draftjs how to initiate an editor with content

There has been some API changes, for clarity these examples uses latest API which is v0.10.0.

There are many ways but basically you got three options depending on whether you want to use plain text, styled text or html markup for content resource.

What plain text is obvious but for styled text, you need to use either serialized javasript object or html markup.

Lets start with plain text example:

import {Editor, EditorState} from 'draft-js';

class MyEditor extends Component{

  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    const plainText = 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.';
    const content = ContentState.createFromText(plainText);

    this.state = { editorState: EditorState.createWithContent(content)};

    this.onChange = (editorState) => {
      this.setState({editorState});
    }
  }
  render(){
    return(
      <Editor
        editorState={this.state.editorState}
        onChange={this.onChange}
      />
    )
  }
}

For importing styled content Draft.js provides convertFromRaw and convertFromHTML utility functions.

convertFromRaw function takes raw javascript object as parameter. Here, we are using a JSON stringified javascript object as content source:

class MyEditor extends Component{

  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    const rawJsText = `{
      "entityMap": {},
      "blocks": [
        {
          "key": "e4brl",
          "text": "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.",
          "type": "unstyled",
          "depth": 0,
          "inlineStyleRanges": [
            {
              "offset": 0,
              "length": 11,
              "style": "BOLD"
            },
            {
              "offset": 28,
              "length": 29,
              "style": "BOLD"
            },
            {
              "offset": 12,
              "length": 15,
              "style": "ITALIC"
            },
            {
              "offset": 28,
              "length": 28,
              "style": "ITALIC"
            }
          ],
          "entityRanges": [],
          "data": {}
        },
        {
          "key": "3bflg",
          "text": "Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor.",
          "type": "unstyled",
          "depth": 0,
          "inlineStyleRanges": [],
          "entityRanges": [],
          "data": {}
        }
      ]
    }`;

    const content  = convertFromRaw(JSON.parse(rawJsText));
    this.state = { editorState: EditorState.createWithContent(content)};

    this.onChange = (editorState) => {
      this.setState({editorState});
    }
  }
  render(){
    return(
      <Editor
        editorState={this.state.editorState}
        onChange={this.onChange}
      />
    )
  }
}

Draft.js provides convertToRaw function so that you can convert your editor's state to raw javascript object for long term storage.

And lastly, here how you do it with html markup:

class MyEditor extends Component{

  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    const html = `<p>Lorem ipsum <b>dolor</b> sit amet, <i>consectetuer adipiscing elit.</i></p>
      <p>Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. <b><i>Aenean massa.</i></b></p>`;

      const blocksFromHTML = convertFromHTML(html);
      const content = ContentState.createFromBlockArray(
        blocksFromHTML.contentBlocks,
        blocksFromHTML.entityMap
      );

    this.state = { editorState: EditorState.createWithContent(content)};

    this.onChange = (editorState) => {
      this.setState({editorState});
    }
  }
  render(){
    return(
      <Editor
        editorState={this.state.editorState}
        onChange={this.onChange}
      />
    )
  }
}

The first argument to EditorState.createWithContent is a ContentState, not a string. You need to import ContentState

var EditorState = Draft.EditorState;
var ContentState = Draft.ContentState;

Use ContentState.createFromText And pass the result to EditorState.createWithContent.

return {
  editorState: EditorState.createWithContent(ContentState.createFromText('Hello'))
};

I've created a set of packages for DraftJS to help with importing and exporting content (HTML/Markdown). I use these in my project react-rte. The one you're probably looking for is: draft-js-import-html on npm.

npm install draft-js-import-html

An example of how you might use it:

var stateFromHTML = require('draft-js-import-html').stateFromHTML;
var EditorState = Draft.EditorState;

var RichEditor = React.createClass({
  getInitialState() {
    let contentState = stateFromHTML('<p>Hello</p>');
    return {
      editorState: EditorState.createWithContent(contentState)
    };
  }
});

The modules I've published are:

• draft-js-import-html
• draft-js-export-html
• draft-js-import-markdown
• draft-js-export-markdown