smeditor

Self-contained Rails integration for SMEditor.

The gem ships the editor core, StarterKit, FullKit, browser bundle and default CSS theme inside the gem itself. A Rails application does not need npm, React, esbuild, Vite, importmap pins, or jsbundling-rails to use SMEditor.

Requirements

  • Ruby >= 3.0
  • Rails >= 7.0

Install

# Gemfile
gem "smeditor"

bundle install
bin/rails generate smeditor:install

That is enough for normal editor usage. The generator only creates config/initializers/smeditor.rb; it does not copy JavaScript into the host application and does not ask you to install frontend packages.

For ActiveStorage-backed image uploads, mount the engine:

# config/routes.rb
mount SMEditor::Rails::Engine => "/smeditor"

Configure

# config/initializers/smeditor.rb
SMEditor.configure do |config|
  config.uploads = :none                 # or :active_storage
  config.upload_path = "/smeditor/uploads"
  config.default_kit = "starter"        # or "full"
  config.sanitize_output = true

  # true by default: the first editor field includes smeditor.js/css.
  # Set false if you prefer calling `smeditor_assets` in your layout.
  config.auto_include_assets = true

  config.max_upload_size = 10 * 1024 * 1024
  config.allowed_upload_types = %w[
    image/png image/jpeg image/gif image/webp image/avif image/bmp
  ]
end

Use

<%= form_with model: @article do |form| %>
  <%= form.smeditor_editor :content,
        kit: "full",
        placeholder: "Write…" %>

  <%= form.submit %>
<% end %>

The helper renders a hidden Rails field plus the editor mount. The packaged browser bundle updates the hidden field on every editor change, including a normal bubbling input event and a smeditor:change custom event, so form submit and autosave code can observe the value without CKEditor-specific integration.

Available options:

  • kit: "starter" | "full"
  • placeholder:
  • class:
  • label: — editor ARIA label
  • upload_url: — custom image upload endpoint
  • include_assets: false — skip automatic asset tags for this field

Assets in the layout (optional)

By default the first smeditor_editor call includes the packaged assets once. If you prefer explicit layout assets:

# config/initializers/smeditor.rb
SMEditor.configure { |config| config.auto_include_assets = false }

<head>
  <%= smeditor_assets %>
</head>

The files still come from the gem; this only changes where the tags are rendered.

Programmatic access

After boot, the editor instance is available on both the hidden input and the mount element:

const input = document.querySelector("[data-smeditor-input]")
const editor = input.smeditorInstance

editor.getHTML()
editor.setContent("<p>New content</p>")
editor.commands.toggleBold?.()

The bundle also exposes window.SMEditor.boot() and window.SMEditor.destroy() for advanced integrations.

Turbo

SMEditor boots on DOMContentLoaded, turbo:load, and turbo:frame-load. Before Turbo caches a page, editor instances are destroyed and their mounts are reset, preventing stale contenteditable state after navigation.

Rendering saved content

<%= smeditor_render(@article.content) %>

Stored editor HTML is treated as untrusted input. smeditor_render sanitizes allowed tags, URLs and inline formatting and hardens _blank links by default.

Set config.sanitize_output = false only if the stored HTML is already trusted.

Uploads

With config.uploads = :active_storage, the engine exposes POST /smeditor/uploads. It stores the image through ActiveStorage and returns { src, alt, title } to the editor.

The default upload endpoint is unauthenticated. It enforces the configured file size and MIME allow-list, but public applications should add their own authorization policy.

What the gem contains

The published .gem includes:

  • SMEditor browser bundle (core + StarterKit + FullKit)
  • default SMEditor theme
  • Rails form helper and FormBuilder extension
  • safe renderer/sanitizer
  • optional ActiveStorage upload endpoint
  • install generator

The source monorepo still uses TypeScript/pnpm to develop and rebuild the frontend packages. Those are build-time tools for SMEditor maintainers only; they are not runtime dependencies of applications that install the gem.

Development

Rebuild the vendored Rails assets after changing core/extensions or the Rails browser adapter:

node scripts/build-gem-assets.mjs

Then test/build the gem:

cd gems/smeditor
bundle install
bundle exec rspec
gem build smeditor.gemspec

License

MIT © SMEditor contributors