- Draft.js is a framework for building rich text editors in React, powered by an immutable model and abstracting over cross-browser differences. Draft.js makes it easy to build any type of rich text input, whether you're just looking to support a few inline text styles or building a complex text editor for composing long-form articles.
- React JavaScript tutorial showing IntelliSense, debugging, and code navigation support in the Visual Studio Code editor.
Summary:In frontend development, we frequently need good WYSIWYG editors to take advanced inputs from the user. This post is the collection of best WYSIWYG editor components for React JS. Some of them also support markdown syntax.
React JS is the fastest-growing frontend framework but it is still relatively new as compared to Vanilla JS. The reason why I compared them is that there are plenty of WYSIWYG editors for Vanilla JS.
Markdown Editor for React. A simple markdown editor with preview, implemented with React.js and TypeScript. This React Component aims to provide a simple Markdown editor with syntax highlighting support. This is based on `textarea` encapsulation, so it does not depend on any modern code editors such as Acs, CodeMirror, Monaco etc. React-markdown-editor-lite docs, getting started, code examples, API reference and more. If you are using a server-side render framework, like Next.js, Gatsby.
But because of React JS advanced internal mechanism, it is never recommended to use Vanilla JS scripts on top of that. The primary reason is that it makes the DOM unpredictable.
This is the main reason why I researched too much on finding the best WYSIWYG editor for React JS.
This is a curated list of best WYSIWYG editor components and libraries for React JS. Some of them also support Markdown syntax.
Best WYSIWYG Editors for React JS
Rich Markdown Editor
This is the editor that we use at HolyCoders. It is currently the best WYSIWYG editor with markdown support for React JS.It is based on Prosemirror and outputs plain markdown which you can further convert to HTML using other tools.
The editor is very minimal and simple to use, plugged with advanced features.
Here is the list of features in Rich Markdown Editor for React JS.
- Markdown support
- Smart toolbars on the left side and top of selected text
- Clean and minimal design
- Paste rich contents
- Advanced table editing
- Custom embeds
- Image uploader
- Customizable
- Todo List
- Custom info, warning and tip notices
This editor is best suited for simple writing purposes.
Draft JS
This is not actually an editor but a framework to build WYSIWYG editors in React JS. It was worth adding in the list because of the features it provides.
If you want to invest some time this can be a custom solution suited for your own specific needs.
Before moving to the current solution I was developing a custom Draft JS editor for HolyCoders. Frustrated from the bugs, inactive plugins community and the amount of time it took in development it was good to hold the project.
Alloy Editor
Alloy editor is another amazing WYSIWYG editor for React JS. It is based on CKEditor and has a minimal and clean UI design.It does not have Markdown support but allows basic formatting through toolbars.
Here is the list of features which Alloy editor provides.
- Smart toolbars on the left and top of selected text
- Paste images and Drag and Drop support
- Insert images from device camera
- Paste rich-text
- Modern UI
- Plugin Architecture
React Draft WYSIWYG
React Draft WYSIWYG is built on top of Draft JS. It is much like most of the traditional WYSIWYG editors, the big toolbar on the top and editing area below that.If you want an advanced WYSIWYG text editor in React JS then this may be a good option. It is packed with almost all formatting features.
Here are some of the features of React Draft WYSIWYG editor.
- Add/Remove controls or custom controls in the toolbar
- Customize the toolbar
- Emoji Support
- Mentions and hashtag support
- Image upload and alignment
- RTL Support
- Internationalization support
React Jodit WYSIWYG Editor
Jodit editor is another feature-packed WYSIWYG editor in our list. You can view the demo here.The documentation says it is written in pure Typescript without any extra libraries.
The editor has plenty of options in the toolbar. The plugin support enables you to extend its functionality according to your own needs.
The UI looks pretty modern which is customizable.
React Froala WYSIWYG Editor
Froala Editor is a very beautiful and modern WYSIWYG editor. It is feature-packed WYSIWYG editor suitable for almost all-purpose. The best part of this editor is very clean and minimal UI design.React Froala WYSIWYG Editor is published under MIT license but you need to purchase a separate license if you want to use some specific plugins.
Here are some features of React Froala WYSIWYG editor.
- Plugins Support (Some plugins are paid)
- Highly Customizable
- Lots of formatting options
- Clean and Modern design
React Quill WYSIWYG Editor
React Quill is yet another WYSIWYG in our list. The demo is enough to explain its features.It has also traditional WYSIWYG UI design with the toolbar on the top. The editor has many formatting options which makes it quite useful.
