TinyMCE editor (Legacy)

18 min

📘 Note This documentation is for a legacy version of the TinyMCE add-on when it was included in the Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) package. The documentation for the latest TinyMCE editorTinyMCE editor.

📘 Note Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) supports TinyMCE editor version 3.5.11. See the TinyMCE website for information on how to create the client-side code of a TinyMCE plug-in.

This section describes how to configure the style sheet files used with the TinyMCE editor, and how to use the Optimizely attributes to define the TinyMCE editor’s styles and the handling of element-specific classes. It also covers how to add your own plug-ins, and tips for using TinyMCE on your template page. It also describes how to customize the TinyMCE editor (v1) through code, see Property settings for TinyMCE (Legacy)Property settings for TinyMCE (Legacy).

Configure the TinyMCE editor CSS files

Editor CSS styles let website editors select predefined formatting options from the styles drop-down toolbar of the TinyMCE editor. This ensures consistent formatting of content throughout the website.

Use the methods described below to configure the CSS files that the TinyMCE editor loads and uses. You can define an editor style sheet that applies to instances of the TinyMCE editor (XHTML string property) or property-specific settings. These override the corresponding web.config settings.

uiEditorCssPaths setting

If no page property specifies alternate style sheets, TinyMCE uses the uiEditorCssPaths setting, which contains the path to the editor style sheet. You can set this in the web.config file, or from the admin view > Config tab > System Settings screen.

<episerver>
  <applicationSettings ... uiEditorCssPaths="~/Static/css/Editor.css" />
</episerver>

Content CSS Path setting in the TinyMCE editor

Custom and global settings are essentially the same, except you can reuse global settings for several XHTML properties. After you define a global settings set, it is available in the Use global settings drop-down for XHTML string properties.

To change the Content CSS Path setting, do the following:

Select the Content Type tab.

Select the page type that contains the desired XHTML string property.

Select the property's name, and then the Custom Settings tab.

Either:

Edit the XHTML string property to create a global setting set that contains the desired CSS path value. The set will be available in the global settings drop-down menu.

Or, select Use custom settings and set the Content CSS Path value.

Standard page property

Name the property UIEditorCssPaths and assign a comma-separated list of paths to the style sheets. The following examples shows a comma-separated css-path list:

~/Templates/Public/Styles/Glossy/Editor.css, ~/Templates/Public/Styles/Glossy/Editor2.css

Optimizely attributes to extend the CSS file

To define the TinyMCE editor’s styles and handling of element-specific classes, use the following Optimizely attributes.

ChangeElementType – Lets you apply a class and change the element type for text block elements (p, h1, h2, and so on).

  h2.italic{ChangeElementType: true;EditMenuName: Heading 2 Italic;font-style: italic;}

You should only apply element-specific classes (such as p.myClass) to elements of the correct type. For example, if you apply p.myClass to an h1 element, nothing happens.

EditMenuTitle – Adds a new drop-down menu heading.

EditMenuName – Adds menu items under the parent heading.

Note that the Styles tool shows styles in the order you define them in the CSS file. Also, in EditMenuName and EditMenuTitle values, replace spaces with underscores.

The following example shows CSS menu attributes and the resulting drop-down menu.

.style1{EditMenuName: Style1;}	
.style2{EditMenuName: Style2;}	
h1{EditMenuTitle: Heading Styles; EditMenuName: Heading 1;}	
h2{EditMenuName: Heading 2;}

stylesdropdown.png

## Localize a styles menu

Follow these steps to localize the EditMenuName and EditMenuTitle attribute values.

In the lang folder, add the translations to an XML file.

At language_root/editorstyleoptions, create an element.

Add translation strings as children of the element. The following example shows the XML code and the resulting drop-down menu when an editor selects the Swedish style sheet.

<language name="svenska" id="sv">
  <editorstyleoptions>
    <style1>Stil 1</style1>
    <style2>Stil 2</style2>
    <heading_styles>Rubrikstilar</heading_styles>
    <heading_1>Rubrik 1</heading_1>
    <heading_2>Rubrik 2</heading_2>
  </editorstyleoptions>
     ...
</language>

Add a TinyMCE plug-in

The following steps show how to add your own plug-ins to the TinyMCE editor.

