same node add another property, for descriptive text to appear in the drop-down list:

   • Name description
   • Type String
   • Value The descriptive text for this format; for example, Paragraph, Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on. This text is displayed in the Format selection list.

6. Save the changes.

   Repeat the steps for each required format.

Configure special characters

In a standard AEM installation, when the misctools plug-in is enabled for special characters (specialchars) a default selection is immediately available for use; for example, the copyright and trademark symbols.

You can configure the RTE to make your own selection of characters available; either by defining distinct characters, or an entire sequence.

Define a single character

1. In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/misctools. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. Create the features property on the misctools node:

   • Name features

   • Type String[]

   • Value specialchars

         (or String / * if applying all features for this plug-in)

3. Under misctools create a node to hold the special character configurations:

   • Name specialCharsConfig
   • Type nt:unstructured

4. Under specialCharsConfig create another node to hold the list of characters:

   • Name chars
   • Type nt:unstructured

5. Under chars add a new node to hold an individual character definition:

   • Name you can specify the name, but it should reflect the character; for example, half.
   • Type nt:unstructured

6. To this node add the following property:

   • Name entity
   • Type String
   • Value the HTML representation of the required character; for example, &189; for the fraction one half.

7. Save the changes.

After the property is saved, the represented character is displayed in CRXDE. See the example of half below. Repeat the above steps to make more special characters available to the authors.

Define a range of characters

1. Use steps 1 to 3 from Defining a Single Character.

2. Under chars add a new node to hold the definition of the character range:

   • Name you can specify the name, but it should reflect the character range; for example, pencils.
   • Type nt:unstructured

3. Under this node (named according to your special character range) add the following two properties:

   • Name rangeStart
     Type Long
     Value the Unicode representation (decimal) of the first character in the range

   • Name rangeEnd
     Type Long
     Value the Unicode representation (decimal) of the last character in the range

4. Save the changes.

   For example, define a range from 9998 - 10000 provides you with the following characters.

   

         In CRXDE, define a range of characters to be made available in RTE

   

         Special characters available in RTE are displayed to authors in a pop-up window

Configure table styles

Styles are typically applied on text, but a separate set of Styles can also be applied on a table or a few table cells. Such Styles are available to authors from the Style selector box in either the Cell properties or Table properties dialog. The styles are available when editing a table within a Text component (or derivative) and not in the standard Table component.

1. Within your component navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/table. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. Create the features property on the table node:

   • Name features
   • Type String
   • Value * (asterisk)
   NOTE

   If you do not want to enable all table features you can create the features property as:

   • Type String[]

   • Value(s) one, or both, of the following, as required:

     • table to allow the editing of table properties; including the styles.
     • cellprops to allow the editing of cell properties, including the styles.

3. Define the location of CSS style sheets to refer those. See Specifying the location of your style sheet as this is the same as when defining styles for text. The location may be defined if you defined other styles.

4. Under the table node create the following new nodes (as required):

   • To define styles for the entire table (available under Table properties):

     • Name table-styles
     • Type cq:WidgetCollection

   • To define styles for the individual cells (available under Cell properties):

     • Name cellStyles
     • Type cq:WidgetCollection

5. Create a new node (under the table-styles or cellStyles node as appropriate) to represent an individual style:

   • Name you can specify the name, but it should reflect the style.
   • Type nt:unstructured

6. On this node create the properties:

   • To define the CSS style to be referenced

     • Name cssName
     • Type String
     • Value the name of the CSS class (without a preceding ., for example, cssClass instead of .cssClass)

   • To define a descriptive text to appear in the drop-down selector

     • Name text
     • Type String
     • Value the text to appear in the selection list

7. Save all changes.

Repeat the above steps for each required style.

Configure hidden headers in tables for accessibility

Sometimes, you may create data tables without visual text in a column header assuming that the header’s purpose is implied by the visual relationship of the column with other columns. In this case, it is necessary to provide hidden inner text within the cell in the header cell to allow screen readers and other assistive technologies to help the readers with various needs understand the purpose of the column.

To enhance accessibility in such scenarios, RTE supports hidden header cells. In addition, it provides configuration settings related to hidden headers in tables. These settings let you apply CSS styles on hidden headers in edit and preview modes. To help authors identify hidden headers in the edit mode, include the following parameters in your code:

• hidden-headerEditingCSS: Specifies the name of the CSS class that is applied on the hidden-header cell, when RTE is edited.
• hidden-headerEditingStyle: Specifies a Style string that is applied on the hidden-header cell when RTE is edited.

If you specify both the CSS and the Style string in code, the CSS class takes precedence over the style string and may overwrite any configuration changes the Style string makes.

To help authors apply CSS on hidden headers in the preview mode, you can include the following parameters in your code:

• hidden-headerClassName: Specifies the name of the CSS class that is applied on the hidden header cell in preview mode.
• hidden-headerStyle: Specifies a Style string that is applied on the hidden-header cell in preview mode.

