New to Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX? Download free 30-day trial

Client-side Programming Overview

You can find here some basic information that will help you to get started with the client-side API exposed by the RadEditor control.

Getting Started

The exposed client-side API enables you to manipulate content dynamically, provide custom commands/tools, build custom content filters and handle a rich set of client-side events

The first thing to now is how to get a reference to the client-side RadEditor instance and use the exposed API.

Getting a Reference to the Client-side Object

You can get a reference to the editor using the $find method.

It is always recommended to assure that the client-side id of the control is used. The best way for that is using the server tags (e.g., $find("<%= name.ClientID %>")).

The following example showcases how to get a client-side reference to the RadEditor instance.

Example 1: Getting a reference to the client-side object of the RadEditor

<telerik:RadScriptManager ID="RadScriptManager1" runat="server" />

<telerik:RadEditor RenderMode="Lightweight" ID="RadEditor1" runat="server"></telerik:RadEditor>

<script type="text/javascript">
    Sys.Application.add_load(function () {
        var editor = $find("<%= RadEditor1.ClientID %>"); //get a reference to RadEditor's client object
        alert(editor.get_id()); //returns RadEditor Client ID
    });
</script> 

You can find more details about the client-side object creation in the more detailed Getting a Reference to RadEditor article

Handling Client-side Events

Full list of the exposed client-side events is available in the Client-side Events Overview article.

One way to attach a handler is using the OnClient properties of the RadEditor control and type the name of the handler function.

This example demonstrates how add a handler the OnClientLoad event. As you can see, in this case, the client-side reference of the control is exposed in the event arguments and you do not need to explicitly get it.

Example 2: Attaching a handler function to the client-side load event.

<script type="text/javascript">
    function OnClientLoad(editor, args) {

        editor.attachEventHandler("onkeydown", function (e) {
            alert("Content area key down " + e.keyCode);
        });
    }
</script>

<telerik:RadEditor RenderMode="Lightweight" runat="server" ID="RadEditor1" OnClientLoad="OnClientLoad"></telerik:RadEditor> 

See Also

In this article