Step 1: Add the JavaScript

You have the following options for adding plugin files to CMS:

Add a physical folder structure from the site root: /Util/Editor/tinymce/plugins. Place plug-in files there.

tinymce_add_javascript.png

The name of the plug-in folder you create should match the name of the plug-in added to TinyMCE PluginManager. The main JavaScript files responsible for registering the plug-in are named editor_plugin.js and editor_plugin_src.js. The first file should be a compressed version of the second one. For information about the development of TinyMCE plug-ins, see Plug-ins. There, the file and folder naming convention is explained in more detail.

Add another virtual path pointing to ~/Util/ folder or directly to ~/Util/Editor/tinymce/plugins, as shown in the following XML example.

<add name="TinyMCEPlugins" 
     virtualPath="~/Util/Editor/tinymce/plugins"
     physicalPath="C:\MyTinyMCEPlugins"
     type="EPiServer.Web.Hosting.VirtualPathNonUnifiedProvider, EPiServer.Framework" />

If you add a virtual path, remember that the last VPP added is the first one called when the system looks for files. So, you should add your new VPP in the beginning of all VPPs.

Step 2: Create an empty class with TinyMCEPlugIn attribute

CMS plug-ins have an empty class with the attribute, so you must create a class when you create a plug-in. The following plug-in attributes (with examples) contain data that Optimizely CMS needs to correctly show the plug-in in edit view and admin view. If a plug-in has one or more buttons, use TinyMCEPluginButton; if not, use TinyMCEPluginNonVisual.

TinyMCEPluginButton

[TinyMCEPluginButton(PlugInName = "mybutton", ButtonName = "mybutton", GroupName = "misc",
  LanguagePath = "/admin/tinymce/plugins/mypluginwithbutton/mybutton",
  IconUrl = "Editor/tinymce/plugins/mypluginwithbutton/mybutton.gif")]
public class MyPluginWithButton {}

TinyMCEPlugin propertiesTinyMCEPluginNonVisual

[TinyMCEPluginNonVisual(LanguagePath = "/admin/tinymce/plugins/mysimpleplugin",
    PlugInName = "mysimpleplugin"]
  public class MySimplePlugin {}

The <tinymce> section of a language XML file contains the plug-ins for the CMS. The LanguagePath parameter must match this XML path.PlugInName. The name of the TinyMCE plug-in, which must correspond to the plug-in name registered in TinyMCE PluginManager (and sub-folder name in plugins folder).

LanguagePath – Set this path to the language XML file where the new plug-in was placed. This path gets correct translations of the plug-in in the Plug-in Manager.

EditorInitConfigurationOptions – A string representing a JSON object with configuration settings to set in the TinyMCE init. You can override init settings but be aware of conflicts between plug-ins. Normally, settings are overridden but configuration settings can merge where several plug-ins alter the same setting. The settings that are merged (if nothing is changed in the configuration file) are valid_elements, extended_valid_elements, invalid_elements, and valid_child_elements. To change which settings are merged, add an element called <tinyMCE> in the <EPiServer> section of the configuration file, and set the mergedConfigurationProperties attribute on the element to the elements that are merged, as shown in the following XML.

<tinyMCE mergedConfigurationProperties="valid_elements, extended_valid_elements, invalid_elements, valid_child_elements">

The following C# code shows how to use EditorInitConfigurationOptions if your plug-in needs to extend the img element with some attributes:

[TinyMCEPluginButton(PlugInName = "Whatever", ...,
    EditorInitConfigurationOptions = "{ extended_valid_elements:
    'img[class|src|border=0|alt|title|hspace|vspace|width|height|align|onmouseover|onmouseout|name]'
  }
  ")]

You can find information about plug-in overrides for each page type in admin view. On the Page Type tab, click on a page type to check if there is any plug-in conflicts for the type. If there is, a yellow warning message is shown specifying which plug-in that has overridden a specific value. Overriding CMS default configuration options do not cause warning messages.

DynamicConfigurationOptionsHandler – Specifies a class that implements the IDynamicConfigurationOptions interface, which has only one method: IDictionary\<string, object> GetConfigurationOptions() that creates a list of init options. The following C# code shows how the image editor plug-in uses this functionality.

