CKEditor 4.15 with new editor placeholder plugin and improved color management

We are happy to announce the release of CKEditor 4.15. In this major release, the users get an extended set of tools aimed at an easier and more efficient text and background color handling within the WYSIWYG editor. Also coming in stock is the new Editor Placeholder plugin. There are also a few bug fixes that will enrich your CKEditor 4 WYSIWYG editing experience.

# Expanded and interactive color palette

Efficient work with colors is a crucial feature of many WYSIWYG implementations. Be it online content or document design, the background properties and text appearance play an important role in editing. We have just made our text and background color editing tools much better, more customizable, and the used color palette even more easily accessible.

This release introduces the color history feature. From now on, the colors that you used in the document are stored right in the Color Button palette and are easily available to reuse. They are put below the predefined palette to avoid confusion and make access more clear. This makes the process of document-wide color reuse comfortable and reliable — no more careful picking of the chosen color time and time again as it is right there in the color panel! This applies to both the colors chosen from the predefined palette as well as those picked using the Color Dialog feature.

But this is not all yet! Upon the editor initialization, the colors already present in the document are gathered by CKEditor 4 and added to the Color Button palette. The order of colors is determined based on the number of their occurrences (the one that appears most often will be displayed as the first one) and later on the order of appearance. You can thus continue working on an old document without hassle and preparation — just load it into CKEditor 4 WYSIWYG editor and all the colors that you need are at hand.

Read more in the documentation of this feature and refer to the Color History and Suggestions sample to check it out.

# Editor Placeholder feature

The Editor Placeholder is a nifty little feature that allows CKEditor 4 to start with a predefined placeholder text in the editing area. There are numerous situations where you would find it handy to prefill the editing window with a few words — of explanation, clarification, instructions or just a word of encouragement for the user before they start working on a new document. It also makes the editing window stand out more and draw the eye of the user.

Read more in the documentation of this feature and refer to the Editor Placeholder sample to check it out.

# Export to PDF out of beta

After an extensive testing phase, we have finally left the beta stage for our new plugin — export to PDF is now a fully stable premium feature available for CKEditor 4.

Leaving the beta phase behind means several thing for the editor users:

• The feature is now available commercially. Check the pricing if you are interested. Contact us for a tailor-made offer!
• If you are not totally sure yet this is what you need in your daily endeavors, you are invited to check out the commitment-free CKEditor Premium Features 30-day free trial. You can learn more about all the features included in this handy software bundle in our new trials documentation.
• You can also keep using the export to PDF feature just like before, but it will now add a watermark on the output files in unlicensed installations.

Read more in the documentation of this feature and refer to the Exporting editor content to PDF sample to check it out.

# CKEditor 4 Angular and React integrations

Meanwhile, we have also taken good care of another important area — CKEditor 4 integrations with the most popular JavaScript libraries. The official integrations make implementing an advanced WYSIWYG editor in your project a breeze so make sure you check them out!

For all details about the improvements introduced recently, refer to the changelogs for Angular and React integrations, respectively.

You can read more about CKEditor 4 WYSIWYG editor integrations in the documentation. We are looking forward to hearing what other frameworks we should support with a native CKEditor 4 WYSIWYG editor integration.

# Other improvements

Based on community feedback and best practices in web development, we always try to modernize the CKEditor 4 API to make working with it a pleasure for any developer. We have also fixed some bugs.

• The config.colorButton_foreStyle and config.colorButton_backStyle configuration options now have the colorName property that allows for customization of the foreground and background styles in the Color Button plugin.
• Also, some incorrect default values for several Color Button configuration variables were fixed in the API documentation.
• The content inside a widget nested editable is no longer escaped twice.
• Loading multiple custom editor configurations does not cause a race condition anymore.
• Accessibility fix: Screen readers now announce whether a drop-down created with the Rich Combo plugin is collapsed or expanded.

# Release notes

Check out the release notes and contact us for more information.

# Download

Download CKEditor now and upgrade your installation or use your favorite package manager to install it!

# License

CKEditor is available under Open Source and Commercial licenses. Full details can be found on our license page.

# Reporting issues and contributing

Please report any new issues in the CKEditor 4 development repository and follow the instructions in the issue template. You can also contribute code and provide editor patches through pull requests.

# Support

Community support is available through Stack Overflow. Visit the resources page for additional options.