Customizing the Richtext Editor

Alchemy uses TinyMCE as the richtext editor for Richtext ingredients. You can customize the toolbar, add plugins, apply custom stylesheets, and configure each editor instance independently.

Default Configuration

Alchemy ships with a sensible default configuration:

{
  skin: "alchemy",
  width: "auto",
  resize: true,
  min_height: 250,
  menubar: false,
  statusbar: true,
  toolbar: [
    "bold italic underline | strikethrough subscript superscript | numlist bullist indent outdent | removeformat | fullscreen",
    "pastetext charmap hr | undo redo | alchemy_link unlink anchor | code"
  ],
  fix_list_elements: true,
  convert_urls: false,
  entity_encoding: "raw",
  paste_as_text: true
}

NOTE

Default plugins: alchemy_link, anchor, charmap, code, directionality, fullscreen, link, lists.

Global Customization

To change TinyMCE settings for all richtext editors in your application, set Alchemy::Tinymce.init in an initializer. Your settings are merged with the defaults, so you only need to specify what you want to override.

# config/initializers/alchemy.rb
Alchemy::Tinymce.init = {
  toolbar: [
    "bold italic underline | numlist bullist | removeformat | fullscreen",
    "pastetext | undo redo | alchemy_link unlink | code"
  ]
}

NOTE

Global settings apply to all richtext editors in all elements. Use per-ingredient settings to customize individual editors.

Per-Ingredient Customization

You can override TinyMCE settings for individual Richtext ingredients in config/alchemy/elements.yml using the tinymce setting:

# config/alchemy/elements.yml
- name: article
  ingredients:
    - role: text
      type: Richtext
      settings:
        tinymce:
          toolbar:
            - "bold italic underline | removeformat"
            - "pastetext | undo redo | alchemy_link unlink | code"

Per-ingredient settings are merged with the global configuration, so you only need to specify the options you want to change for that specific editor.

Adding Style Formats

Give editors a dropdown to apply predefined styles:

- name: text
  type: Richtext
  settings:
    tinymce:
      toolbar:
        - "bold italic underline | styleselect | removeformat | fullscreen"
        - "pastetext | undo redo | alchemy_link unlink | code"
      style_formats:
        - title: "Subheadline"
          block: "h3"
        - title: "Quote"
          block: "blockquote"
        - title: "Small"
          inline: "small"

TIP

Keep your style formats minimal. Alchemy's strength is structured content with separate elements for different content types. Resist the temptation to turn a single richtext field into a full page editor.

Toolbar Buttons

The toolbar is defined as an array of strings. Each string is one toolbar row. Buttons are separated by spaces, groups are separated by |.

Common buttons:

Button	Description
bold italic underline strikethrough	Text formatting
subscript superscript	Sub/superscript
numlist bullist	Ordered and unordered lists
indent outdent	Indentation
removeformat	Clear formatting
pastetext	Paste as plain text
alchemy_link unlink	Alchemy's link dialog
anchor	Insert anchor
charmap	Special characters
code	View/edit HTML source
fullscreen	Toggle fullscreen editing
hr	Horizontal rule
formatselect	Block format dropdown
styleselect	Style format dropdown

TIP

See the TinyMCE toolbar documentation for all available buttons.

Adding Plugins

TinyMCE can be extended with community and premium plugins. Download the plugin and place it in vendor/assets/javascripts/tinymce/plugins/ inside your app.

Then append it to Alchemy::Tinymce.plugins and add its buttons to the toolbar:

# config/initializers/alchemy.rb
Alchemy::Tinymce.plugins += ["table"]
Alchemy::Tinymce.init = {
  toolbar: [
    "bold italic underline | numlist bullist | removeformat | fullscreen",
    "pastetext | undo redo | alchemy_link unlink | table | code"
  ]
}

NOTE

Plugins added to Alchemy::Tinymce.plugins beyond the built-in set are automatically preloaded in the admin interface.

Custom Stylesheet

You can apply a stylesheet to the TinyMCE editor area so the editing experience matches your site's typography:

# config/initializers/alchemy.rb
Alchemy::Tinymce.init = {
  content_css: "/assets/tinymce_content.css"
}

Create the stylesheet at app/assets/stylesheets/tinymce_content.css. This file is loaded inside the editor's iframe and controls how text appears while editing.

NOTE

Alchemy automatically switches between a light (alchemy) and dark (alchemy-dark) editor skin based on the user's OS preference. Setting a custom content_css overrides the built-in dark mode content stylesheet, so make sure your stylesheet works in both modes if your editors use dark mode.

HTML Sanitization

Alchemy sanitizes richtext content before saving using Rails' SafeListSanitizer. By default, Rails allows a generous set of tags (p, strong, em, a, ul, ol, li, h1-h6, blockquote, br, img, span, and more).

To be more restrictive, configure which tags and attributes are allowed per ingredient:

- name: text
  type: Richtext
  settings:
    sanitizer:
      tags:
        - p
        - strong
        - em
        - a
        - ul
        - ol
        - li
        - h2
        - h3
      attributes:
        - href
        - target
        - class

Configuration Syntax

Any TinyMCE configuration option can be used. When setting options in Ruby (initializer), convert JavaScript syntax to Ruby hashes:

// JavaScript
{
  block_formats: "Paragraph=p;Header 2=h2;Header 3=h3"
}

# Ruby
{
  block_formats: "Paragraph=p;Header 2=h2;Header 3=h3"
}

When setting options in YAML (elements.yml), use standard YAML syntax:

settings:
  tinymce:
    block_formats: "Paragraph=p;Header 2=h2;Header 3=h3"
    style_formats:
      - title: "Highlight"
        inline: "span"
        classes: "highlight"

TIP

Use YAML anchors to share TinyMCE configurations across multiple elements:

# config/alchemy/elements.yml
- name: article
  ingredients:
    - role: text
      type: Richtext
      settings:
        tinymce: &minimal_tinymce
          toolbar:
            - "bold italic underline | alchemy_link unlink | code"

- name: news
  ingredients:
    - role: body
      type: Richtext
      settings:
        tinymce: *minimal_tinymce