@sanity/visual-editing
This package is used with the Presentation tool in the Sanity Studio to create clickable elements to take editors right from previews to the document and field they want to edit.
Getting started
npm install @sanity/visual-editing react react-dom
Table of contents
Usage
Plain JS
import {enableVisualEditing} from '@sanity/visual-editing'
enableVisualEditing()
enableVisualEditing({
history: {
subscribe: (navigate) => {
const handler = (event: PopStateEvent) => {
navigate({
type: 'push',
url: `${location.pathname}${location.search}`,
})
}
window.addEventListener('popstate', handler)
return () => window.removeEventListener('popstate', handler)
},
update: (update) => {
switch (update.type) {
case 'push':
return window.history.pushState(null, '', update.url)
case 'pop':
return window.history.back()
case 'replace':
return window.history.replaceState(null, '', update.url)
default:
throw new Error(`Unknown update type: ${update.type}`)
}
},
},
})
Next.js
If you're using Next v13 or later you can use first class components that integrate with the router. Depending on which router you're using you may use either, or both, of the following components.
App Router
For App Router you should use the VisualEditing
component from next-sanity
:
npm i next-sanity
In your root layout.tsx
, assuming you're using Draft Mode to toggle when to enable Visual Editing, add the VisualEditing
component:
import {draftMode} from 'next/headers'
import {VisualEditing} from 'next-sanity'
export default function RootLayout({children}: {children: React.ReactNode}) {
return (
<html lang="en">
<body>
{children}
{draftMode().isEnabled && (
<VisualEditing
zIndex={1000} // Optional
/>
)}
</body>
</html>
)
}
Pages Router
For Pages Router you should use the VisualEditing
from @sanity/visual-editing/next-pages-router
. Assuming you're using Draft Mode or Preview Mode to toggle when to enable Visual Editing, add the VisualEditing
component to your _app.tsx
:
import {VisualEditing} from '@sanity/visual-editing/next-pages-router'
import type {AppProps} from 'next/app'
import {useRouter} from 'next/router'
export default function App({Component, pageProps}: AppProps) {
const {isPreview} = useRouter()
return (
<>
<Component {...pageProps} />
{isPreview && (
<VisualEditing
zIndex={1000} // Optional
/>
)}
</>
)
}
Remix
For Remix apps you should use VisualEditing
from @sanity/visual-editing/remix
in your app/root.tsx
:
import {json} from '@remix-run/node'
import {Links, Meta, Outlet, Scripts, ScrollRestoration, useLoaderData} from '@remix-run/react'
import {VisualEditing} from '@sanity/visual-editing/remix'
export const loader = () => {
return json({
ENV: {
SANITY_VISUAL_EDITING_ENABLED: process.env.SANITY_VISUAL_EDITING_ENABLED === 'true',
},
})
}
export default function App() {
const {ENV} = useLoaderData<typeof loader>()
return (
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charSet="utf-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1" />
<Meta />
<Links />
</head>
<body>
<main>
<Outlet />
</main>
{ENV.SANITY_VISUAL_EDITING_ENABLED && (
<VisualEditing
zIndex={1000} // Optional
/>
)}
<ScrollRestoration />
<Scripts />
</body>
</html>
)
}
React.js
On React apps that don't have a first-class framework integration may use the enableVisualEditing
function directly in a useEffect
hook.
import { enableVisualEditing } from '@sanity/visual-editing'
import { useEffect } from 'react'
export default function VisualEditing() {
useEffect(() => {
const disable = enableVisualEditing({
history: {}
zIndex: 1000,
})
return () => disable()
}, [])
return null
}
Refresh API
The refresh API is complimentary to the Loaders and Preview Kit APIs. It's used to refresh the page when the user has made changes to the document in the Studio and wants to see the changes reflected in the preview or when clicking on the "Refresh" button in the Presentation Tool UI.
For some frameworks, like Next.js App Router, Remix and soon SvelteKit, there's first-class implementations of the refresh API that does what you want out of the box, while still allowing you to customize it if you need to.
- When to use:
- When you're using a framework that has a refresh API that provides a better experience than a full page reload.
- You have data fetching used in your app that it's either impractical or too costly to refactor to use Loaders or Preview Kit.
- You have other data fetching than Content Lake GROQ queries, for example GraphQL or REST APIs that you want to refresh.
- When not to use
- If you're using a framework without a first-class refresh API.
- You're already using Loaders or Preview Kit for all your data fetching.
The TypeScript signature for the API is:
interface VisualEditingOptions {
refresh?: (payload: HistoryRefresh) => false | Promise<void>
}
type HistoryRefresh =
| {
source: 'manual'
livePreviewEnabled: boolean
}
| {
source: 'mutation'
livePreviewEnabled: boolean
document: {
_id: string
_type: string
_rev: string
slug?: {
current?: string | null
}
}
}
Returning false
will trigger the default behavior, which is different depending on the source
and livePreviewEnabled
state.
Returning a Promise will report to Presentation Tool that a refresh is happening and will show a loading UI while the Promise is pending.
Plain JS
source: 'manual'
It's fired when the user clicks on the "Refresh" button in the Presentation Tool.
