Rendering On Demand

Lexical in Payload is a React Server Component (RSC). Historically that created three headaches: 1. You couldn't render the editor directly from the client. 2. Features like blocks, tables and link drawers require the server to know the shape of nested sub-fields at render time. If you tried to render on demand, the server didn't know those schemas. 3. The rich text field is designed to live inside a Form. For simple use cases, setting up a full form just to manage editor state was cumbersome.

To simplify rendering richtext on demand, <RenderLexical />, that renders a Lexical editor while still covering the full feature set. On mount, it calls a server action to render the editor on the server using the new render-field server function. That server render gives Lexical everything it needs (including nested field schemas) and returns a ready-to-hydrate editor.

Inside an existing Form

If you have an existing Form and want to render a richtext field within it, you can use the RenderLexical component like this:

1'use client'
2
3import type { JSONFieldClientComponent } from 'payload'
4
5import {
6  buildEditorState,
7  RenderLexical,
8} from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical/client'
9
10import { lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug } from '../../slugs.js'
11
12export const Component: JSONFieldClientComponent = (args) => {
13  return (
14    <RenderLexical
15      field={{
16        name: 'myFieldName' /* Make sure this matches the field name present in your form */,
17      }}
18      initialValue={buildEditorState({ text: 'default value' })}
19      schemaPath={`collection.${lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug}.richText`}
20    />
21  )
22}

Outside of a Form (you control state)

1'use client'
2
3import type { DefaultTypedEditorState } from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical'
4import type { JSONFieldClientComponent } from 'payload'
5
6import {
7  buildEditorState,
8  RenderLexical,
9} from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical/client'
10import React, { useState } from 'react'
11
12import { lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug } from '../../slugs.js'
13
14export const Component: JSONFieldClientComponent = (args) => {
15  // Manually manage the editor state
16  const [value, setValue] = useState<DefaultTypedEditorState | undefined>(() =>
17    buildEditorState({ text: 'state default' }),
18  )
19
20  const handleReset = React.useCallback(() => {
21    setValue(buildEditorState({ text: 'state default' }))
22  }, [])
23
24  return (
25    <div>
26      <RenderLexical
27        field={{ name: 'myField' }}
28        initialValue={buildEditorState({ text: 'default value' })}
29        schemaPath={`collection.${lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug}.richText`}
30        setValue={setValue as any}
31        value={value}
32      />
33      <button onClick={handleReset} style={{ marginTop: 8 }} type="button">
34        Reset Editor State
35      </button>
36    </div>
37  )
38}

Choosing the schemaPath

schemaPath tells the server which richText field to render. This gives the server the exact nested field schemas (blocks, relationship drawers, upload fields, tables, etc.).

Format:

collection.<collectionSlug>.<fieldPath>
global.<globalSlug>.<fieldPath>

Example (top level): collection.posts.richText

Example (nested in a group/tab): collection.posts.content.richText

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Rendering On Demand

Inside an existing Form

Outside of a Form (you control state)

Choosing the schemaPath

Lexical Migration