Aztec: Native HTML Editor for Android

Aztec (which extends EditText) is a rich-text editor component for writing HTML documents in Android.

Minimum Android Supported Version

You can check the minimum Android version supported by looking at the minSdkVersion configuration within build.gradle.

Getting started

Declare the main components in your layout:

Visual editor

<org.wordpress.aztec.AztecText
    android:id="@+id/visual"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:scrollbars="vertical"
    android:imeOptions="flagNoExtractUi"
    aztec:historyEnable="false" />

Source editor

<org.wordpress.aztec.source.SourceViewEditText
    android:id="@+id/source"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:inputType="textNoSuggestions|textMultiLine"
    android:scrollbars="vertical"
    android:imeOptions="flagNoExtractUi"
    aztec:codeBackgroundColor="@android:color/transparent"
    aztec:codeTextColor="@android:color/white" />

Toolbar

<org.wordpress.aztec.toolbar.AztecToolbar
    android:id="@+id/formatting_toolbar"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="@dimen/format_bar_height"
    android:layout_alignParentBottom="true" />

Inflate the views:

val visualEditor = findViewById<AztecText>(R.id.visual)
val sourceEditor = findViewById<SourceViewEditText>(R.id.source)
val toolbar = findViewById<AztecToolbar>(R.id.formatting_toolbar)

Configure Aztec with a provided image & video loaders:

Aztec.with(visualEditor, sourceEditor, toolbar, context)
    .setImageGetter(GlideImageLoader(context))
    .setVideoThumbnailGetter(GlideVideoThumbnailLoader(context))

For more options, such as edit history, listeners and plugins please refer to the demo app implementation.

Build and test

Build the library, build the example project and run unit tests:

$ ./gradlew build

Run unit tests only:

$ ./gradlew test

Before running instrumentation tests

Espresso advises disabling system animations on devices used for testing:

On your device, under Settings->Developer options disable the following 3 settings:

• Window animation scale
• Transition animation scale
• Animator duration scale

One additional setup step is also required to handle an Espresso issue with clicks (see the caveats below):

On your device, under Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch & hold delay, set the delay to Long.

Run the instrumentation tests:

$ ./gradlew cAT

Integrating Aztec in your project

repositories {
    maven { url "https://a8c-libs.s3.amazonaws.com/android" }
}

dependencies {
    api "org.wordpress:aztec:v1.6.2"
}

Brave developers can either use the project as a source distribution or have fun with the latest snapshot at their own risk:

dependencies {
    api "org.wordpress:aztec:trunk-{commit_sha1}"
    // As an example, for '3f004c8c8cd4b53ab9748f42f373cf00a30e9d86' commit sha1, this would look like:
    // api "org.wordpress:aztec:trunk-3f004c8c8cd4b53ab9748f42f373cf00a30e9d86"
}

Modifications

You can use the API to modify Aztec behaviour.

Toolbar items

If you want to limit the functionality the Aztec library provides, you can change it calling the setToolbarItems method on AztecToolbar. The following example will enable only bold, plugins and list items in the given order.

aztecToolbar.setToolbarItems(ToolbarItems.BasicLayout(ToolbarAction.BOLD, ToolbarItems.PLUGINS, ToolbarAction.LIST))

You can set new items which are not enabled by default. ToolbarAction.CODE and ToolbarAction.PRE.

• CODE represents inline HTML code
• PRE represents a preformat block (including code block)

Task list

There is an optional list type you can enable in the editor. In addition to ordered and unordered lists you can use task list. A task list is an unordered list which shows and saves checkboxes instead of the bullets. Enable it by calling the following method.

aztecToolbar.enableTaskList()

Nested blocks

By default Aztec allows nested blocks. In certain cases this doesn't have to be the preferred behaviour. There is an option to disable nested blocks. When switched, this editor will always add media and horizontal rule after the currently selected block, not in the middle of it.

aztecText.addMediaAfterBlocks()

Placeholder API

Aztec now supports placeholders to draw views which are not natively supported by the EditText and Spannable API. The functionality creates a span in the visual editor and draws an Android view over it. The view is moved around when the user changes anything in the editor and allows you to draw things like video that can be played inline in the editor. In order to use the API you have to create an instance of PlaceholderManager and initialize it in your onCreate call like this:

private lateinit var placeholderManager: PlaceholderManager
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    placeholderManager = PlaceholderManager(visualEditor, findViewById(R.id.container_frame_layout))
    aztec.addPlugin(placeholderManager)
    aztec.addOnMediaDeletedListener(placeholderManager)
}
override fun onDestroy() {
    placeholderManager.onDestroy()
}

You can create a custom PlaceholderAdapter to prepare and draw your view. You can check the sample ImageWithCaptionAdapter which draws a simple Android view with an image and a caption. However, you can implement things like YouTube view or Video view with playback controls. Don't forget to register your PlaceholderAdapter like this:

placeholderManager.registerAdapter(ImageWithCaptionAdapter())

Once you have initialized both the manager and the adapter, you can use the manager methods to insert or remove placeholders.

placeholderManager.insertItem(adapterType, attributes)
placeholderManager.removeItem(predicate)

Code formatting

We use ktlint for Kotlin linting. You can run ktlint using ./gradlew ktlint, and you can also run ./gradlew ktlintFormat for auto-formatting. There is no IDEA plugin (like Checkstyle's) at this time.

Reference

• Spans, a Powerful Concept.
• Spanned, Android Reference Documentation.
• Aztec was inspired by Knife.

License

Aztec is an open source project covered by the Mozilla Public License Version 2.0.