tinymce-docs/ui-components/typesoftoolbarbuttons.md

layout	title	title_nav	description	keywords
default	Types of toolbar buttons	Types of toolbar buttons	This section demonstrates different types of toolbar buttons.	toolbar toolbarbuttons buttons toolbarbuttonsapi

There are four types of Toolbar Buttons in TinyMCE 5.0:

• Basic button
• Toggle button
• Split button
• Menu button

Basic button

A basic button triggers its onAction function when clicked.

Config options

Name	Value	Requirement	Description
text	string	optional	Text to display if no icon is found.
icon	string	optional	Name of the icon to be displayed. Must correspond to an icon in the icon pack.
tooltip	string	optional	Text for button tooltip.
disabled	boolean	optional	default: false - Represents the button's state. When true, button is unclickable. Toggled by the button's API.
onSetup	(api) => (api) => void	optional	default: () => () => {} - Function invoked when the button is rendered.
onAction	(api) => void	required	Function invoked when the button is clicked.

Note: See below for details on how to configure onSetup.

API

Name	Value	Description
isDisabled	() => boolean	Checks if the button is disabled.
setDisabled	(state: boolean) => void	Sets the button's disabled state.

Basic button example and explanation

The following example adds two buttons to the toolbar:

{% include codepen.html id="custom-toolbar-button" tab="js" %}

The first button inserts "It's my button!" into the editor when clicked. The second button is an example of how onSetup works. This button inserts a time element containing the current date into the editor using a toTimeHtml() helper function - a simplified version of TinyMCE's insertdatetime plugin.

In this example an icon from the insertdatetime plugin is used to demonstrate how to use a registered icon. disabled is set to true so that the button is disabled when it is first rendered.

onSetup is used to listen to the editor's NodeChange event to disable the button when the cursor is inside a time element (or "node"). This ensures it is not possible to insert a time element into another time element.

Toggle button

A toggle button triggers an action when clicked but also has a concept of state. This means it can be toggled on and off. A toggle button gives the user visual feedback for its state through CSS styling. An example of this behavior is the Bold button that is highlighted when the cursor is in a word with bold formatting.

Config options

Name	Value	Requirement	Description
text	string	optional	Text to display if no icon is found.
icon	string	optional	Name of the icon to be displayed. Must correspond to an icon in the icon pack.
tooltip	string	optional	Text for button tooltip.
disabled	boolean	optional	default: false - Represents the button's state. When true, button is unclickable. Toggled by the button's API.
active	boolean	optional	default: false - Represents the button's state. When true, button is highlighted. Toggled by the button's API.
onSetup	(api) => (api) => void	optional	default: () => () => {} - Function invoked when the button is rendered.
onAction	(api) => void	required	Function invoked when the button is clicked.

Note: See below for details on how to configure onSetup.

API

Name	Value	Description
isDisabled	( ) => boolean	Checks if a button is disabled.
setDisabled	(state: boolean) => void	Sets the button's disabled state.
isActive	( ) => boolean	Checks if the button is on.
setActive	(state: boolean) => void	Sets the button's toggle state.

Toggle button example and explanation

{% include codepen.html id="custom-toolbar-toggle-button" %}

The example above adds two custom strikethrough buttons with the same onAction configuration. The configuration uses editor.execCommand(command, ui, args) to execute mceToggleFormat. This editor method toggles the specified format on and off, but only works for formats that are already registered with the editor. In this example, strikethrough is the registered format.

The first button applies and removes strikethrough formatting, and its state toggles on click using api.setActive(!api.isActive()). However, the expected behaviour is that the button's state will reflect whether the selected content has strikethrough formatting. For example, if the cursor is moved into editor content that has strikethrough formatting the button will become active and if it is moved into content that does not have strikethrough formatting the button will become inactive. The first button in the example does not do this, since its state only toggles when the button is clicked.

To achieve this, the second button uses onSetup to register a callback for strikethrough content using editor.formatter.formatChanged(formatName, callback). This method executes the specified callback function when the selected content has the specified formatting.

Note: The format name given to mceToggleFormat via editor.execCommand(command, ui, args) and to editor.formatter.formatChanged(formatName, callback) is the same.