The most interesting feature is that it is lightweight and its support for older browsers.
Dante 2
If you are a fan of the medium editor then this editor is for you. The editor is minimal and similar to the medium editor.You can see the demo here. After selecting the test you will see the toolbar which contains some most useful options.
The editor is not yet stable. It has some markdown support but that too is buggy. The worst part is the license, you need to purchase a license if your applications source code is not public.
React Page Editor
This is a very powerful WYSIWYG editor for React JS. The block structure makes it unique in itself.You can view the demo here.
I have found this editor a bit heavy compared to others. The features that it provides comes at a cost of performance.
It is not the fastest one but definitely one of the most advanced React JS WYSIWYG editors.
TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor
If you have used WordPress then there are high chances you already know this editor.It is much more focused on an enterprise solution. You will need to purchase a license for some plugins and advanced customizations.
The editor is open source and if you don’t need to use their premium plugins then you can use it for free.
Conclusion
These were some of the best React JS WYSIWYG editors which I found during my research for HolyCoders.
If you know any other good React JS editors feel free to share them in comments.
You can choose the best whichever suits your need.
If you are building a blog or simple text editing with markdown support I will recommend Rich markdown editor for React JS. It is the same editor that we use at HolyCoders.
How To Create A ReactJS App That Renders The Markdown File’s ...
For e-commerce and advanced applications, Froala editor will work great if you want to spend some money. The other option will be to develop a custom editor on top of Draft JS but as I have mentioned it will take a lot of time and energy.
React is a popular JavaScript library developed by Facebook for building web application user interfaces. The Visual Studio Code editor supports React.js IntelliSense and code navigation out of the box.
Welcome to React
We'll be using the create-react-appgenerator for this tutorial. To use the generator as well as run the React application server, you'll need Node.js JavaScript runtime and npm (Node.js package manager) installed. npm is included with Node.js which you can download and install from Node.js downloads.
Tip: To test that you have Node.js and npm correctly installed on your machine, you can type node --version and npm --version in a terminal or command prompt.
You can now create a new React application by typing:
where my-app is the name of the folder for your application. This may take a few minutes to create the React application and install its dependencies.
Note: If you've previously installed create-react-app globally via npm install -g create-react-app, we recommend you uninstall the package using npm uninstall -g create-react-app to ensure that npx always uses the latest version.
Let's quickly run our React application by navigating to the new folder and typing npm start to start the web server and open the application in a browser:
You should see the React logo and a link to 'Learn React' on http://localhost:3000 in your browser. We'll leave the web server running while we look at the application with VS Code.
To open your React application in VS Code, open another terminal or command prompt window, navigate to the my-app folder and type code .:
Markdown preview
In the File Explorer, one file you'll see is the application README.md Markdown file. This has lots of great information about the application and React in general. A nice way to review the README is by using the VS Code Markdown Preview. You can open the preview in either the current editor group (Markdown: Open Preview⇧⌘V (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+V)) or in a new editor group to the side (Markdown: Open Preview to the Side⌘K V (Windows, Linux Ctrl+K V)). You'll get nice formatting, hyperlink navigation to headers, and syntax highlighting in code blocks.
Syntax highlighting and bracket matching
Markdown Js Library
Now expand the src folder and select the index.js file. You'll notice that VS Code has syntax highlighting for the various source code elements and, if you put the cursor on a parenthesis, the matching bracket is also selected.
IntelliSense
As you start typing in index.js, you'll see smart suggestions or completions.
After you select a suggestion and type ., you see the types and methods on the object through IntelliSense.
VS Code uses the TypeScript language service for its JavaScript code intelligence and it has a feature called Automatic Type Acquisition (ATA). ATA pulls down the npm Type Declaration files (*.d.ts) for the npm modules referenced in the package.json.
If you select a method, you'll also get parameter help:
Go to Definition, Peek definition
Through the TypeScript language service, VS Code can also provide type definition information in the editor through Go to Definition (F12) or Peek Definition (⌥F12 (Windows Alt+F12, Linux Ctrl+Shift+F10)). Put the cursor over the App, right click and select Peek Definition. A Peek window will open showing the App definition from App.js.
Press Escape to close the Peek window.
Hello World!
Let's update the sample application to 'Hello World!'. Create a new H1 header with 'Hello, world!' and replace the <App /> tag in ReactDOM.render with element.
