Is it possible to make a textarea an ACE editor?

Question

I saw a similar topics here, but I couldn't find an answer. I am trying to connect Ace editor to textarea, but unsuccessfully. Then I found that "ace works only on divs."

I prefer to connect editor to textarea, not to div. So, is it possible to connect Ace to textarea?

Thanks in advance!

not sure about Ace, but I know that CodeMirror has that capability. — Mosho, Apr 30 '14 at 00:45
@Mosho yes I know, I have tried CodeMirror, but thanx anyway for your answer. — Damjan Pavlica, Apr 30 '14 at 01:34

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 30 '14 at 07:25

This depends on what you want to do with the textarea after replacing it, but is easy to do with several lines of js

// create new ace instance
var editor = ace.edit(document.createElement("div"))
editor.session.setValue(textArea.value)
// set size
editor.container.style.height = textArea.clientHeight + "px";
editor.container.style.width = textArea.clientWidth + "px";
// replace textarea with the editor
textArea.parentNode.replaceChild(editor.container, textArea)
// trigger redraw of the editor
editor.resize()

and to replace editor with textarea

var value = editor.getValue()
var start = editor.session.doc.positionToIndex(editor.selection.getRange().start)
var end   = editor.session.doc.positionToIndex(editor.selection.getRange().end)
textArea.value = value
textArea.setSelectionRange(start, end)
editor.container.parentNode.replaceChild(textArea, editor.container)
editor.destroy()

you also can try to use textarea extension from ace https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/blob/master/lib/ace/ext/textarea.js

Is it possible to make a textarea an ACE editor?

1 Answers1