SimpleMDE - Markdown Editor

A drop-in JavaScript textarea replacement for writing beautiful and understandable Markdown. The WYSIWYG-esque editor allows users who may be less experienced with Markdown to use familiar toolbar buttons and shortcuts. In addition, the syntax is rendered while editing to clearly show the expected result. Headings are larger, emphasized words are italicized, links are underlined, etc. SimpleMDE is one of the first editors to feature both built-in autosaving and spell checking.

Demo

Why not a WYSIWYG editor or pure Markdown?

WYSIWYG editors that produce HTML are often complex and buggy. Markdown solves this problem in many ways, plus Markdown can be rendered natively on more platforms than HTML. However, Markdown is not a syntax that an average user will be familiar with, nor is it visually clear while editing. In otherwords, for an unfamiliar user, the syntax they write will make little sense until they click the preview button. SimpleMDE has been designed to bridge this gap for non-technical users who are less familiar with or just learning Markdown syntax.

Install

Via npm.

npm install simplemde --save

Via bower.

bower install simplemde --save

Via jsDelivr. Please note, jsDelivr may take a few days to update to the latest release.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/simplemde/latest/simplemde.min.css">
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/simplemde/latest/simplemde.min.js"></script>

Quick start

After installing, load SimpleMDE on the first textarea on a page

<script>
var simplemde = new SimpleMDE();
</script>

Using a specific textarea

Pure JavaScript method

<script>
var simplemde = new SimpleMDE({ element: document.getElementById("MyID") });
</script>

jQuery method

<script>
var simplemde = new SimpleMDE({ element: $("#MyID")[0] });
</script>

Get/set the content

simplemde.value();

simplemde.value("This text will appear in the editor");

Configuration

• autoDownloadFontAwesome: If set to true, force downloads Font Awesome (used for icons). If set to false, prevents downloading. Defaults to undefined, which will intelligently check whether Font Awesome has already been included, then download accordingly.
• autofocus: If set to true, autofocuses the editor. Defaults to false.
• autosave: Saves the text that's being written and will load it back in the future. It will forget the text when the form it's contained in is submitted.
  • enabled: If set to true, autosave the text. Defaults to false.
  • delay: Delay between saves, in milliseconds. Defaults to 10000 (10s).
  • uniqueId: You must set a unique string identifier so that SimpleMDE can autosave. Something that separates this from other instances of SimpleMDE elsewhere on your website.
• blockStyles: Customize how certain buttons that style blocks of text behave.
  • bold Can be set to ** or __. Defaults to **.
  • code Can be set to ``` or ~~~. Defaults to ```.
  • italic Can be set to * or _. Defaults to *.
• element: The DOM element for the textarea to use. Defaults to the first textarea on the page.
• forceSync: If set to true, force text changes made in SimpleMDE to be immediately stored in original textarea. Defaults to false.
• hideIcons: An array of icon names to hide. Can be used to hide specific icons shown by default without completely customizing the toolbar.
• indentWithTabs: If set to false, indent using spaces instead of tabs. Defaults to true.
• initialValue: If set, will customize the initial value of the editor.
• insertTexts: Customize how certain buttons that insert text behave. Takes an array with two elements. The first element will be the text inserted before the cursor or highlight, and the second element will be inserted after. For example, this is the default link value: ["[", "](http://)"].

// Most options demonstrate the non-default behavior
var simplemde = new SimpleMDE({
	autofocus: true,
	autosave: {
		enabled: true,
		uniqueId: "MyUniqueID",
		delay: 1000,
	},
	blockStyles: {
		bold: "__",
		italic: "_"
	},
	element: document.getElementById("MyID"),
	forceSync: true,
	hideIcons: ["guide", "heading"],
	indentWithTabs: false,
	initialValue: "Hello world!",
	insertTexts: {
		horizontalRule: ["", "\n\n-----\n\n"],
		image: ["![](http://", ")"],
		link: ["[", "](http://)"],
		table: ["", "\n\n| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |\n| -------- | -------- | -------- |\n| Text     | Text      | Text     |\n\n"],
	},
	lineWrapping: false,
	parsingConfig: {
		allowAtxHeaderWithoutSpace: true,
		strikethrough: false,
		underscoresBreakWords: true,
	},
	placeholder: "Type here...",
	previewRender: function(plainText) {
		return customMarkdownParser(plainText); // Returns HTML from a custom parser
	},
	previewRender: function(plainText, preview) { // Async method
		setTimeout(function(){
			preview.innerHTML = customMarkdownParser(plainText);
		}, 250);

