Comments in TypeScript DOCX Editor

14 Aug 20269 minutes to read

TypeScript DOCX Editor (Document Editor) allows you to add comments to documents. You can add, navigate, and remove comments in code and from the UI.

Add a new comment

Comments can be inserted into the selected text.

//Add new comment in the document.
documentEditor.editor.insertComment('Test comment');

Add a New Comment with Date, Author, and Status

Comments can be inserted into the selected text with a specified date, author, and status using insertComment.

// In this example, a comment with the text "Hello world"
// is added by the author Nancy Davolio on July 23, 2024, at 2:30 PM. 
// The isResolved status is set to false.

// Create a specific date: July 23, 2024, at 2:30:00 PM.
// Note: July is represented by 6 (0-based index).
let specificDate = new Date(2024, 6, 23, 14, 30, 0); 


// Define the properties of the comment including author, date, and resolution status.
let commentProperties: CommentProperties = { 
    author: 'Nancy Davolio',          // The author of the comment.
    dateTime: specificDate,           // The date and time when the comment is created.
    isResolved: false                 // The status of the comment; false indicates it is unresolved.
};

// Insert the comment with the specified properties into the document editor.
documentEditor.editor.insertComment('Hello world', commentProperties);

Add a Reply Comment with Date, Author, and Status

Reply comments can be inserted into the parent comment with a specified date, author, and status using insertReplyComment.

// In this example, a comment with the text "Hello world"
// is added by the author Nancy Davolio on July 23, 2024, at 2:30 PM. 
// The isResolved status is set to false.

// Create a specific date: July 23, 2024, at 2:30:00 PM.
// Note: July is represented by 6 (0-based index).
let specificDate = new Date(2024, 6, 23, 14, 30, 0);

// Define the properties of the comment including author, date, and resolution status.
let commentProperties: CommentProperties = { 
    author: 'Nancy Davolio',          // The author of the comment.
    dateTime: specificDate,           // The date and time when the comment is created.
    isResolved: false                 // The status of the comment; false indicates it is unresolved.
};

// Insert the comment with the specified properties into the Document Editor.
let comment: Comment = documentEditor.editor.insertComment('Hello world', commentProperties);
// Insert a reply comment with specified properties into the Document Editor
documentEditor.editor.insertReplyComment(comment.id, 'Hello world', commentProperties);

Get Comments

The Document Editor allows you to get the comments along with their reply and comment properties using getComments.

//Get Comments in the document along with the properties author, date, status.
let commentinfo: CommentInfo[] = container.documentEditor.getComments();

Next and previous comments can be navigated using the below code snippet.

//Navigate to next comment
documentEditor.selection.navigateNextComment();

//Navigate to previous comment
documentEditor.selection.navigatePreviousComment();

Delete comment

Current comment can be deleted using deleteComment.

//Delete the current selected comment.
container.documentEditor.editor.deleteComment();

//Get Comments in the document along with the properties author, date, status.
let commentinfo: CommentInfo[] = container.documentEditor.getComments();

//Delete the particular parent comment and all of its reply comments
container.documentEditor.editor.deleteComment(commentinfo[0].id);

//Delete the particular reply comment.
container.documentEditor.editor.deleteComment(commentinfo[0].replies[0].id);

Delete all comments

All the comments in the document can be deleted using the below code snippet.

//Delete all the comments present in the current document.
documentEditor.editor.deleteAllComments();

Protect the document in comments-only mode

The Document Editor provides support for protecting the document with CommentsOnly protection. In this protection, the user is allowed to add or edit comments alone in the document.

The Document Editor provides an option to protect and unprotect the document using enforceProtection and stopProtection API.

The following example code illustrates how to enforce and stop protection in the Document Editor container.

let container: DocumentEditorContainer = new DocumentEditorContainer({
  enableToolbar: true,
  height: '590px',
});
DocumentEditorContainer.Inject(Toolbar);
container.serviceUrl =
  'http://localhost:5000/api/documenteditor/';
container.appendTo('#container');

//enforce protection
container.documentEditor.editor.enforceProtection('123', 'CommentsOnly');

//stop the document protection
container.documentEditor.editor.stopProtection('123');

Comment only protection can be enabled in the UI by using the Restrict Editing pane

Enable comment only protection

NOTE

In the enforce Protection method, the first parameter denotes the password and the second parameter denotes the protection type. Possible values of protection type are NoProtection | ReadOnly | FormFieldsOnly | CommentsOnly. In the stop protection method, the parameter denotes the password.

Mention Support in comments

Mention support displays a list of items that users can select or tag from the suggested list. To use this feature, type the @ character in the comment box and select or tag the user from the suggestion list.

The following example illustrates how to enable mention support in the Document Editor.

let mentionData: any = [
    { "Name": "Mary Kate", "EmailId": "[email protected]" },
    { "Name": "Andrew James", "EmailId": "[email protected]" },
    { "Name": "Andrew Fuller", "EmailId": "[email protected]"}
];
let container: DocumentEditorContainer = new DocumentEditorContainer({ enableToolbar: true,height: '590px',
// Enable mention support in document editor
  documentEditorSettings: {
    mentionSettings: { dataSource: mentionData, fields: { text: 'Name' }},
  }
});
DocumentEditorContainer.Inject(Toolbar);
container.serviceUrl = 'https://document.syncfusion.com/web-services/docx-editor/api/documenteditor/';
container.appendTo('#container');

The Web API hosted link https://document.syncfusion.com/web-services/docx-editor/api/documenteditor/ utilized in the Document Editor’s serviceUrl property is intended solely for demonstration and evaluation purposes. For production deployment, please host your own web service with your required server configurations. You can refer and reuse the GitHub Web Service example or Docker image for hosting your own web service and use for the serviceUrl property.

Events

The Document Editor provides beforeCommentAction event, which is triggered on comment actions like post, edit, reply, resolve, and reopen. This event provides an opportunity to perform custom logic on comment actions like post, edit, reply, resolve, and reopen. The event handler receives the CommentActionEventArgs object as an argument, which allows access to information about the comment.

To demonstrate a specific use case, let’s consider an example where we want to restrict the delete functionality based on the author’s name. The following code snippet illustrates how to allow only the author of a comment to delete:

import { DocumentEditorContainer, Toolbar, CommentActionEventArgs } from '@syncfusion/ej2-documenteditor';

// Inject require modules.
DocumentEditorContainer.Inject(Toolbar);
let mentionData: any = [
    { "Name": "Mary Kate", "EmailId": "[email protected]" },
    { "Name": "Andrew James", "EmailId": "[email protected]" },
    { "Name": "Andrew Fuller", "EmailId": "[email protected]"}
];
let container: DocumentEditorContainer = new DocumentEditorContainer({ enableToolbar: true,height: '590px', beforeCommentAction:beforecomment,
// Enable mention support in document editor
  documentEditorSettings: {
    mentionSettings: { dataSource: mentionData, fields: { text: 'Name' }},
  }
});
DocumentEditorContainer.Inject(Toolbar);
container.serviceUrl = 'https://document.syncfusion.com/web-services/docx-editor/api/documenteditor/';
container.appendTo('#container');
container.currentUser="Guest User";

// Event get triggerd on comment actions like Post, edit, reply, resolve and reopen
function beforecomment(args : CommentActionEventArgs){
    // Check the type and author of the comment and current user are different
    if(args.type === "Delete" && container.currentUser !== args.author){
        // Cancel the comment action
        args.cancel = true;
    }
}