Rails Integration for TinyMCE

The tinymce-rails gem integrates the TinyMCE editor with the Rails asset pipeline.

This gem is compatible with Rails 3.1.1 and higher (including Rails 4).

This is the branch for TinyMCE 4. For TinyMCE 3.5.x, please see the tinymce-3 branch.

New in 3.5.11, 4.1.10 and 4.2.1: Alternative asset installation methods (copy vs compile/symlink). See the Asset Compilation section below for details.

Instructions

1. Add tinymce-rails to your Gemfile

gem 'tinymce-rails'

Be sure to add to the global group, not the assets group. Then run bundle install.

2. Create a config/tinymce.yml file with your global configuration options:

toolbar:
  - styleselect | bold italic | undo redo
  - image | link
plugins:
  - image
  - link

The Rails server no longer needs to be restarted when this file is updated in development mode.

To define multiple configuration sets, follow this syntax (a default configuration must be specified):

default:
  plugins:
    - image
    - link

alternate:
  selector: textarea.table-editor
  toolbar: styleselect | bold italic | undo redo | table
  plugins:
    - table

See the TinyMCE 4 Documentation for a full list of configuration options.

3. Include the TinyMCE assets

Use one of the following options to include TinyMCE assets.

(1) Add to your application.js:

//= require tinymce

or (2) with jQuery integration:

//= require tinymce-jquery

(3) The TinyMCE assets can be included on a per-page basis using the tinymce_assets helper:

<%= tinymce_assets %>
#=> <script type="text/javascript" src="/assets/tinymce.js">

4. Initialize TinyMCE

For each textarea that you want to use with TinyMCE, add the "tinymce" class and ensure it has a unique ID:

<%= text_area_tag :content, "", :class => "tinymce", :rows => 40, :cols => 120 %>

or if you are using Rails' form builders:

<%= f.text_area :content, :class => "tinymce", :rows => 40, :cols => 120 %>

Then invoke the tinymce helper to initialize TinyMCE:

<%= tinymce %>

Custom options can be passed to tinymce to override the global options specified in config/tinymce.yml:

<%= tinymce :theme => "simple", :language => "de", :plugins => ["wordcount", "paste"] %>

Alternate configurations defined in 'config/tinymce.yml' can be used with:

<%= tinymce :alternate %>

Language Packs

See the tinymce-rails-langs gem for additional language packs for TinyMCE. The tinymce helper will use the current locale as the language if available, falling back to English if the core language files are missing.

Manual Initialization

Using the tinymce helper and global configuration file is entirely optional. The tinyMCE.init function can be invoked manually if desired.

<%= text_area_tag :editor, "", :rows => 40, :cols => 120 %>

<script type="text/javascript">
  tinyMCE.init({
    selector: 'textarea.editor'
  });
</script>

Asset Compilation

Since TinyMCE loads most of its files dynamically, some workarounds are required to ensure that the TinyMCE asset files are accessible using non-digested filenames.

As of tinymce-rails 3.5.11, 4.1.10 and 4.2.1, two alternative asset installation methods are available, which can be changed by setting config.tinymce.install within your config/application.rb file. Both methods are called when you run rake asset:precompile (via Rake::Task#enhance) after the regular application assets are compiled.

The default method, copy, copies the TinyMCE assets directly into public/assets and appends the file information into the asset manifest.

config.tinymce.install = :copy

The new method, compile, adds the TinyMCE paths to the Sprockets precompilation paths and then creates symlinks from the non-digested filenames to their digested versions.

config.tinymce.install = :compile

Due to compilation times, this method is only recommended using Rails 4 and up. This method is intended to eventually become the default, so please try it if it suits your environment and report any issues.

If you are including TinyMCE via application.js or using the tinymce_assets helper, you do not need to manually alter the precompile paths. However if you wish to include tinymce-jquery.js independently (i.e. using javascript_include_tag), you will need to add it to the precompile list in config/environments/production.rb:

config.assets.precompile << "tinymce-jquery.js"

Custom Plugins & Skins

To use custom plugins or skins, simply add the files to your asset load path so that they are locatable at a path beneath tinymce/plugins/ or tinymce/skins/.

For example, a plugin called mycustomplugin could have its main JS file at app/assets/javascripts/tinymce/plugins/mycustomplugin/plugin.js.

You should also ensure that your custom paths are added to the asset precompile paths.

Using tinymce-rails as an Engine Dependency

Ensure that you explicitly require tinymce-rails within your engine file. Including tinymce-rails as a dependency in your gemspec is not enough.

Updating

When new versions of TinyMCE are released, simply update the tinymce-rails gem to the latest version. There is no need to run any extra rake tasks (apart from rake assets:precompile).