Mobility::RichText

A Mobility plugin that wraps translated string values with ActionText::Content, enabling rich text editing for internationalized content without separate ActionText storage.

Why Use This?

Problem: You want rich text editing for translated content, but mobility-actiontext requires separate ActionText::RichText records per locale, adding database complexity.

Solution: mobility-rich_text wraps your existing backend's string values with ActionText::Content, giving you full rich text capabilities with simpler storage:

• Works with all Mobility backends (KeyValue, Table, JSON, JSONB, Hstore)
• No additional database tables or migrations required
• Full ActionText features: Trix editor, attachments, rendering
• Simple configuration: just add rich_text: true to your attribute

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem "mobility-rich_text"

And then execute:

bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

gem install mobility-rich_text

Usage

Configuration

Add the rich_text plugin to your Mobility configuration and enable it on specific attributes:

# config/initializers/mobility.rb
Mobility.configure do |config|
  config.plugins do
    backend
    reader
    writer
    active_record
    rich_text  # Add the plugin
  end
end

Model Setup

class Article < ApplicationRecord
  extend Mobility

  # Standard translated attribute (no rich text)
  translates :title, backend: :key_value, type: :string

  # Rich text translated attribute
  translates :content, backend: :key_value, type: :text, rich_text: true
end

Reading Values

article = Article.find(1)

# Returns Mobility::RichText::Content (delegates to ActionText::Content)
article.content
# => #<Mobility::RichText::Content ...>

# Access ActionText methods
article.content.to_s           # Renders HTML
article.content.to_plain_text  # Strips HTML tags
article.content.to_html        # Returns HTML string
article.content.blank?         # Checks if content is empty

# Bypass rich text wrapping to get raw string
article.content(rich_text: false)
# => "<p>Raw HTML string</p>"

Writing Values

article = Article.new

# All of these work:
article.content = "<p>Plain HTML string</p>"
article.content = ActionText::Content.new("<p>Rich content</p>")
article.content = Mobility::RichText::Content.new("<p>Wrapped content</p>")

article.save!
# Stored as HTML string in your backend

With Trix Editor

<%# In your form %>
<%= form_with model: @article do |form| %>
  <%= form.rich_text_area :content %>
<% end %>

<%# In your view %>
<%= @article.content %>

Multiple Locales

article = Article.new

Mobility.with_locale(:en) do
  article.content = "<p>English content</p>"
end

Mobility.with_locale(:es) do
  article.content = "<p>Contenido en español</p>"
end

article.save!

How It Works

This plugin intercepts reads and writes on translated attributes:

• On read: Wraps the HTML string from your backend with ActionText::Content
• On write: Converts ActionText objects back to HTML strings for storage

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Application Code                            │
│  article.content = "<p>Hello</p>"                               │
│  article.content  # => Mobility::RichText::Content              │
└────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                             │
                             ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│               Mobility::Plugins::RichText                       │
│  • Intercepts read → wraps with ActionText::Content             │
│  • Intercepts write → extracts HTML string                      │
└────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                             │
                             ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   Any Mobility Backend                          │
│  • KeyValue, Table, JSON, JSONB, Hstore, etc.                   │
│  • Stores/retrieves plain HTML strings                          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Comparison with mobility-actiontext

Feature	mobility-actiontext	mobility-rich_text
Storage	Separate ActionText records	Your existing backend
Backends	Limited (needs associations)	All backends
Schema changes	Yes (ActionText tables)	None
Attachments	Full support	Full support
Rich text editing	Full support	Full support

Attachments

ActionText attachments are fully supported. Attachment tags are stored inline in the HTML:

<action-text-attachment sgid="..." content-type="image/png" filename="photo.png">
</action-text-attachment>

Access attachments via the standard ActionText API:

article.content.attachments        # All attachments
article.content.gallery_attachments # Gallery attachments
article.content.links              # All links in content

Note: Attachments require ActiveStorage to be configured in your Rails application.

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

# Run all tests
bundle exec rake test

# Run linter
bundle exec rake rubocop

# Validate RBS type signatures
bundle exec rake rbs

# Run Steep type checker
bundle exec rake steep

# Run all checks
bundle exec rake

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/fluid-commerce/mobility-rich_text. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Mobility::RichText project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.