Adding TinyMCE plugins to Canvas RCE

[arz2hc]

Hello Canvas Developers,

Our institution recently started using Canvas.  We are investigating adding the following TinyMCE plugins to Canvas RCE. 

- Insert Special Characters plugin

- Insert Font awesome icon plugin 

- Language selector plugin

I have been trying to add the TinyMCE Special Character plugin (charmap) to Canvas RCE through the global Javascript but that is not 100% successful. Plugin was loaded but that required re-initializing the already loaded editor with the plugin configurations.  Also the custom Canvas RCE plugins were not loaded after that. We are checking on other ways of adding these plugins to the RCE. 

Have any of you built an LTI tool to use these external plugins in Canvas RCE? I would like to explore more on this and it seems that is possible to add such tool,  using the Editor Button Replacement.  https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.editor_button_placement.html

Would like to know whether any of you have added a similar feature at your institutions. Greatly appreciate your input!

[LonaLabs]

This is something I'm also looking into. Were you able to figure it out?

[wyelearning]

We've successfully developed several plugins for Canvas that enhances the Canvas RCE through a the LTI standard using the editor button placement. Canvas supports these plugins from the EduAppStore and allows them to be easily added to a Canvas course:

• Special Characters - For inserting characters not present on standard keyboard layouts into the RCE.
• Emoji Picker - To insert emoji into the RCE.
• Code Highlight - To style code snippets when inserting them into the RCE.
• Markdown - Converts markdown HTML to insert into the RCE.

When you develop a plugin for the editor as an LTI integration rather than a TinyMCE plugin you are more limited in how you can interact with the editor, it's mainly just being able to insert some custom content. However LTI integrations into the RCE are a method supported by Instructure, unlike custom JS to modify the TinyMCE editor itself.