Help plugin

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

Tab display name Tab configuration name Purpose

Handy shortcuts

shortcuts

Presents keyboard shortcuts available in the TinyMCE editor.

Keyboard Navigation

keyboardnav

Documents the keyboard-based options for navigating and controlling the entire TinyMCE editor.

Plugins

plugins

Lists the installed plugins for the TinyMCE instance, with links to the relevant TinyMCE documentation.

Also presents a list of available TinyMCE Premium plugins.

Version

versions

Displays the TinyMCE version.

The TinyMCE Help dialog can also be shown by pressing a keyboard shortcut.

Action Windows or Linux macOS

Open the TinyMCE Help dialog

Alt+0

⌥+0

As of TinyMCE 6.7, the keyboard shortcut that opens the TinyMCE Help dialog displays, by default, in the TinyMCE status bar.

Basic setup

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

Options

help_accessibility

This feature is only available for TinyMCE 6.7 and later.

When the Help plugin is loaded, the TinyMCE editor displays the keyboard shortcut for accessing the Help dialog in the TinyMCE status bar by default.

The help_accessibility option allows for this display to be turned off.

Type: Boolean

Possible values: true, false

Default value: true

Example: turning help_accessibility off

tinymce.init({
  selector: "textarea",  // change this value according to your html
  plugins: "help",
  help_accessibility: false,
});

Example: explicitly turning help_accessibility on

The help_accessibility option is set to true by default when the Help plugin is loaded.

It is not necessary, but may be useful, to explicitly set the option to true.

tinymce.init({
  selector: "textarea",  // change this value according to your html
  plugins: "help",
  help_accessibility: true,
});

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 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: (editor) => {
    // on editor init, add a tab called custom2
    editor.on('init', () => {
      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: () => {
        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:

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 TinyMCE command.

Command Description

mceHelp

Opens the editor Help dialog.
Example
tinymce.activeEditor.execCommand('mceHelp');