The default behavior is effectively the same as window.location.reload()
.
source: 'mutation'
The default behavior is to return false
, as we can't make any assumptions of what the default behavior should be for your app if we don't know what framework you're using.
The payload will contain livePreviewEnabled
and document
properties.
livePreviewEnabled
is true if either Loaders are detected to be setup in Live Mode, or if Preview Kit is enabled.
It allows you to chose a reload strategy based on wether the route you're on has live preview functionality or not, allowing you to incrementally adopt Loaders or Preview Kit without having to refactor all your data fetching at once.
The document
part of the payload contains the _id
, _type
, _rev
and slug
properties of the document that was changed in the Studio. Depending on your app, you may want to use this information to decide if you want to refresh the page or not as well as which API to use.
[!NOTE]
There's no default refresh API for Pages Router, as it doesn't have a first-class refresh API like App Router or Remix. But you can still use the refresh
option to implement your own refresh logic by using the refresh
prop on the <VisualEditing />
component provided by @sanity/visual-editing/next-pages-router
.
For App Router you should use the VisualEditing
component from next-sanity
:
npm i next-sanity
The implementation makes use of Server Actions, here's the default internal implementation (simplified):
import {revalidateTag, revalidatePath} from 'next/cache'
import {draftMode} from 'next/headers'
import {VisualEditing} from 'next-sanity'
export default function RootLayout({children}: {children: React.ReactNode}) {
return (
<html lang="en">
<head />
<body>
{children}
{draftMode().isEnabled && (
<VisualEditing
refresh={async (payload) => {
'use server'
// Guard against a bad actor attempting to revalidate the page
if (!draftMode().isEnabled) {
return
}
if (payload.source === 'manual') {
await revalidatePath('/', 'layout')
}
// Only revalidate on mutations if the route doesn't have loaders or preview-kit
if (payload.source === 'mutation' && !payload.livePreviewEnabled) {
await revalidatePath('/', 'layout')
}
}}
/>
)}
</body>
</html>
)
}
source: 'manual'
If your application is using revalidateTag
then it's common to add the tag all
to all data fetches. If you follow this pattern then you can reduce the impact of a manual refresh by using it here as well:
<VisualEditing
refresh={async (payload) => {
'use server'
if (!draftMode().isEnabled) {
return
}
if (payload.source === 'manual') {
await revalidateTag('all')
}
}}
/>
source: 'mutation'
If you're using revalidateTag
, [and the GROQ webhook pattern][https://github.com/sanity-io/next-sanity#tag-based-revalidation-webhook], then you can reuse it here on route level as well:
<VisualEditing
refresh={async (payload) => {
'use server'
if (!draftMode().isEnabled) {
return
}
if (payload.source === 'manual') {
await revalidateTag('all')
}
if (payload.source === 'mutation') {
await revalidateTag(payload.document._type)
}
}}
/>
You can use payload.livePreviewEnabled
and payload.document
to better target scenarios where you want to revalidateTag
or when it may already be handled by a useQuery
hook from @sanity/react-loader
already, or a useLiveQuery
hook from next-sanity/preview
or @sanity/preview-kit
.
For Remix apps the implementation is much like the one for Next.js App Router when it comes to what happens depending on the source
and livePreviewEnabled
properties of the payload.
Remix doesn't have Server Actions yet, under the hood the useRevalidator
hook is used. Here's the default internal implementation (simplified):
import {VisualEditing} from '@sanity/visual-editing/remix'
import {useRevalidator} from '@remix-run/react'
export default function App() {
const {ENV} = useLoaderData<typeof loader>()
const revalidator = useRevalidator()
return (
<html lang="en">
<body>
<Outlet />
{ENV.SANITY_VISUAL_EDITING_ENABLED && (
<VisualEditing
refresh={(payload) => {
if (payload.source === 'manual') {
revalidator.revalidate()
}
if (payload.source === 'mutation' && !payload.livePreviewEnabled) {
revalidator.revalidate()
}
}}
/>
)}
</body>
</html>
)
}
If you only want to configure when revalidation is called, and not the actual implementation, then you can call the refreshDefault
function so you don't have to handle useRevalidator
and its loading states yourself.
<VisualEditing
refresh={(payload, refreshDefault) => {
if (payload.source === 'manual') {
return refreshDefault()
}
if (payload.source === 'mutation' && payload.document._type === 'settings') {
return refreshDefault()
}
}}
/>
A first class implementation for SvelteKit is coming soon.
Manually configuring "Edit in Sanity Studio" elements
data-sanity-edit-target
You can choose which element to render the "Edit in Sanity Studio" buttons on by adding a data-sanity-edit-target
attribute to the element you want to be clickable. This allows you to move the edit container to a parent wrapper element.
In this example, by default the edit button would be placed on the <h1>
tag
<section>
<h1>{dynamicTitle}</h1>
<div>Hardcoded Tagline</div>
</section>
But by adding the data-sanity-edit-target
attribute to the <section>
tag, the edit button will be placed on it instead.
<section data-sanity-edit-target>
<h1>{dynamicTitle}</h1>
<div>Hardcoded Tagline</div>
</section>
Manually setting the edit target will use the first element it finds with encoded metadata and remove clickable buttons from all other child elements.
Change the z-index of overlay elements
enableVisualEditing({
zIndex: 1000,
})