[TinyMCEPluginButton(PlugInName = "epiimageeditor", ButtonName = "epiimageeditor", GroupName = "media",
  LanguagePath = "/admin/tinymce/plugins/epiimageeditor", IconClass = "mce_epiimageeditor",
  DynamicConfigurationOptionsHandler = typeof (EPiImageEditor))]
public class EPiImageEditor: IDynamicConfigurationOptions {
  public IDictionary<string, object> GetConfigurationOptions() {
    Dictionary<string, object> customSettings = new
    Dictionary<string, object>();
    customSettings.Add("epiImageEditor_dialogWidth",
      Configuration.EPiServerSection.Instance.ImageEditorSettings.WindowWidth);
    customSettings.Add("epiImageEditor_dialogHeight",
      Configuration.EPiServerSection.Instance.ImageEditorSettings.WindowHeight);
    return customSettings;
  }
}

GroupName (TinyMCEPluginButton only) – The group name of the plug-in used in admin view for grouping tools in the inactive buttons area. You can specify your own values, or use one of the following default values:

misc

textchar

textpara

media

paste

table If you specify your own group, also add translations in the language files as shown in the following XML code:

<admin>
  <propertysettings>
    <tinyeditorsettings>
      <groups>
        <mygroupname>

ButtonSortIndex (TinyMCEPluginButton only) – Sort index used when sorting the buttons within a group in the inactive part of the editor admin view.

ButtonName (TinyMCEPluginButton only) – Name of the TinyMCE button, which must correspond to the name of the button added by the plug-in the JavaScript file.

IconClass (TinyMCEPluginButton only) – The CSS class to use for the plug-in icon. This attribute is for internal use but is useful if you want to map existing CSS classes to other buttons.

IconUrl (TinyMCEPluginButton only) – If there is no CSS class to style the button with background image, you can enter an URL to an image that is displayed in admin view. The URL is relative to Util folder.

AlwaysEnabled (TinyMCEPluginNonVisual only) – To enable the plug-in, set to true. To disable, disable the plug-in in the Plug-in Manager in admin view.

Step 3: Handle translations

Organize plug-ins in the <plugins> section with the same name as the plug-in. For example, add elements <displayname> and <description> with descriptive text to provide translations for the plug-in in the CMS Plug-in Manager. If the plug-in has one or more buttons, create a sub-element for each button and, within that, insert the <displayname> and <description> elements, as shown in the following example.

<admin> 
  <tinymce> 
    <plugins> 
      <mypluginwithbutton> 
        <mybutton> 
          <displayname>My Button</displayname> 
          <description>Button to click for magic things to happen</description>
        </mybutton> 
      </mypluginwithbutton> 
    ...

If you have an existing TinyMCE plug-in, naming conventions for the elements are as follows: To also get translations for the editor, add a section under <tinymce> element at same level as <admin> element, as shown in the following example.

<tinymce> 
      <mypluginwithbutton> 
        <myButton_desc>My Button</myButton_desc> 
        <mySecondButton_desc>Another button</mySecondButton_desc>
        <additionaltext>Extra text</additionaltext> 
      </mypluginwithbutton> 
    ...

The following JavaScript code shows how to reference the translations from within a plug-in.

Button element with the same name as each button in the plug-in followed by _desc. Admin view uses these to get a translated tooltip for each button.

// Register example button
    ed.addButton('mybutton', {
      title : 'mypluginwithbutton.mybutton_desc',
      cmd : 'mceMyButton',
      image : url + '/myButton.gif'
    })(tinymce, epiJQuery);

Additional translations for dialog boxes and so on: named as you want to reference them in JavaScript and HTML code.

Step 4: Test the plug-in

After you add the plug-in, go to a page type in admin view, and click MainBody on the page type.

Go to the Custom settings tab and select Use custom settings. The new plug-in appears under Inactive tools or Plugins without a button, depending on the type of plug-in you created.

Mouse over the button and look at the tooltip.

Add the plug-in to the PropertyXhtmlStringControl by dragging it to one of the rows under the editor toolbar. Or, if it is a non-button plug-in, select the check box.

Save changes and go to edit mode to test the plug-in.

Use TinyMCE on your template pages

If you want to use TinyMCE on your template pages, download your own version and place it on your website, because the TinyMCE version shipped with Optimizely has a dependency to the user interface.