Rich Text

A format for representing rich text documents and changes. It aimes to be intuitive and human readable with the ability to express any change necessary to deal with rich text. A document can also be expressed with this format--as the change from an empty document.

Quick Example

var delta = new Delta([
  { insert: 'Gandalf', attributes: { bold: true } },
  { insert: ' the ' },
  { insert: 'Grey', attributes: { color: '#ccc' } }
]);

// Keep the first 12 characters, delete the next 4, and insert a white 'White'
var death = new Delta().retain(12)
                       .delete(4)
                       .insert('White', { color: '#fff' });
// this produces:
// {
//   ops: [
//     { retain: 12 },
//     { delete: '4 ' },
//     { insert: 'White', attributes: { color: '#fff' } }
//   ]
// }

delta.compose(death);
// delta is now:
// {
//   ops: [
//     { insert: 'Gandalf ', attributes: { bold: true } },
//     { insert: 'the ' },
//     { insert: 'White', attributes: { color: '#fff' } }
//   ]
// }

This format is suitable for Operational Transform and defines several functions to support this use case.

Contents

Operations

• insert
• delete
• retain

Deltas

• constructor
• insert
• delete
• retain
• length
• slice
• compose
• transform

Documents

• diff

Operations

Operations describe a singular change to a document. They can be an insert, delete or retain. Note operations do not take an index. They always describe the change at the current index. Use retains to "keep" or "skip" certain parts of the document.

Insert Operation

Insert operations have an insert key defined. A String value represents inserting text. A Number value represents inserting an embed, with the value corresponding to an embed type (such as an image or video).

Here we will use 1 to represent images and 2 to represent videos, but your application can choose whatever mapping is convenient.

In both cases of text and embeds, an optional attributes key can be defined with an Object to describe additonal formatting information. Formats can be changed by the retain operation.

// Insert a bolded "Text"
{ insert: "Text", attributes: { bold: true } }

// Insert a link
{ insert: "Google", attributes: { href: 'https://www.google.com' } }

// Insert an image
{
  insert: 1,
  attributes: {
    alt: "Lab Octocat",
    src: 'https://octodex.github.com/images/labtocat.png'
  }
}

// Insert a video
{
  insert: 2,
  attributes: {
    src: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg",
    width: 420,
    height: 315
  }
}

Delete Operation

Delete operations have a Number delete key defined representing the number of characters to delete. All embeds have a length of 1.

// Delete the next 10 characters
{ delete: 10 }

Retain Operation

Retain operations have a Number retain key defined representing the number of characters to keep (other libraries might use the name keep or skip). An optional attributes key can be defined with an Object to describe formatting changes to the character range. A value of null in the attributes Object represents removal of that key.

Note: It is not necessary to retain the last characters of a document as this is implied.

// Keep the next 5 characters
{ retain: 5 }

// Keep and bold the next 5 characters
{ retain: 5, attributes: { bold: true } }

// Keep and unbold the next 5 characters
// More specifically, remove the bold key in the attributes Object
// in the next 5 characters
{ retain: 5, attributes: { bold: null } }

Deltas

A Delta is made up of an array of operations. Unless otherwise specified all methods are self modifying and return this for chainability.

All methods also maintain the property that Deltas are represented in the most compact form. For example two consecutive insert operations of plain text will be merged into one.

---

constructor

Creates a new Delta object.

Methods

• new Delta()
• new Delta(ops)
• new Delta(delta)

Parameters

• ops - Array of operations
• delta - Object with an ops key set to an array of operations

Note: No validity/sanity check is performed when constructed with ops or delta. The new delta's internal ops array will also be assigned to ops or delta.ops without deep copying.

Example

var delta = new Delta([
  { insert: 'Hello World' },
  { insert: '!', attributes: { bold: true }}
]);

var packet = JSON.stringify(delta);

var other = new Delta(JSON.parse(packet));

var chained = new Delta().insert('Hello World').insert('!', { bold: true });

---

insert()

Appends an insert operation.

Methods

• insert(text, attributes)
• insert(embed, attributes)

Parameters

• text - String representing text to insert
• embed - Number representing embed type to insert
• attributes - Optional attributes to apply

Example

delta.insert('Text', { bold: true, color: '#ccc' });
delta.insert(1, { src: 'https://octodex.github.com/images/labtocat.png' });

---

delete()

Appends a delete operation.

Methods

• delete(length)

Parameters

• length - Number of characters to delete

Example

delta.delete(5);

---

retain()

Appends a retain operation.

Methods

• retain(length, attributes)

Parameters

• length - Number of characters to retain
• attributes - Optional attributes to apply

Example

delta.retain(4).retain(5, { color: '#0c6' });

---

length()

Returns length of Delta.

Methods

• length()

Example

new Delta().insert('Hello').length();  // Returns 5

new Delta().insert('A').retain(2).delete(1) // Returns 4

---

slice()

Returns copy of delta with subset of operations.

Methods

• slice()
• slice(start)
• slice(start, end)

Parameters

• start - Start index of subset, defaults to 0
• end - End index of subset, defaults to rest of operations

Example

var delta = new Delta().insert('Hello', { bold: true }).insert(' World');

// {
//   ops: [
//     { insert: 'Hello', attributes: { bold: true } },
//     { insert: ' World' }
//   ]
// }
var copy = delta.slice();

// { ops: [{ insert: 'World' }] }
var world = delta.slice(6);

// { ops: [{ insert: ' ' }] }
var space = delta.slice(5, 6);

---

compose()

Compose with another Delta, i.e. merge the operations of another Delta. This method is self modifying.

Methods

• compose(other)

Parameters

• other - Delta to compose

Example

var a = new Delta().insert('abc');
var b = new Delta().retain(1).delete(1);

a.compose(b);  // a == new Delta().insert('ac');

transform()

Transform against another Delta. This method is self modifying.

Methods

• transform(other, priority)
• transform(index) - Alias for transformPosition

Parameters

• other - Delta to transform
• priority - Boolean used to break ties

Example

var a = new Delta().insert('a');
var b = new Delta().insert('b');

a.transform(b, true);  // a == new Delta().retain(1).insert('b');

---

transformPosition()

Transform an index against the delta. Useful for representing cursor/selection positions.

Methods

• transformPosition(index)

Parameters

• index - index to transform

Example

var index = 12;
var transformedIndex = delta.transformPosition(index);

Documents

A Delta with only insert operations can be used to represent a rich text document. This can be thought of as a Delta applied to an empty document.

---

diff()

Calculates the difference between two documents expressed as a Delta.

Methods

• diff(other)

Parameters

• other - Document Delta to diff against

Example

var a = new Delta().insert('Hello');
var b = new Delta().insert('Hello!');

var diff = a.diff(b);  // { ops: [{ retain: 5 }, { insert: '!' }] }