The callback given to editor.formatter.formatChanged is a function that takes a state boolean representing whether the currently selected content contains the applied format. This state boolean is used to set the button's active state to match if the selected content has the specified formatting by using api.setActive(state) from the button's API. This ensures the customToggleStrikethrough button is only active when the selected content contains the strikethrough formatting.

Split button

A split button contains a basic button and a menu button, wrapped up into one toolbar item. Clicking the menu button section opens a dropdown list. The basic button section and the menu items can be configured to trigger different actions when clicked.

Example: Font select dropdown.

Config options

Name	Value	Requirement	Description
text	string	optional	Text displayed if no icon is found.
icon	string	optional	Name of the icon to be displayed. Must correspond to an icon in the icon pack.
select	(value: string) => boolean	optional	default: false - Function run on each option to determine if it should be highlighted as active.
columns	string	optional	default: 1 - Number of columns for the list of options.
fetch	(success: (menu) => void) => void	required	Function that takes a callback which must be passed the list of options for the button's dropdown.
onAction	(api) => void	required	Function invoked when the basic button section is clicked.
onItemAction	(api, value) => void	required	Function invoked when a dropdown list option is clicked.
onSetup	(api) => (api) => void	optional	default: () => () => {} - Function invoked when the button is rendered.

Note: See below for details on how to configure onSetup.

API

Name	Value	Description
isDisabled	( ) => boolean	Checks if button is disabled.
setDisabled	(state: boolean) => void	Sets the button's disabled state.
isActive	( ) => boolean	Checks the button's toggle state.
setActive	(state: boolean) => void	Sets the button's toggle state.

Split button example and explanation

The following example sets up a split button with a text label and a static dropdown menu.

{% include codepen.html id="custom-toolbar-split-button" tab="js" %}

A split button is similar to a basic button in that they both require an onAction callback. The onAction callback function should take the button's API and return nothing. It is called when the basic button section is clicked. In this example, onAction calls editor.insertContent(value) which inserts the given content into the editor.

onItemAction is called when a menu item is clicked. The callback function is passed the split button's API and the value of the selected menu item. Nothing should be returned. The example calls editor.insertContent(value) to insert the value into the editor's content.

The fetch function is called whenever the split button's drop-down menu is opened. It is a function that takes a callback and passes it an array of menu items to be rendered in the button's drop-down menu. This allows for asynchronous fetching of the menu items.

Menu button

A toolbar menu button is a toolbar button that opens a menu when clicked. This menu can also contain submenus. This is useful for grouping together actions that would otherwise be several buttons on the toolbar. It can also be used to reduce visual clutter and save UI space, as menubar menu items and some toolbar buttons could be moved into a toolbar menu button. Potentially, all menubar menu items could be moved into toolbar menu buttons, allowing for the editor to be used without a menubar at all.

Example: The table plugin's table toolbar button opens a menu similar to the menubar Table menu.

Config options

Name	Value	Requirement	Description
text	string	optional	Text to display if no icon is found.
icon	string	optional	Name of the icon to be displayed. Must correspond to an icon in the icon pack.
tooltip	string	optional	Text for button tooltip.
fetch	(success: (menu) => void) => void	required	Function that takes a callback which must be passed the list of options for the button's dropdown.
onSetup	(api) => (api) => void	optional	default: () => () => {} - Function that's invoked when the button is rendered.

Note: See below for details on how to configure onSetup.

API

Name	Value	Description
isDisabled	( ) => boolean	Checks if the button is disabled.
setDisabled	(state: boolean) => void	Sets the button's disabled state.

Menu button example and explanation

The following is a simple toolbar menu button example:

{% include codepen.html id="custom-toolbar-menu-button" tab="js" %}

This example configures a toolbar menu button with the label My Button that opens the specified menu when clicked. The top-level menu contains two items. The first menu item inserts content when clicked and the second menu item opens a submenu containing two menu items which insert content when clicked.

The fetch function is called when the toolbar menu button's menu is opened. It is a function that takes a callback and passes it an array of menu items to be rendered in the drop-down menu. This allows for asynchronous fetching of the menu items.

Use the following demo here for help using the menu toolbar button.

onSetup explanation

{% include release-notes/onSetup.md %}