Once you save the index.js file, the running instance of the server will update the web page and you'll see 'Hello World!' when you refresh your browser.
Tip: VS Code supports Auto Save, which by default saves your files after a delay. Check the Auto Save option in the File menu to turn on Auto Save or directly configure the files.autoSave user setting.
Debugging React
To debug the client side React code, we'll need to install the Debugger for Chrome extension.
Note: This tutorial assumes you have the Chrome browser installed. There are also debugger extensions for the Edge and Firefox browsers.
Open the Extensions view (⇧⌘X (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+X)) and type 'chrome' in the search box. You'll see several extensions which reference Chrome.
Press the Install button for Debugger for Chrome.
Set a breakpoint
To set a breakpoint in index.js, click on the gutter to the left of the line numbers. This will set a breakpoint which will be visible as a red circle.
Configure the Chrome debugger
We need to initially configure the debugger. To do so, go to the Run view (⇧⌘D (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+D)) and click create a launch.json file to customize Run and Debug. Choose Chrome from the Select Environment dropdown list. This will create a launch.json file in a new .vscode folder in your project which includes a configuration to launch the website.
We need to make one change for our example: change the port of the url from 8080 to 3000. Your launch.json should look like this:
Ensure that your development server is running (npm start). Then press F5 or the green arrow to launch the debugger and open a new browser instance. The source code where the breakpoint is set runs on startup before the debugger was attached, so we won't hit the breakpoint until we refresh the web page. Refresh the page and you should hit your breakpoint.
You can step through your source code (F10), inspect variables such as element, and see the call stack of the client side React application.
The Debugger for Chrome extension README has lots of information on other configurations, working with sourcemaps, and troubleshooting. You can review it directly within VS Code from the Extensions view by clicking on the extension item and opening the Details view.
Live editing and debugging
If you are using webpack together with your React app, you can have a more efficient workflow by taking advantage of webpack's HMR mechanism which enables you to have live editing and debugging directly from VS Code. You can learn more in this Live edit and debug your React apps directly from VS Code blog post and the webpack Hot Module Replacement documentation.
Linting
Linters analyze your source code and can warn you about potential problems before you run your application. The JavaScript language services included with VS Code has syntax error checking support by default, which you can see in action in the Problems panel (View > Problems⇧⌘M (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+M)).
Try making a small error in your React source code and you'll see a red squiggle and an error in the Problems panel.
Linters can provide more sophisticated analysis, enforcing coding conventions and detecting anti-patterns. A popular JavaScript linter is ESLint. ESLint, when combined with the ESLint VS Code extension, provides a great in-product linting experience.
First, install the ESLint command-line tool:
Then install the ESLint extension by going to the Extensions view and typing 'eslint'.
Once the ESLint extension is installed and VS Code reloaded, you'll want to create an ESLint configuration file, .eslintrc.js. You can create one using the extension's ESLint: Create ESLint configuration command from the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)).
The command will prompt you to answer a series of questions in the Terminal panel. Take the defaults, and it will create a .eslintrc.js file in your project root that looks something like this:
ESLint will now analyze open files and shows a warning in index.js about 'App' being defined but never used.
You can modify the ESLint rules in the .eslintrc.js file.
Let's add an error rule for extra semi-colons:
Now when you mistakenly have multiple semicolons on a line, you'll see an error (red squiggle) in the editor and error entry in the Problems panel.
Popular Starter Kits
In this tutorial, we used the create-react-app generator to create a simple React application. There are lots of great samples and starter kits available to help build your first React application.
VS Code React Sample
This is a sample React application used for a demo at the 2016 //Build conference. The sample creates a simple TODO application and includes the source code for a Node.js Express server. It also shows how to use the Babel ES6 transpiler and then use webpack to bundle the site assets.
TypeScript React
If you're curious about TypeScript and React, you can also create a TypeScript version of the create-react-app application by specifying that you want to use the TypeScript template:
See the details at Adding TypeScript on the Create React App site.
Angular
Angular is another popular web framework. If you'd like to see an example of Angular working with VS Code, check out the Chrome Debugging with Angular CLI recipe. It will walk you through creating an Angular application and configuring the launch.json file for the Debugger for Chrome extension.
Common questions
Can I get IntelliSense within declarative JSX?
Yes. For example, if you open the create-react-app project's App.js file, you can see IntelliSense within the React JSX in the render() method.