Block Selection

'use client';

import React from 'react';

import { Plate } from '@udecode/plate-common/react';

import { editorPlugins } from '@/components/editor/plugins/editor-plugins';
import { useCreateEditor } from '@/components/editor/use-create-editor';
import { Editor, EditorContainer } from '@/components/plate-ui/editor';

import { DEMO_VALUES } from './values/demo-values';

export default function Demo({ id }: { id: string }) {
  const editor = useCreateEditor({
    plugins: [...editorPlugins],
    value: DEMO_VALUES[id],
  });

  return (
    <Plate editor={editor}>
      <EditorContainer variant="demo">
        <Editor />
      </EditorContainer>
    </Plate>
  );
}

Installation

npm install @udecode/plate-selection @udecode/plate-node-id

Usage

import { NodeIdPlugin } from '@udecode/plate-node-id';
import { BlockSelectionPlugin } from '@udecode/plate-selection/react';
 
const plugins = [
  // ...otherPlugins,
  NodeIdPlugin,
  BlockSelectionPlugin,
];

Exclude blocks from selection

You can exclude certain plugins from block selection using:

BlockSelectionPlugin.configure({
  inject: {
    // Exclude blocks below table rows
    excludeBelowPlugins: ['tr'],
    // Exclude block types
    excludePlugins: ['table', 'code_line', 'column_group', 'column'],
  }
})

• excludeBelowPlugins: Plugin keys of non-selectable block descendants. Use this to prevent selection below specific blocks. For example, excluding 'tr' prevents selecting individual cells while still allowing table row selection.

• excludePlugins: Plugin keys of non-selectable blocks.

Set scrollable container

If you're using EditorContainer from Editor, you can skip this section.

To control the scrollable container, configure the boundaries and container options within areaOptions. These options accept CSS selectors, such as #selection-demo #${editor.uid}, which are used with document.querySelector().

For this to work effectively:

1. Add an id or className to your scroll container. If you're not sure about the container, you can add it to the <Editor /> component. We recommend using id={editor.uid}.
2. Use the appropriate selector in your configuration.
3. Don't forget to set position: relative to the container.

Default configuration:

BlockSelectionPlugin.configure({
  options: {
    areaOptions: {
      boundaries: `#${editor.uid}`,
      container: `#${editor.uid}`,
      selectables: `#${editor.uid} .slate-selectable`,
    },
  },
});

Set scroll speed

Use options.areaOptions.behaviour.scrolling.speedDivider to set the scroll speed.

The value 0.8 is our recommended speed since it's near the browser-native speed.

BlockSelectionPlugin.configure({
  options: {
    areaOptions: {
      behaviour: {
      scrolling: {
        // You can slow down the scroll speed by setting a bigger value.
        speedDivider: 1.5,
      },
      // The distance needed to move for the selection area to appear.
      // If it’s too small, it may cause the mouse click event to be blocked. 10 is a good default.
      startThreshold: 4,
    },
  },
}

Add selectable element

Add data-plate-selectable="true" to any element you want to start block selection.

Prevent unselect

To prevent unselecting blocks when clicking on certain elements, add the data-plate-prevent-unselect attribute to those components

For example:

  <YourSpecialButtoon data-plate-prevent-unselect />

Full Page Selection

Making Elements Selectable

You can enable block selection for elements outside the <Editor /> component, similar to the Potion template. Add the data-plate-selectable attribute to any component you want to make selectable:

<Cover data-plate-selectable />
<Sidebar data-plate-selectable />

This works for any element, even those outside the editor's DOM tree.

Resetting Selection

There are two ways to handle resetting selection across the full page:

1. Direct API call:

editor.api.blockSelection.unselect();

2. Click outside handler:

const handleClickOutside = (event: MouseEvent) => {
  if (!(event.target as HTMLElement).closest('[data-plate-selectable]')) {
    editor.api.blockSelection.unselect();
  }
};

Styling

Selection area

Style the selection area by adding the .slate-selection-area class to your editor container component. For example:

'[&_.slate-selection-area]:border [&_.slate-selection-area]:border-primary [&_.slate-selection-area]:bg-primary/10'

Selected element

To determine if an element is selected, use useBlockSelected hook. You can render a visual indicator around selected blocks using our BlockSelection component or create your own.

This component should be rendered inside each block element for consistent selection feedback. Plate UI is doing it in PlateElement.

Plugins

BlockSelectionPlugin

BlockMenuPlugin

API

editor.api.blockSelection.focus

Focuses the block selection shadow input. This input handles copy, delete, and paste events for selected blocks.

editor.api.blockSelection.addSelectedRow

Adds a selected row to the block selection.

editor.api.blockSelection.getNodes

Gets the selected blocks in the editor.

editor.api.blockSelection.resetSelectedIds

Resets the set of selected IDs to an empty set.

editor.api.blockSelection.selectedAll

Selects all selectable blocks in the editor.

editor.api.blockSelection.setSelectedIds

Sets the selected IDs based on added and removed elements.

editor.api.blockSelection.unselect

Unselects all blocks and sets the isSelecting flag to false.

Transforms

editor.tf.blockSelection.duplicate

Duplicates the selected blocks.

editor.tf.blockSelection.removeNodes

Removes the selected nodes from the editor.

editor.tf.blockSelection.select

Selects the nodes returned by getNodes() and resets the selected IDs.

editor.tf.blockSelection.setNodes

Sets properties on the selected nodes.

editor.tf.blockSelection.setTexts

Sets text properties on the selected nodes.

Hooks

useBlockSelectable

A hook that provides props for making a block element selectable, including context menu behavior.

useBlockSelected

Returns true if context block is selected.

useBlockSelectionNodes

Returns an array of node entries for the currently selected blocks.

useBlockSelectionFragment

Returns an array of nodes for the currently selected blocks.

useBlockSelectionFragmentProp

Returns fragment prop for the currently selected blocks.

useSelectionArea

A hook that initializes and manages the selection area functionality.