## Why this exists
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, upload 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.
## What’s new
We now ship a client component, `<RenderLexical />`, that renders a
Lexical editor **on demand** 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 action. That server render gives
Lexical everything it needs (including nested field schemas) and returns
a ready‑to‑hydrate editor.
## Example - Rendering in custom component within existing Form
```tsx
'use client'
import type { JSONFieldClientComponent } from 'payload'
import { buildEditorState, RenderLexical } from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical/client'
import { lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug } from '../../slugs.js'
export const Component: JSONFieldClientComponent = (args) => {
return (
<div>
Fully-Featured Component:
<RenderLexical
field={{ name: 'json' }}
initialValue={buildEditorState({ text: 'defaultValue' })}
schemaPath={`collection.${lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug}.richText`}
/>
</div>
)
}
```
## Example - Rendering outside of Form, manually managing richText
values
```ts
'use client'
import type { DefaultTypedEditorState } from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical'
import type { JSONFieldClientComponent } from 'payload'
import { buildEditorState, RenderLexical } from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical/client'
import React, { useState } from 'react'
import { lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug } from '../../slugs.js'
export const Component: JSONFieldClientComponent = (args) => {
const [value, setValue] = useState<DefaultTypedEditorState | undefined>(() =>
buildEditorState({ text: 'state default' }),
)
const handleReset = React.useCallback(() => {
setValue(buildEditorState({ text: 'state default' }))
}, [])
return (
<div>
Default Component:
<RenderLexical
field={{ name: 'json' }}
initialValue={buildEditorState({ text: 'defaultValue' })}
schemaPath={`collection.${lexicalFullyFeaturedSlug}.richText`}
setValue={setValue as any}
value={value}
/>
<button onClick={handleReset} style={{ marginTop: 8 }} type="button">
Reset Editor State
</button>
</div>
)
}
```
## How it works (under the hood)
- On first render, `<RenderLexical />` calls the server function
`render-field` (wired into @payloadcms/next), passing a schemaPath.
- The server loads the exact field config and its client schema map for
that path, renders the Lexical editor server‑side (so nested features
like blocks/tables/relationships are fully known), and returns the
component tree.
- While waiting, the client shows a small shimmer skeleton.
- Inside Forms, RenderLexical plugs into the parent form via useField;
outside Forms, you can fully control the value by passing
value/setValue.
## Type Improvements
While implementing the `buildEditorState` helper function for our test
suite, I noticed some issues with our `TypedEditorState` type:
- nodes were no longer narrowed by their node.type types
- upon fixing this issue, the type was no longer compatible with the
generated types. To address this, I had to weaken the generated type a
bit.
In order to ensure the type will keep functioning as intended from now
on, this PR also adds some type tests
---
- To see the specific tasks where the Asana app for GitHub is being
used, see below:
- https://app.asana.com/0/0/1211110462564644
Payload Admin Bar
An admin bar for React apps using Payload.
Installation
pnpm i @payloadcms/admin-bar
Basic Usage
import { PayloadAdminBar } from '@payloadcms/admin-bar'
export const App = () => {
return <PayloadAdminBar cmsURL="https://cms.website.com" collection="pages" id="12345" />
}
Checks for authentication with Payload CMS by hitting the /me route. If authenticated, renders an admin bar with simple controls to do the following:
- Navigate to the admin dashboard
- Navigate to the currently logged-in user's account
- Edit the current collection
- Create a new collection of the same type
- Logout
- Indicate and exit preview mode
The admin bar ships with very little style and is fully customizable.
Dynamic props
With client-side routing, we need to update the admin bar with a new collection type and document id on each route change. This will depend on your app's specific setup, but here are a some common examples:
NextJS
For NextJS apps using dynamic-routes, use getStaticProps:
export const getStaticProps = async ({ params: { slug } }) => {
const props = {}
const pageReq = await fetch(
`https://cms.website.com/api/pages?where[slug][equals]=${slug}&depth=1`,
)
const pageData = await pageReq.json()
if (pageReq.ok) {
const { docs } = pageData
const [doc] = docs
props = {
...doc,
collection: 'pages',
collectionLabels: {
singular: 'page',
plural: 'pages',
},
}
}
return props
}
Now your app can forward these props onto the admin bar. Something like this:
import { PayloadAdminBar } from '@payloadcms/admin-bar';
export const App = (appProps) => {
const {
pageProps: {
collection,
collectionLabels,
id
}
} = appProps;
return (
<PayloadAdminBar
{...{
cmsURL: 'https://cms.website.com',
collection,
collectionLabels,
id
}}
/>
)
}
Props
| Property | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cmsURL | string |
true | http://localhost:8000 |
serverURL as defined in your Payload config |
| adminPath | string |
false | /admin | routes as defined in your Payload config |
| apiPath | string |
false | /api | routes as defined in your Payload config |
| authCollectionSlug | string |
false | 'users' | Slug of your auth collection |
| collectionSlug | string |
true | undefined | Slug of your collection |
| collectionLabels | { singular?: string, plural?: string } |
false | undefined | Labels of your collection |
| id | string |
true | undefined | id of the document |
| logo | ReactElement |
false | undefined | Custom logo |
| classNames | { logo?: string, user?: string, controls?: string, create?: string, logout?: string, edit?: string, preview?: string } |
false | undefined | Custom class names, one for each rendered element |
| logoProps | {[key: string]?: unknown} |
false | undefined | Custom props |
| userProps | {[key: string]?: unknown} |
false | undefined | Custom props |
| divProps | {[key: string]?: unknown} |
false | undefined | Custom props |
| createProps | {[key: string]?: unknown} |
false | undefined | Custom props |
| logoutProps | {[key: string]?: unknown} |
false | undefined | Custom props |
| editProps | {[key: string]?: unknown} |
false | undefined | Custom props |
| previewProps | {[key: string]?: unknown} |
false | undefined | Custom props |
| style | CSSProperties |
false | undefined | Custom inline style |
| unstyled | boolean |
false | undefined | If true, renders no inline style |
| onAuthChange | (user: PayloadMeUser) => void |
false | undefined | Fired on each auth change |
| devMode | boolean |
false | undefined | If true, fakes authentication (useful when dealing with SameSite cookies) |
| preview | boolean |
false | undefined | If true, renders an exit button with your onPreviewExit handler) |
| onPreviewExit | function |
false | undefined | Callback for the preview button onClick event) |