Enhancing Rich Text Editing in Rails with Action Text

December 17, 2024

As developers, we’ve all encountered situations where adding rich text editing capabilities to our Rails applications felt clunky or required too many dependencies. That changed with Rails 6 and the introduction of Action Text, a feature that makes implementing rich text content straightforward and seamless.

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What is Action Text?

Action Text brings rich text editing to Rails, integrating seamlessly with the Trix Editor, a clean and user-friendly WYSIWYG editor. Whether you need formatted text, embedded images, or links, Action Text does it all while leveraging Active Storage for handling attachments.

With just a few lines of code, you can attach rich text to any model in your app and display it beautifully in your views.

Why Use Action Text?

Built-in Solution Action Text is part of Rails. No more juggling external gems or editors—it’s ready to go out of the box.
Image & File Attachments Using Active Storage, you can embed images or files directly into your content.
Seamless Database Integration Action Text stores rich content in a dedicated action_text_rich_texts table, linked to your models.

Getting Started

Here’s how you can add Action Text to your Rails app in minutes:

Install Action Text

Run:

rails action_text:install
rails db:migrate

Attach Rich Text to Your Model

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  has_rich_text :content
end

Add the Editor to Your Forms

Use the helper in your form:

<%= form_with(model: @post) do |form| %>
  <%= form.rich_text_area :content %>
  <%= form.submit %>
<% end %>

Render Rich Content in Views

Display the content easily:

<%= @post.content %>

A Game-Changer for Rails Developers

Action Text simplifies what used to be a complex process of managing rich text and attachments. Whether you’re building a blog, CMS, or messaging system, it offers a clean, native solution that feels “Rails-like”.

If you’re working with Rails, it’s time to explore Action Text and leverage the power of rich text editing in your applications.

What are your thoughts on Action Text? Have you tried it yet? Share your experiences below—I’d love to hear how you’re enhancing user experiences in your Rails apps. 🚀