PnP Rich Text Editor in the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) webpart

This article provide steps to implement the PnP Rich Text Editor in the SharePoint Framework (SPFx), generally PnP rich text editor provides rich text editing and display capability.

Create a new web part project

Open power shell and run following comment to create a new web part by running the Yeoman SharePoint Generator

yo @microsoft/sharepoint

When prompted:

Enter the webpart name as your solution name, and then select Enter.
Select Create a subfolder with solution name for where to place the files.
Select Y to allow the solution to be deployed to all sites immediately.
Select N on the question if solution contains unique permissions.
Select WebPart as the client-side component type to be created.

The next set of prompts ask for specific information about your web part:

Enter your web part name, and then select Enter.
Enter your web part description, and then select Enter.
Select React framework as the framework you would like to use, and then select Enter.

Start Visual Studio Code (or your favorite code editor) within the context of the newly created project folder.

cd .\web part name\
code .

Install the library and required dependencies

npm install @pnp/sp --save
npm install @pnp/spfx-controls-react --save --save-exact

Import the library into your application, update constructor, and access the root sp object in render for PnPjs libraries.

sp.setup({spfxContext: this.props.spcontect});

Configure the custom properties

Create a new source code file under the src\webparts\spfxPnpDatetimepicker\components\ folder of the solution. Call the new file I<web part name>State.ts and use it to create a TypeScript Interface

export interface ISpfxPnpRichtextState {
  description: string;
  SuccessMessage: string;
}

In addition, you need to update the render method of the client-side web part to create a properly configured instance of the React component for rendering. The following code shows the updated method definition. we getting the data and assign in the web part class just because avoid HTML bind issue in the rich text control  

  protected onInit() {
    sp.setup({
      spfxContext: this.context
    });
    return Promise.resolve<void>();
  }
  public async render() {
    const item: any = await sp.web.lists.getByTitle("Teams").items.getById(1).get();
    const element: React.ReactElement<ISpfxPnpRichtextProps> = React.createElement(
      SpfxPnpRichtext,
      {
        description: this.properties.description,
        context: this.context,
        richtext: item.Description
      }
    );
    ReactDom.render(element, this.domElement);
  }

Replace below into props interface

export interface ISpfxPnpRichtextProps {
  description: string;
  context: any | null;
  richtext: string;
}

Update the SpfxPnpRichtext.tsx file. First, add some import statements to import the types you defined earlier. Notice the import for I<web part name>Props and I<web part name>State. There are also some imports for the PnP components used to render the UI of the PnP React component and pnp sp imports.

import * as React from 'react';
import styles from './SpfxPnpRichtext.module.scss';
import { ISpfxPnpRichtextProps } from './ISpfxPnpRichtextProps';
import { ISpfxPnpRichtextState } from './ISpfxPnpRichtextState';
import { sp } from "@pnp/sp";
import { RichText } from "@pnp/spfx-controls-react/lib/RichText";
import { autobind } from 'office-ui-fabric-react/lib/Utilities';
import "@pnp/sp/webs";
import "@pnp/sp/lists";
import "@pnp/sp/items";

Replace this render function with the following code.

  public render(): React.ReactElement<ISpfxPnpRichtextProps> {
    let tamil = (this.state.description === '') ? 'Dummy' : this.state.description;
    return (
      <div className={styles.spfxPnpRichtext}>
        <RichText isEditMode={true} value={this.state.description} onChange={this._onTextChange} />
        <br></br>
        <button className={styles.button} onClick={this._updateDescription}>Save</button>
        <br></br>
        <br></br>
        <label className={styles.label}>{this.state.SuccessMessage}</label>
      </div>
    );
  }

Update the React component type declaration and add a constructor, as shown in the following example.

export default class SpfxPnpRichtext extends React.Component<ISpfxPnpRichtextProps, ISpfxPnpRichtextState> {
  constructor(props: ISpfxPnpRichtextProps, state: ISpfxPnpRichtextState) {
    super(props);
    sp.setup({
      spfxContext: this.props.context
    });
    this.state = { SuccessMessage: '', description: '' };
  }

place the below code inside the react component code, these functions using PnPjs to save the values into the SharePoint list item

 @autobind
  private async _updateDescription() {
    console.log(this.state.description);
    const updatedItem = await sp.web.lists.getByTitle("Teams").items.getById(1).update(
      {
        Description: this.state.description
      });
    this.setState({ SuccessMessage: 'Successfully saved' });
  }

Deploy the solution

You’re now ready to build, bundle, package, and deploy the solution.

Run the gulp commands to verify that the solution builds correctly.

gulp build

Use the following command to bundle and package the solution.

gulp bundle --ship
gulp package-solution --ship

Browse to the app catalog of your target tenant and upload the solution package. You can find the solution package under the sharepoint/solution folder of your solution. It is the .sppkg file. After you upload the solution package in the app catalog. you can find and the web part anywhere across the tenant.

Sharing is caring!

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know in the comments section.
Happy coding!!!

14 thoughts on “PnP Rich Text Editor in the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) webpart

  1. Hi. Can you please check your code. I’ve created this without errors and it only produces a thin box with only a Description Field. There is no Rich Text Control and no Save button displays

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Hello, Thanks for the great article.

    Everything works fine. However, when I type inside the RichText editor, I loose focus. As if the component is re-rendering after updating the state.

    Is there a workaround for this problem?

    Thanks

    Like

  3. Thanks, Ravichandran, there was a difference in the onChange event, and now it works.

    However, I sometimes notice the output of the RichText shows, and other times it doesn’t. I tried to delete the cache, still had random behavior.

    Is it possible to share with you the source code and have a quick look? Thanks

    Like

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