Rails Integration for TinyMCE

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

This gem is compatible with Rails 5.1 and higher.

This is the branch for TinyMCE 7.
Please see alternate branches for TinyMCE 6, TinyMCE 5, TinyMCE 4 & TinyMCE 3.5.x.

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: &default
  plugins:
    - image
    - link

alternate:
  <<: *default
  toolbar: styleselect | bold italic | undo redo | table
  plugins:
    - table

See the TinyMCE 7 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 (Sprockets only):

//= require tinymce

or (2) add the script tag to your layout using the tinymce_assets helper:

<%= tinymce_assets data: { turbo_track: "reload" } %>
#=> <script type="text/javascript" src="/assets/tinymce.js" data-turbo-track="reload">

When using Propshaft, the tinymce_assets helper adds multiple script tags including the pre-init code (available via the tinymce_preinit helper), as well as tinymce/tinymce.js and tinymce/rails.js. You may prefer to selectively include these manually depending on your requirements.

For Sprockets, these are bundled together into one script tag.

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 %>

See the tinymce-rails-langs gem for additional language packs for TinyMCE.

Using the tinymce helper and global configuration file is entirely optional. The tinymce.init JS 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>

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. These methods are called when you run rake asset:precompile (via Rake::Task#enhance) after the regular application assets are compiled.

The default method (as of 4.5.2), 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

If you experience issues with the compile method, you may wish to use the copy method instead, which copies the TinyMCE assets directly into public/assets and appends the file information into the asset manifest. The copy_no_preserve method is also available of you do not wish to or cannot preserve file modes on your filesystem.

config.tinymce.install = :copy

If you are including TinyMCE via application.js or using the tinymce_assets helper, you do not need to manually add the scripts to the Sprockets precompile paths.

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.

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

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).