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Tabbable

Tabbable

Maintain a consistent tab order for tabbable elements.

Tabbable

Ensure a smooth tab navigation experience within your editor with the Tabbable plugin.
Properly handle tab orders for void nodes, allowing for seamless navigation and interaction. Without this plugin, DOM elements inside void nodes come after the editor in the tab order.

This is a void element.



This is a void element.


Place your cursor here and try pressing tab or shift+tab.
  • List item 1
  • List item 2
  • List item 3
if (true) {
// <- Place cursor at start of line and press tab
}
In this example, the plugin is disabled when the cursor is inside a list or a code block. You can customise this using the query option.

This is a void element.


When you press tab at the end of the editor, the focus should go to the button below.

Features

  • Ensures consistent tab order between tabbable elements in the editor.

Installation

npm install @udecode/plate-tabbable

Usage

import { createTabbablePlugin } from '@udecode/plate-tabbable';
 
const plugins = [
  // ...otherPlugins,
  createTabbablePlugin(),
];

Conflicts with other plugins

The Tabbable plugin may cause issues with other plugins that handle the Tab key, such as:

  • Lists
  • Code blocks
  • Indent plugin

Use the query option to disable the Tabbable plugin when the Tab key should be handled by another plugin:

query: (editor) => {
  const inList = findNode(editor, { match: { type: ELEMENT_LI } });
  const inCodeBlock = findNode(editor, { match: { type: ELEMENT_CODE_BLOCK } });
  return !inList && !inCodeBlock;
},

Alternatively, if you're using the Indent plugin, you can enable the Tabbable plugin only when a specific type of node is selected, such as voids:

query: (editor) => !!findNode(editor, {
  match: (node) => isVoid(editor, node),
}),

Non-void Slate nodes

One TabbableEntry will be created for each tabbable DOM element in the editor, as determined using the tabbable NPM package. The list of tabbables is then filtered using isTabbable.

By default, isTabbable only returns true for entries inside void Slate nodes. You can override isTabbable to add support for DOM elements contained in other types of Slate node.

// Enable tabbable DOM elements inside CUSTOM_ELEMENT
isTabbable: (editor, tabbableEntry) => (
  tabbableEntry.slateNode.type === CUSTOM_ELEMENT ||
  isVoid(editor, tabbableEntry.slateNode)
),

DOM elements outside the editor

In some circumstances, you may want to allow users to tab from the editor to a DOM element rendered outside the editor, such as an interactive popover.

To do this, override insertTabbableEntries to return an array of TabbableEntry objects, one for each DOM element outside the editor that you want to include in the tabbable list. The slateNode and path of the TabbableEntry should refer to the Slate node the user's cursor will be inside when the DOM element should be tabbable to. For example, if the DOM element appears when a link is selected, the slateNode and path should be that of the link.

Set the globalEventListener option to true to make sure the Tabbable plugin is able to return the user's focus to the editor.

// Add buttons inside .my-popover to the list of tabbables
globalEventListener: true,
insertTabbableEntries: (editor) => {
  const [selectedNode, selectedNodePath] = getNodeEntry(editor, editor.selection);
 
  return [
    ...document.querySelectorAll('.my-popover > button'),
  ].map((domNode) => ({
    domNode,
    slateNode: selectedNode,
    path: selectedNodePath,
  }));
},

API

createTabbablePlugin

Options

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    Dynamically enables or disables the plugin. Returns true by default.

    • Default: () => true

    Determines if the plugin adds its event listener to the document instead of the editor, which allows it to capture events from outside the editor.

    • Default: false

    Adds additional tabbable entries to the list of tabbable elements. Useful for adding tabbables that are not contained within the editor. It ignores isTabbable.

    • Default: () => []

    Determines whether an element should be included in the tabbable list. Returns true if the tabbableEntry's slateNode is void.

    • Default: (editor, tabbableEntry) => isVoid(editor, tabbableEntry.slateNode)

TabbableEntry

Defines the properties of a tabbable entry.

Attributes

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    The HTML element that represents the tabbable entry.

    The corresponding Slate node of the tabbable entry.

    The path to the Slate node in the Slate document.