Take the community feedback survey now.


Apr 8, 2014
  3102
(0 votes)

Strongly typed TinyMCE settings

One of the things that bugs me when migrating between environments is to set up the TinyMCE settings. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just define it in code, like we do with our content types? It’s actually not that hard to accomplish.

With this solution, all you have to do is to decorate you XHtmlString properties with an attribute, TinyMceSettings.

   public class ExamplePage : PageData
   {
       [Display(Name = "Main body")]
       [TinyMceSettings(typeof(StandardTinyMceSettings))]
       public virtual XhtmlString MainBody { get; set; }
   }

This attribute takes the type of a settings class as it parameter.

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property, AllowMultiple = false)]
   public class TinyMceSettingsAttribute : Attribute
   {
       public TinyMceSettingsAttribute(Type settingsType)
       {
           SettingsType = settingsType;
       }
       public Type SettingsType { get; set; }
   }

A settings class looks like this:

   public class StandardTinyMceSettings : ITinyMceSettings
   {
       public StandardTinyMceSettings()
       {
           DisplayName = "Some TinyMce Settings";
           Id = new Guid("2235405F-A998-4371-81AE-F45F8899A03A");
           ContentCss = null;
           Toolbars = new []
           {
               new []
               {
                   "bold", "italic", "underline", "strikethrough", "separator",
                   "justifyleft", "justifycenter", "justifyright", "separator",
                   "epilink", "unlink"
               }
           };
           NonVisualPlugins = null;
       }
 
       public string DisplayName { get; set; }
       public Guid Id { get; set; }
       public string ContentCss { get; set; }
       public string[][] Toolbars { get; set; }
       public string[] NonVisualPlugins { get; set; }
   }

As you can see, you can define toolbars, display name, non visual plugins, editor css file path and so on. In order for this solution to work, you will need to implement the interface ITinyMceSettings:

   public interface ITinyMceSettings
   {
       string DisplayName { get; set; }
       Guid Id { get; set; }
       string ContentCss { get; set; }
       string[][] Toolbars { get; set; }
       string[] NonVisualPlugins { get; set; }
   }

In order to hook things up you will need to include the following initializable module:

    [ModuleDependency(typeof(EPiServer.Web.InitializationModule))]
    [InitializableModule]
    public class TinyMceSettingsInitialization : IInitializableModule
    {
        private bool _initialized;
        IPropertySettingsRepository _propertySettingsRepository;
        IContentTypeRepository _contentTypeRepository;
        IPropertyDefinitionRepository _propertyDefinitionRepository;
 
        public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context)
        {
            if (_initialized) return;
            _propertySettingsRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IPropertySettingsRepository>();
            _contentTypeRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IContentTypeRepository>();
            _propertyDefinitionRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IPropertyDefinitionRepository>();
 
 
            var allContentTypes = _contentTypeRepository.List();
            foreach (var contentType in allContentTypes)
            {
                if (contentType == null || contentType.ModelType == null)
                {
                    continue;
                }
 
                var properties = contentType.ModelType.GetProperties();
                foreach (var propertyInfo in properties)
                {
                    if (propertyInfo.PropertyType != typeof (XhtmlString))
                    {
                        continue;
                    }
 
                    var settings = GetSettingsFromAttrubte(propertyInfo);
                    if (settings == null)
                    {
                        continue;
                    }
 
                    CreateOrUpdateSettingsContainer(settings);
 
                    var property = contentType.PropertyDefinitions.First(x => x.Name == propertyInfo.Name);
 
                    SaveSettingsToProperty(property, settings);
                }
            }
 
            _initialized = true;
        }
 
        public ITinyMceSettings GetSettingsFromAttrubte(PropertyInfo propertyInfo)
        {
            var settingsAttribute = (TinyMceSettingsAttribute)Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(propertyInfo, typeof(TinyMceSettingsAttribute));
            if (settingsAttribute == null) return null;
 
            var settingsType = settingsAttribute.SettingsType;
            var settings = Activator.CreateInstance(settingsType) as ITinyMceSettings;
            if (settings == null) throw new Exception("Defined TinyMceSettings type is not implementing ITinyMceSettings");
 
            return settings;
        }
 
        public void CreateOrUpdateSettingsContainer(ITinyMceSettings settings)
        {
            PropertySettingsContainer container;
            _propertySettingsRepository.TryGetContainer(settings.Id, out container);
            container = container ?? new PropertySettingsContainer(settings.Id);
 
            var wrapper = container.GetSetting(typeof(TinyMCESettings));
            wrapper = wrapper ?? new PropertySettingsWrapper();
 
            var propertySettings = new TinyMCESettings();
            foreach (var toolbarRow in settings.Toolbars)
            {
                propertySettings.ToolbarRows.Add(new ToolbarRow(toolbarRow));
            }
            propertySettings.NonVisualPlugins = settings.NonVisualPlugins ?? new string[] { };
            propertySettings.ContentCss = settings.ContentCss ?? string.Empty;
 
            wrapper.PropertySettings = propertySettings;
            wrapper.IsGlobal = true;
            wrapper.IsDefault = false;
            wrapper.DisplayName = settings.DisplayName;
 
            container.AddSettings(wrapper);
 
            _propertySettingsRepository.Save(container);
        }
        
        private void SaveSettingsToProperty(PropertyDefinition property, ITinyMceSettings settings)
        {
            var writableProperty = property.CreateWritableClone();
            writableProperty.SettingsID = settings.Id;
            _propertyDefinitionRepository.Save(writableProperty);
        }
 
        public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
        public void Preload(string[] parameters)  { }
    }

This is just my first thoughts around such a system. This might not be the best way to solve this, so if you have any suggestions please feel free to share them with me. My plans are to turn this into a nuget package, but I’m hoping for some feedback first.

Code: https://gist.github.com/torjue/1ad223a637a024859428

Apr 08, 2014

Comments

Please login to comment.
Latest blogs
A day in the life of an Optimizely OMVP - Opticon London 2025

This installment of a day in the life of an Optimizely OMVP gives an in-depth coverage of my trip down to London to attend Opticon London 2025 held...

Graham Carr | Oct 2, 2025

Optimizely Web Experimentation Using Real-Time Segments: A Step-by-Step Guide

  Introduction Personalization has become de facto standard for any digital channel to improve the user's engagement KPI’s.  Personalization uses...

Ratish | Oct 1, 2025 |

Trigger DXP Warmup Locally to Catch Bugs & Performance Issues Early

Here’s our documentation on warmup in DXP : 🔗 https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/warming-up-sites What I didn...

dada | Sep 29, 2025

Creating Opal Tools for Stott Robots Handler

This summer, the Netcel Development team and I took part in Optimizely’s Opal Hackathon. The challenge from Optimizely was to extend Opal’s abiliti...

Mark Stott | Sep 28, 2025

Integrating Commerce Search v3 (Vertex AI) with Optimizely Configured Commerce

Introduction This blog provides a technical guide for integrating Commerce Search v3, which leverages Google Cloud's Vertex AI Search, into an...

Vaibhav | Sep 27, 2025

A day in the life of an Optimizely MVP - Opti Graph Extensions add-on v1.0.0 released

I am pleased to announce that the official v1.0.0 of the Opti Graph Extensions add-on has now been released and is generally available. Refer to my...

Graham Carr | Sep 25, 2025