		return "Loading...";
	},
	promptURLs: true,
	renderingConfig: {
		singleLineBreaks: false,
		codeSyntaxHighlighting: true,
	},
	shortcuts: {
		drawTable: "Cmd-Alt-T"
	},
	showIcons: ["code", "table"],
	spellChecker: false,
	status: false,
	status: ["autosave", "lines", "words", "cursor"], // Optional usage
	status: ["autosave", "lines", "words", "cursor", {
		className: "keystrokes",
		defaultValue: function(el) {
			this.keystrokes = 0;
			el.innerHTML = "0 Keystrokes";
		},
		onUpdate: function(el) {
			el.innerHTML = ++this.keystrokes + " Keystrokes";
		}
	}], // Another optional usage, with a custom status bar item that counts keystrokes
	styleSelectedText: false,
	tabSize: 4,
	toolbar: false,
	toolbarTips: false,
});

Toolbar icons

Below are the built-in toolbar icons (only some of which are enabled by default), which can be reorganized however you like. "Name" is the name of the icon, referenced in the JS. "Action" is either a function or a URL to open. "Class" is the class given to the icon. "Tooltip" is the small tooltip that appears via the title="" attribute. Note that shortcut hints are added automatically and reflect the specified action if it has a keybind assigned to it (i.e. with the value of action set to bold and that of tooltip set to Bold, the final text the user will see would be "Bold (Ctrl-B)").

Additionally, you can add a separator between any icons by adding "|" to the toolbar array.

Name	Action	TooltipClass
bold	toggleBold	Boldfa fa-bold
italic	toggleItalic	Italicfa fa-italic
strikethrough	toggleStrikethrough	Strikethroughfa fa-strikethrough
heading	toggleHeadingSmaller	Headingfa fa-header
heading-smaller	toggleHeadingSmaller	Smaller Headingfa fa-header
heading-bigger	toggleHeadingBigger	Bigger Headingfa fa-lg fa-header
heading-1	toggleHeading1	Big Headingfa fa-header fa-header-x fa-header-1
heading-2	toggleHeading2	Medium Headingfa fa-header fa-header-x fa-header-2
heading-3	toggleHeading3	Small Headingfa fa-header fa-header-x fa-header-3
code	toggleCodeBlock	Codefa fa-code
quote	toggleBlockquote	Quotefa fa-quote-left
unordered-list	toggleUnorderedList	Generic Listfa fa-list-ul
ordered-list	toggleOrderedList	Numbered Listfa fa-list-ol
clean-block	cleanBlock	Clean blockfa fa-eraser fa-clean-block
link	drawLink	Create Linkfa fa-link
image	drawImage	Insert Imagefa fa-picture-o

Customize the toolbar using the toolbar option like:

// Customize only the order of existing buttons
var simplemde = new SimpleMDE({
	toolbar: ["bold", "italic", "heading", "|", "quote"],
});

// Customize all information and/or add your own icons
var simplemde = new SimpleMDE({
	toolbar: [{
			name: "bold",
			action: SimpleMDE.toggleBold,
			className: "fa fa-bold",
			title: "Bold",
		},
		{
			name: "custom",
			action: function customFunction(editor){
				// Add your own code
			},
			className: "fa fa-star",
			title: "Custom Button",
		},
		"|", // Separator
		...
	],
});

Keyboard shortcuts

SimpleMDE comes with an array of predefined keyboard shortcuts, but they can be altered with a configuration option. The list of default ones is as follows:

Shortcut	Action
Cmd-'	"toggleBlockquote"
Cmd-B	"toggleBold"
Cmd-E	"cleanBlock"
Cmd-H	"toggleHeadingSmaller"
Cmd-I	"toggleItalic"
Cmd-K	"drawLink"
Cmd-L	"toggleUnorderedList"
Cmd-P	"togglePreview"
Cmd-Alt-C	"toggleCodeBlock"
Cmd-Alt-I	"drawImage"
Cmd-Alt-L	"