Important: Links and readable markup in the frontend editor 

Description 

The rich text fields of the academicpersonsedit_profileediting plugin are edited with CKEditor 4, configured by Resources/Public/JavaScript/frontend/ckeditor.js, which is built from Resources/Private/TypeScript/frontend/ckeditor.ts. That configuration offered no way to add a link, fixed the editor's own interface language to English, and stored the markup of a whole field on a single line.

Three things changed:

  • The toolbar has a Link group. The standard CKEditor build the template loads already ships the link plugin, so only the group was missing. The Anchor button is removed, and the advanced tab of the link dialog is switched off. It sets ids, styles and classes that the public views do not render.
  • The editor's interface language follows the primary subtag of the language the document declares instead of always being English. CKEditor falls back to English by itself for a language it does not ship.
  • Block elements are written one per line. Without those writer rules a field holding several paragraphs or a list was stored as one long line, which is unreadable wherever the raw markup is shown: a database dump, a diff, or the backend text field.

Impact 

  • People editing their profile in the frontend can add links in the rich text fields, which previously required typing markup that the editor then removed.
  • The stored markup of a rich text field gains newlines between block elements. The rendered output is unchanged, because the rendering collapses whitespace between blocks. A comparison of stored values across this change shows a difference for every field that is saved again.
  • Installations that shipped their own copy of the editor configuration to get a link button can drop it and use the shipped one.

Affected Installations 

Installations using the profile editing plugin (academicpersonsedit_profileediting) whose editors use its rich text fields.

Migration 

No configuration change is required, and no stored value is rewritten. A field keeps its current markup until it is saved again.

An installation that loads a JavaScript file of its own instead of the shipped Resources/Public/JavaScript/frontend/ckeditor.js, through an overridden template, keeps its own configuration and is unaffected. That includes the missing link button it worked around.