How to listen for and react to Ace Editor change events

Andrew O'Neill picture Andrew O'Neill · Mar 1, 2016 · Viewed 14.3k times · Source

Can anyone please give an example, of how the on change event works in ACE Editor (https://ace.c9.io/#nav=api&api=editor), with a simple getValue() when the there is an on change event and send the new text to a div? Would be much appreciated as there is no tutorials on how to use Ace Editor other than the documentation. Thanks

Answer

ralf htp picture ralf htp · Mar 1, 2016

see https://jsfiddle.net/ralf_htp/hbxhgdr1/ and http://jsfiddle.net/revathskumar/rY37e/

html

<div class="container">
  <div class="panel panel-default">
    <div class="panel-heading">
      <h3 class="panel-title">Editor</h3>
    </div>
    <div class="panel-body">
      <a href="#" onclick="update()">go</a>
      <div id="editor" onChange="update()">function foo(items) { var x = "All this is syntax highlighted"; return x; }
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
  <div id="output">Output is here (click 'go' and write HTML and js in the editor) </div>
  <div class="text-center">---End of editor---</div>
</div>

javascript

var editor = ace.edit("editor");
editor.setTheme("ace/theme/monokai");
editor.getSession().setMode("ace/mode/javascript");
editor.getSession().on('change', function() {
  update()
});

function update() //writes in <div> with id=output
{
  var val = editor.getSession().getValue();
  var divecho = document.getElementById("output");
  divecho.innerHTML = val;
}

the function update() implements the onChange event that is associated with the editor. If the go-link is clicked and then a character is written in the editor the update()-function outputs the content of the editor in the <div> with id = output as html (innerHTML)

css

#editor {
  /** Setting height is also important, otherwise editor wont showup**/
  height: 300px;
}

#output {
  height: 100px;
}

https://ace.c9.io/ section Listenting to Events

See also this thread ace editor onchange not working