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NOTE: TinyMCE 5 reached End of Support in April 2023. No more bug fixes, security updates, or new features will be introduced to TinyMCE 5. We recommend you upgrade to TinyMCE 6 or consider TinyMCE 5 Long Term Support (LTS) if you need more time.

Help plugin

Shows the help dialog.

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+ toolbar button + menu item

The help plugin adds a button and/or menu item that opens a dialog showing two tabs:

  • Handy shortcuts that explains some nice-to-know keyboard shortcuts
  • Plugin list that shows which plugins that have been installed, with links to the relevant documentation pages if available, and a list of available premium plugins.

In the footer of the dialog you can also see which version of TinyMCE you are using.

The help dialog can also be shown by pressing the keyboard shortcut Alt + 0.

Basic setup

tinymce.init({
  selector: 'textarea',  // change this value according to your HTML
  plugins: 'help',
  toolbar: 'help'
});

Config Options

help_tabs

This option allows you to specify which tabs the Help dialog should show, and in what order. The default TinyMCE tabs are called shortcuts, keyboardnav, plugins and versions. These tabs can be overwritten by providing a new tab panel specification with the same name, and new tabs can be added by registering a tab panel with a new name. New tabs can be registered in the help_tabs configuration or at initialization or runtime using the addTab API method.

If help_tabs is configured, only tabs named in help_tabs will be displayed. Any tabs defined using addTab that are not named in help_tabs will be ignored.

If help_tabs is not configured, any tabs defined using addTab will be displayed after the default tabs.

Type: Array

Default Value: ['shortcuts', 'keyboardnav', 'plugins', 'versions']

Example: Using help_tabs

tinymce.init({
  selector: 'textarea',
  plugins: 'help link table paste code emoticons',
  toolbar: 'help addTab',
  help_tabs: [
    'shortcuts', // the default shortcuts tab
    'keyboardnav', // the default keyboard navigation tab
    'plugins', // the default plugins tab
    {
      name: 'custom1', // new tab called custom1
      title: 'Custom Tab 1',
      items: [
        {
          type: 'htmlpanel',
          html: '<p>This is a custom tab</p>',
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      name: 'versions', // override the default versions tab
      title: 'Custom Versions',
      items: [
        {
          type: 'htmlpanel',
          html: 'This is a custom versions panel.'
        }
      ]
    },
    'custom2', // new tab custom2 as defined on init in setup() below
    'custom3' // new tab custom3 as defined on button click in setup() below
  ],
  setup: function(editor) {
    // on editor init, add a tab called custom2
    editor.on('init', function() {
      editor.plugins.help.addTab({
        name: 'custom2',
        title: 'Custom Tab 2',
        items: [
          {
            type: 'htmlpanel',
            html: '<p>This is another custom tab</p>',
          }
        ]}
      );
    });

    // add a toolbar button that when clicked adds a tab called custom3
    editor.ui.registry.addButton('addTab', {
      text: 'Add tab',
      onAction: function() {
        editor.plugins.help.addTab({
          name: 'custom3',
          title: 'Custom Tab 3',
          items: [
            {
              type: 'htmlpanel',
              html: '<p>This is yet another custom tab</p>',
            }
          ]
        });
      }
    });
  }
});

API

Name Arguments Description
addTab tabSpec: TabPanel Register a tab for the Help dialog

Example: Using the addTab API

tinymce.activeEditor.plugins.help.addTab({
  name: 'custom',
  title: 'My Custom Tab',
  items: [
    {
      type: 'htmlpanel',
      html: '<p>This is a custom tab</p>',
    }
  ]
});

Exposing metadata for the help plugin

For information on how to expose metadata from you custom plugin to add it to the Installed plugins list in the Help plugin, see the Creating a Plugin page.

Toolbar buttons

The Help plugin provides the following toolbar buttons:

Toolbar button identifier Description
help Opens the help dialog

These toolbar buttons can be added to the editor using:

Menu items

The Help plugin provides the following menu items:

Menu item identifier Default Menu Location Description
help Help Opens the help dialog.

These menu items can be added to the editor using:

Commands

The Help plugin provides the following JavaScript command.

Command Description
mceHelp Opens the editor Help dialog.

Example

tinymce.activeEditor.execCommand('mceHelp');

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Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.