Mastering Multiple React Quill Editors: A Comprehensive Guide

Handling Multiple React Quill Editors in a React Application

As a newcomer to React and the React Quill library, one common hurdle you might face is managing multiple text editors on a single page efficiently. Let me walk you through a common issue I, too, encountered and how I resolved it.

The Issue with Referencing Quill Editors

Initially, I decided to give each Quill editor a unique ID, thinking I could easily reference them directly to fetch their content when needed—similar to how you might think about traditionally handling DOM elements. For instance, I wanted users to interact with four different editors and upon a certain action (like pressing a save button), I needed to pull text and content from these editors.

Here’s a modified portion of the struggle. I had created multiple <ReactQuill> components, each tagged with a unique ID:

<ReactQuill id="editor1" theme="snow" ... />
<ReactQuill id="editor2" theme="snow" ... />
<ReactQuill id="editor3" theme="snow" ... />
<ReactQuill id="editor4" theme="snow" ... />

Then also in my handleSave function, I attempted to access these editors using their IDs, but I encountered errors stating: “Cannot read properties of undefined”.

Understanding the Problem

It turns out that just providing an ID to a React Quill component doesn’t necessarily allow us to refer to the editor instances directly via these IDs. React and React Quill don’t quite work like traditional JavaScript when it comes to the DOM. Instead, React maintains a virtual DOM, and we, as developers, are supposed to manage state and references more “React-ively”.

Using Refs to Access Quill Instances

The solution lies in utilizing React’s refs. A ref provides a way to access the actual DOM nodes or React elements created in the render method. Here’s how I adjusted my approach by using refs:

1. Create Refs: First, create a ref for each editor.

1. Attach the Refs to React Quill Editors: Next, attach these refs to the corresponding ReactQuill component.

1. Access Editor Methods through these Refs: Use these refs to call methods like getText() and getContent().

Here’s an example implementation:

import React, { useRef } from 'react';
import ReactQuill from 'react-quill';

function MyComponent() {
  const editor1Ref = useRef(null);
  const editor2Ref = useRef(null);
  const editor3Ref = useRef(null);
  const editor4Ref = useRef(null);

  const handleSave = async () => {
    if (editor1Ref.current) {
      console.log("Editor 1 Text:", editor1Ref.current.getEditor().getText());
      console.log("Editor 1 Content:", editor1Ref.current.getEditor().getContents());
    }
    // Repeat for other refs
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <ReactQuill ref={editor1Ref} theme="snow" ... />
      <ReactQuill ref={editor2Ref} theme="snow" ... />
      <ReactQuill ref={editor3Ref} theme="snow" ... />
      <ReactQuill ref={editor4Ref} theme="snow" ... />
      <button onClick={handleSave}>Save</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Registering and Using Refs

In this setup, useRef is employed to create a mutable object which persists for the lifetime of the component. This is ideal for our case where the editor instances need to be accessed from event handlers or other parts of the component logic.

Conclusion

By switching from ID-based element selection to a ref-based approach, the process becomes much more aligned with React’s architecture and data flow methodologies. This not only solves the issue but also ensures that the application is robust and adheres to React’s best practices.

By implementing this method, I managed to quickly handle multiple instances of React Quill, making my application more efficient and cleaner in terms of state handling and DOM manipulation—a hallmark of well-structured React applications.