[DEPR]: Legacy Text Editor

[KristinAoki]

Please first read the parent DEPR ticket, [DEPR]: All Legacy Studio Frontends.

RFC Start Date

2025-02-19

Target Plan Acceptance Date

2025-03-14

Target Transition Unblocked Date

2025-03-14

Target Breaking Changes Unblocked Date

2025-09-14

Earliest Open edX Named Release Without This Functionality

Deprecated but available (via opt-out) in Teak. Opting out will also require opting out of the new Unit editor and using the deprecated legacy Unit editor, which will lack some Content Libraries features.

Full removal lands in Ulmo.

Rationale

The legacy Text Editor has been replaced by a React-based Text editor for multiple releases. The toggle new_core_editors.use_new_text_editor has been toggled on in Tutor since at least Redwood.

Furthermore, the EditImageModal component that is used it the legacy Text Editor is also set for deprecation and removal (openedx-unsupported/studio-frontend#381). To prevent errors and regression while using the legacy Text Editor, it is best to remove it completely from the platform.

Removal

1. Remove toggle for switching between editors
2. Remove dependency on toggle for text editor redirect and make it always true
3. Remove dependencies on toggles when fetching the course authoring mfe url

Replacement

This legacy editor is replaced by the frontend-lib-content-components/TextEditor. This text editor is a React based component and is rendered in the Course Authoring MFE.

Additional Info

Pending the restoration of the "floating" editors:

• Epic 15: Editors are viewed in modals in Studio (parity with library component editing) frontend-app-authoring#1644

[felipemontoya]

The removal of the ENABLE_NEW_TEXT_EDITOR_FLAG was done at the frontend in this PR openedx/frontend-app-authoring#951. This happened due to a bug before the redwood cut.

[kdmccormick]

If you're watching the issue, then FYI there is some conversation about StudioEditableXBlockMixin going on in the related forum thread: https://discuss.openedx.org/t/deprecation-removal-text-editor-in-edx-platform-34692

[kdmccormick]

Based on the forum discussion, it looks like there are no blockers to removing this. @KristinAoki are we ready to move this to Accepted?

[kdmccormick]

@jristau1984 @robrap Technically the 6-month grace period for this would end Nov 17th. IIRC, the new text editor is already fulled rolled out on edX.org and Edge. Given that, do you have any opposition to waiving the rest of the grace period and making this available for removal?

@pdpinch , same question for you-- Would you have any opposition to the legacy Text component (ie, HTMLBlock) editor being removed on the master branch of edx-platform at this point?

Two notes:

• This deprecation is just for the old HTMLBlock editor. The base tinyMCE editor, which is used in a couple other parts of edx-platform, would remain supported.
• This deprecation would unblock the removal of the old studio-frontend repository, which is 90% unused and may be a burden in the Node 20 upgrade if we can't remove it before Sumac.

[jristau1984]

@kdmccormick I believe the legacy edtior is still avilable through the container page (directly navigable, and available thru the library block experience?), so removing it would have side effects.

[kdmccormick]

@jristau1984 Both in a Tutor environment and in edX Stage, I made a library with a text component, and then referenced that library in a course. When I entered the library_container view and edited the text component, it fired up the new editor for me: https://studio.stage.edx.org/container/block-v1:edx+tmccormack-test+1+type@library_content+block@997ed8d15d0144c9895ce87f6140ec9b#block-v1:edx+tmccormack-test+1+type@html+block@e53730f804cc4bd2205f

[robrap]

@jristau1984: Could we use observability to confirm if we have any usage of the deprecated code?