Multiple Cursors Module

[Joeao]

Multi cursor support was a feature I used on my project pre 1.0 and is great for use with frameworks such as YJS which allows concurrent editing by multiple users at the same time.

I look forward to the feature to be reintroduced now that 1.0 has officially launched and have set up this issue to track progress and so that people can offer their support to the reintroduction of a great feature.

[benbro]

Initial untested version of the multi-cursor module updated from 0.2:
https://github.com/benbro/quill/tree/multi-cursor

To be useful we probably need the authorship module too.

[sferoze]

@benbro I remember the authorship module from previous Quill.

I used it to show which edits where made by which person when 2 people having access to edit a specific document.

I lock it down so only one person can make an edit at a time though. works for what I need to do, so I don't need multiple cursors.

But still showing which edit was made by which user would be cool.

I remember the authorship module would add a class to contain the elements that were added by a user.

I wonder if the authorship module will be introduced as a separate plugin?

[mmacfadden]

I am interested in this as well. We don't have a ton of cycles this month, but we might be interested in contributing to bringing this module back, if it hasn't been picked up yet.

[mmacfadden]

@benbro Do you need any help?

[nateps]

Very excited about this feature being reimplemented.

As an improvement, would also be excellent if the feature supported displaying a selection range per cursor, similar to Google Docs.

[benbro]

@mmacfadden the multi-cursor module depends on the authorship module so you might want to update it to work with Quill 1.0.0
https://github.com/benbro/quill/blob/multi-cursor/modules/multi-cursor.js#L82
https://github.com/quilljs/quill/blob/0.20.1/src/modules/authorship.coffee

@nateps getBounds gives you a rectangle. To be able to display a selection range you need to break the selection into multiple rows and get the bounds of each part.

[mmacfadden]

@benbro I will take a look...

@nateps Agree. I think cursor, selection, and authorship make a nice collaborative experience. I am completely willing to look at all three. I am finishing up a few more tasks over the next week or two, but then I this becomes high on my priority list. Willing to dig in myself or help others.

[jhchen]

It's worth mentioning the reason cursors depended on authorship is because of this #746. Basically, if the user inserts a character next to the same character ie inserting a 'a' into 'aaaa', Quill does not know which position the insertion happened. Authorship can solve this because those existing "a"s would have an author associated, but the new "a" you just inserted would not (yet).

[sferoze]

Looks like first step is to update authorship module to work with 1.0

I am looking at the code here:

https://github.com/quilljs/quill/blob/0.20.1/src/modules/authorship.coffee

and comparing it with the docs here:

https://quilljs.com/docs/modules/

Changes I notice that the update will need.

Instead of Quill.registerModule its just Quill.register

We don't need to export the module.

Not really sure what else...

Am I looking at the right place in the docs on how to create a module for Quill 1.0?

[benbro]

Module guide:
http://quilljs.com/guides/building-a-custom-module/

You'll also need to make Quill handle the 'author-' class.

[sferoze]

@benbro ok cool thanks missed that guide.

So it looks like this is the minimum that's needed to make a Quill module

// Implement and register module
Quill.register('modules/counter', function(quill, options) {
  var container = document.querySelector('#counter');
  quill.on('text-change', function() {
    var text = quill.getText();
    // There are a couple issues with counting words
    // this way but we'll fix these later
    container.innerHTML = text.split(/\s+/).length;
  });
});

so after looking at the code here

https://github.com/quilljs/quill/blob/0.20.1/src/modules/authorship.coffee

It looks like everything in the constructor and all the functions will go into the register modules functions. The options are passed in so we can use that.

After quick looks looks like I could use the authorship code pretty much as is, and just adjust it to fit the new format.

[kminehart]

How's this looking? Haven't seen any commits for a while; I'd love to contribute.

[sferoze]

@kminehart the first step to get Multiple Cursors working is to get the authorship module to work.

#1049

@benbro has already ported the code from quill 0.2 to be compatible with the new Quill

But it has issues.

I've been working a lot with this issue because I am using the authorship module in my app and I have added a hack fix to patch the issue, but I am not sure if it will have unwanted side effects, although I haven't noticed any yet.

You can track the issue here: #1057

Basically the authorship module keeps track of who edited what content by wrapping the text in a span element with a class unique to that author.

But an issue with html5 contenteditables is typing in span elements makes the cursor disappear. So we need to think of a solution. I posted mine fix where the issue is being tracked (#1057).

Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions.