@portabletext/plugin-input-rule

Easily configure Input Rules in the Portable Text Editor

1. How do you implement undo functionality correctly?
2. What about smart undo with Backspace?
3. Have you considered insert.text events that carry more than one character? (Android, anyone?)

This is why this plugin exists. It brings the concept of "Input Rules" to the Portable Text Editor, allowing you to write text transformation logic as if they were Behaviors, without worrying about low-level details:

import type {EditorSchema} from '@portabletext/editor'
import {raise} from '@portabletext/editor/behaviors'
import {getPreviousInlineObject} from '@portabletext/editor/selectors'
import {defineInputRule} from '@portabletext/plugin-input-rule'

const unorderedListRule = defineInputRule({
  // Listen for a RegExp pattern instead of a raw event
  on: /^(-|\*) /,
  // The `event` carries useful information like the offsets of RegExp matches
  // as well as information about the focused text block
  guard: ({snapshot, event}) => {
    // In theory, an Input Rule could return multiple matches, but in this
    // case we only expect one
    const match = event.matches.at(0)

    if (!match) {
      return false
    }

    return {match}
  },
  actions: [
    ({event}, {match}) => [
      // Turn the text block into a paragraph
      raise({
        type: 'block.unset',
        props: ['style'],
        at: event.focusBlock.path,
      }),
      // Then, turn it into a list item
      raise({
        type: 'block.set',
        props: {
          listItem: 'bullet',
          level: event.focusBlock.node.level ?? 1,
        },
        at: event.focusBlock.path,
      }),
      // Finally, delete the matched text
      raise({
        type: 'delete',
        at: match.targetOffsets,
      }),
    ],
  ],
})

export function MyMarkdownPlugin() {
  return <InputRulePlugin rules={[unorderedListRule]} />
}

💡 Tip: The @portabletext/plugin-markdown-shortcuts package is already built using Input Rules and provides common markdown shortcuts out of the box.

Text Transformation Rules

Text transformations are so common that the plugin provides a high-level defineTextTransformRule helper to configure them without any boilerplate:

const emDashRule = defineTextTransformRule({
  on: /--/,
  transform: () => '—',
})

export function MyTypographyPlugin() {
  return <InputRulePlugin rules={[emDashRule]} />
}

In fact, the production-ready @portabletext/plugin-typography is built on top of Input Rules and comes packed with common text transformations like this.

Advanced Examples

Input Rules can handle more complex transformations. Here are two advanced examples:

1. Markdown Link: Automatically convert [text](url) syntax into proper links
2. Stock Ticker: Convert {SYMBOL} patterns into stock ticker objects

Markdown Link Rule

This example shows how to convert markdown-style link syntax [text](url) into proper link annotations:

const markdownLinkRule = defineInputRule({
  on: /\[(.+)]\((.+)\)/,
  actions: [
    ({snapshot, event}) => {
      const newText = event.textBefore + event.textInserted
      let textLengthDelta = 0
      const actions: Array<BehaviorAction> = []

      for (const match of event.matches.reverse()) {
        const textMatch = match.groupMatches.at(0)
        const hrefMatch = match.groupMatches.at(1)

        if (textMatch === undefined || hrefMatch === undefined) {
          continue
        }

        textLengthDelta =
          textLengthDelta -
          (match.targetOffsets.focus.offset -
            match.targetOffsets.anchor.offset -
            textMatch.text.length)

        const leftSideOffsets = {
          anchor: match.targetOffsets.anchor,
          focus: textMatch.targetOffsets.anchor,
        }
        const rightSideOffsets = {
          anchor: textMatch.targetOffsets.focus,
          focus: match.targetOffsets.focus,
        }

        actions.push(
          raise({
            type: 'select',
            at: textMatch.targetOffsets,
          }),
        )
        actions.push(
          raise({
            type: 'annotation.add',
            annotation: {
              name: 'link',
              value: {
                href: hrefMatch.text,
              },
            },
          }),
        )
        actions.push(
          raise({
            type: 'delete',
            at: rightSideOffsets,
          }),
        )
        actions.push(
          raise({
            type: 'delete',
            at: leftSideOffsets,
          }),
        )
      }

      const endCaretPosition = {
        path: event.focusBlock.path,
        offset: newText.length - textLengthDelta * -1,
      }

      return [
        ...actions,
        raise({
          type: 'select',
          at: {
            anchor: endCaretPosition,
            focus: endCaretPosition,
          },
        }),
      ]
    },
  ],
})

Stock Ticker Rule

This example demonstrates how to convert text patterns like {AAPL} into custom inline objects:

const stockTickerRule = defineInputRule({
  on: /\{(.+)\}/,
  guard: ({snapshot, event}) => {
    const match = event.matches.at(0)

    if (!match) {
      return false
    }

    const symbolMatch = match.groupMatches.at(0)

    if (symbolMatch === undefined) {
      return false
    }

    return {match, symbolMatch}
  },
  actions: [
    ({snapshot, event}, {match, symbolMatch}) => {
      const stockTickerKey = snapshot.context.keyGenerator()

      return [
        raise({
          type: 'delete',
          at: match.targetOffsets,
        }),
        raise({
          type: 'insert.child',
          child: {
            _key: stockTickerKey,
            _type: 'stock-ticker',
            symbol: symbolMatch.text,
          },
        }),
        raise({
          type: 'select',
          at: {
            anchor: {
              path: [
                {_key: event.focusBlock.node._key},
                'children',
                {_key: stockTickerKey},
              ],
              offset: 0,
            },
            focus: {
              path: [
                {_key: event.focusBlock.node._key},
                'children',
                {_key: stockTickerKey},
              ],
              offset: 0,
            },
          },
        }),
      ]
    },
  ],
})