etherpad-webcomponents

Reusable Lit web components for the Etherpad project — framework-agnostic custom elements that ship Etherpad's UI building blocks (buttons, inputs, dropdowns, modals, toasts, a color wheel, …) plus a standalone rich-text editor (<ep-editor>) powered by Etherpad's Ace editor engine and changeset model.

Because they are standard custom elements, the components work in any page or framework (React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, or plain HTML) without a wrapper.

• Built with: Lit 3 + TypeScript
• Documented & tested with: Storybook 10 + Vitest browser mode (Playwright/Chromium)
• License: MIT © The Etherpad Foundation

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Install

pnpm add etherpad-webcomponents
# or: npm install etherpad-webcomponents

Usage

Import the whole library, or just the components you need (each is individually exported for tree-shaking):

// everything
import 'etherpad-webcomponents';

// or a single component
import 'etherpad-webcomponents/EpButton.js';

<ep-theme name="colibris">
  <ep-button variant="primary">Save changes</ep-button>

  <ep-input label="Pad name" placeholder="My pad"></ep-input>

  <ep-editor content="Hello, collaborative world!"></ep-editor>
</ep-theme>

The named exports (classes) are also available for programmatic use:

import { EpButton, EpTheme, themes } from 'etherpad-webcomponents';

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Components

Tag	Class	Key attributes	Custom event
<ep-button>	EpButton	variant (default/primary/ghost/icon), size, uppercase, disabled, type	—
<ep-card>	EpCard	card-title, subtitle, bordered, compact	—
<ep-chat-message>	EpChatMessage	author, author-color, time, own	—
<ep-checkbox>	EpCheckbox	checked, variant, disabled, label	ep-change
<ep-color-picker>	EpColorPicker	colors[], value	ep-color-select
<ep-color-wheel>	EpColorWheel	value (canvas HSL hue/sat/lum wheel)	ep-color-change
<ep-dropdown> / <ep-dropdown-item>	EpDropdown / EpDropdownItem	trigger (click/hover), align, open	ep-dropdown-select
<ep-input>	EpInput	label, value, placeholder, hint, error-text, error, type (incl. textarea)	ep-input
<ep-modal>	EpModal	dialog with backdrop & slots	ep-modal-close
<ep-notification>	EpNotification	type, position, duration	—
<ep-toast-container> / <ep-toast-item>	EpToastContainer / EpToastItem	position, type, message, duration	—
<ep-toolbar-select>	EpToolbarSelect	options[], value, icon-class, label, placeholder	ep-toolbar-select:change
<ep-user-badge>	EpUserBadge	name, color, size, online	—
<ep-theme>	EpTheme	name — applies a token set to its subtree	—
<ep-editor>	EpEditor	content, readonly, wrap, author-id	ready, content-changed, selection-changed

Theming

Components read CSS custom properties (--text-color, --primary-color, --bg-soft-color, …). Wrap a subtree in <ep-theme name="…"> to apply a token set. Built-in themes: colibris (default, matches Etherpad's skin), colibris-dark, high-contrast, and warm. Register your own at runtime:

import { EpTheme } from 'etherpad-webcomponents';
EpTheme.registerTheme('brand', { '--primary-color': '#ff5722', /* …all ThemeTokens */ });

The editor (<ep-editor>)

<ep-editor> embeds Etherpad's Ace editor engine (under src/editor/: Changeset, AttributePool, changesettracker, content collector, op assemblers, etc.) as a self-contained element. It supports bold/italic/underline/strikethrough, ordered & unordered lists, indentation, undo/redo, and changeset-based collaboration.

Selected methods on the element (see src/EpEditor.ts for the full API):

const ed = document.querySelector('ep-editor');
ed.getText();                        // current document text
ed.setText('...');                   // replace contents
ed.toggleFormat('bold');             // toggle a formatting attribute on the selection
ed.insertUnorderedList();            // list / indent helpers
ed.undo(); ed.redo();

// collaboration
ed.setBaseAttributedText(atext, pool);
ed.applyChangeset(cs, author, pool);
const pending = ed.prepareUserChangeset();   // { changeset, apool } to send to a server

The lower-level engine pieces are also exported for advanced use:

import { AceEditor, AttributePool, makeChangesetTracker } from 'etherpad-webcomponents';

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Development

Requires Node.js and pnpm.

pnpm install                       # install dependencies
pnpm exec playwright install chromium   # one-time: browser for the test runner

pnpm storybook                     # interactive component explorer at http://localhost:6006
pnpm dev                           # vite dev server
pnpm typecheck                     # tsc --noEmit
pnpm build                         # emit dist/ (.js + .d.ts) via tsc
pnpm test                          # run the Storybook test suite (see below)

Testing

Each component has a Storybook story file under stories/. The stories double as the test suite: their Storybook play functions assert behavior (rendering, attribute reflection, click handling, disabled state, event dispatch, …), and pnpm test runs every story's play function in a real Chromium browser via Vitest browser mode (@storybook/addon-vitest + @vitest/browser-playwright, configured in vitest.config.ts).

pnpm test --run

To add coverage, add a story with a play function — it will automatically be picked up as a test.

Project layout

src/
  Ep*.ts            # the Lit components (one per custom element)
  index.ts          # public entry point — re-exports every component
  editor/           # Etherpad Ace editor engine + changeset model (backs <ep-editor>)
stories/            # Storybook stories (also the test suite, via play functions)
.storybook/         # Storybook config
vitest.config.ts    # browser-mode test runner config