If you specify both the CSS and the Style string in code, the CSS class takes precedence over the style string and may overwrite any configuration changes the Style string makes.

Add dictionaries for the spell checker

When the spellcheck plug-in is activated, the RTE uses dictionaries for each appropriate language. These are then selected according to the language of the website by taking either the language property of the subtree or extracting the language from the URL; for example. the /en/ branch is checked as English, the /de/ branch as German.

A standard AEM installation includes the dictionaries for American English (en_us) and British English (en_gb). To add more dictionaries, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the page https://extensions.openoffice.org/.

2. Do one of the following to find a dictionary of your choice of language:

   • Search for dictionary of your choice of language. On the dictionary page, locate the link to the original source or author’s webpage. Locate the dictionary files for v2.x on such a page.
   • Search for v2.x dictionary files at https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/User:Khirano/Dictionaries.

3. Download the archive with the spelling definitions. Extract the contents of the archive on your file system.

   CAUTION

   Only dictionaries in the MySpell format for OpenOffice.org v2.0.1 or earlier, are supported. As the dictionaries are now archive files, it is recommended that you verify the archive after downloading.

4. Locate the .aff and .dic files. Keep filename in lowercase. For example, de_de.aff and de_de.dic.

5. Load the .aff and .dic files in the repository at /apps/cq/spellchecker/dictionaries.

Configure the history size for undo and redo actions

RTE allows authors to undo or redo a few last edits. By default, 50 edits are stored in the history. You can configure this value as required.

1. Within your component navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/undo. Create these nodes if they do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. On the undo node create the property:

   • Name maxUndoSteps

   • Type Long

   • Value the number of undo steps you want saved in the history.

     • The default is 50.
     • Use 0 to disable undo/redo completely.

3. Save the changes.

Configure the tab size

When the tab character is pressed within any text a predefined number of spaces is inserted; by default this is three non-breaking spaces and one space. To define the tab size:

1. In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/keys. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. On the keys node create the property:

   • Name tab-size
   • Type String
   • Value the number of space characters to be used for the tabulator

3. Save the changes.

Set indent margin

When indentation is enabled (default) you can define the size of indent:

1. Within your component navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/lists. Create these nodes if they do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.

2. On the lists node create the identSize parameter:

   • Name: identSize
   • Type: Long
   • Value: number of pixels required for the indent margin

Configure the height of editable space

You can define the height of the editable space shown within the component dialog:

1. On the ../items/text node in the dialog definition for the component, create a new property:

   • Name height
   • Type Long
   • Value the height of the edit canvas in pixels
   NOTE

   This does not change the height of the dialog window.

2. Save the changes.

Configure styles and protocols for links

When adding links in AEM, you can define:

• The CSS styles to be used
• The protocols automatically accepted

To configure how links are added in AEM from another program, define the HTML rules.

1. Using CRXDE Lite, locate the text component for your project.

2. Create a new node at the same level as <rtePlugins-node>, that is, create the node under the parent node of <rtePlugins-node>:

   • Name htmlRules
   • Type nt:unstructured
   NOTE

   The ../items/text node has the property:

   • Name xtype
   • Type String
   • Value richtext

   The location of the ../items/text node can vary, depending on the structure of your dialog; two examples include:

   • /apps/myProject>/components/text/dialog/items/text
   • /apps/<myProject>/components/text/dialog/items/panel/items/text

3. Under htmlRules, create a new node.

   • Name links
   • Type nt:unstructured

4. Under the links node define the properties as required:

   • CSS style for internal links:

     • Name cssInternal
     • Type String
     • Value the name of the CSS class (without a preceding ‘.’; for example, cssClass instead of .cssClass)

   • CSS style for external links

     • Name cssExternal
     • Type String
     • Value the name of the CSS class (without a preceding ‘.’; for example, cssClass instead of .cssClass)

   • Array of valid protocols. The supported protocols are http://, https://, file://, and mailto:.

     • Name protocols
     • Type String[]
     • Value(s) one, or more, protocols

   • defaultProtocol (property of type String): Protocol to be used if the user did not specify one explicitly.

     • Name defaultProtocol
     • Type String
     • Value(s) one, or more, default protocols

   • Definition of how to handle the target attribute of a link. Create a new node:

     • Name targetConfig
     • Type nt:unstructured

     On the node targetConfig: define the required properties:

     • Specify the target mode:

       • Name mode

       • Type String)

       • Value(s) :

         • auto: means that an automatic target is chosen

           (specified by the targetExternal property for external links or targetInternal for internal links).

         • manual: not applicable in this context

         • blank: not applicable in this context

     • The target for internal links:

       • Name targetInternal
       • Type String
       • Value the target for internal links (only use when the mode is auto)

     • The target for external links:

       • Name targetExternal
       • Type String
       • Value the target for external links (only used when the mode is auto).

5. Save all changes.