Using the jQuery Validate plugin with the TinyMCE editor

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I am implementing client validation using the Validate plugin for jQuery, and coming short with a form field that uses the TinyMCE editor component. This renders an incredibly complex control tree under the containing tag for my form field, including an iframe for the actual editing area, and a textarea element. I cannot access the textarea directly, so I add the ‘required’ attribute before calling .validate(), like below: 

jQuery(function() {
    jQuery("#wpsm_body").addClass("required");
    jQuery("#wpsm-send-mail")
            .validate(
                    {
                        errorContainer : "#wpsm-top-error-container, #wpsm-bottom-error-container",
                        errorLabelContainer : "#wpsm-top-error-container ul",
                        wrapper : "li",
                        messages : {
                            wpsm_from : "The message has no 'From' address. The administrator can set a default for this on the SuperMail 'Settings' page.",
                            wpsm_subject : "The message has no subject.",
                            wpsm_body : "The message has no body.",
                            wpsm_text : "The message has no body."
                        }
                    });
});

However, I get no client validation error when I submit the form even with an empty wpsm_body.

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For background, this is inside a WordPress plugin, and TinyMCE is rendered by the wp_editor function, although I doubt this makes too much difference.

Added: While I don’t believe this will help much at all, here is the HTML rendered to the browser. The HTML generated by TinyMCE subsequent to this is 400 lines long, and not relevant. 

<form id="wpsm-send-mail" action="theform.php" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<div id="wp-wpsm_body-wrap" class="wp-editor-wrap tmce-active">
    <link rel='stylesheet' id='editor-buttons-css' href='http://localhost/wordpress/wp-includes/css/editor-buttons.dev.css?ver=20111114'
        type='text/css' media='all' />
    <div id="wp-wpsm_body-editor-tools" class="wp-editor-tools">
        <a id="wpsm_body-html" class="hide-if-no-js wp-switch-editor switch-html" onclick="switchEditors.switchto(this);">
            HTML</a> <a id="wpsm_body-tmce" class="hide-if-no-js wp-switch-editor switch-tmce"
                onclick="switchEditors.switchto(this);">Visual</a>
        <div id="wp-wpsm_body-media-buttons" class="hide-if-no-js wp-media-buttons">
            <a href="http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=0&TB_iframe=1"
                class="thickbox add_media" id="wpsm_body-add_media" title="Add Media" onclick="return false;">
                Upload/Insert
                <img src="http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/images/media-button.png?ver=20111005"
                    width="15" height="15" /></a></div>
    </div>
    <div id="wp-wpsm_body-editor-container" class="wp-editor-container">
        <textarea class="wp-editor-area" rows="20" cols="40" name="wpsm_body" id="wpsm_body"></textarea></div>
</div>
</form>

The only relevant items here are the form and textarea, and their id attributes.

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2 comments

  1. Assuming You have already included the js file for tinyMCE and you are doing the validation on client side using tinyMCE

    Following is the code to validate the tinyMCE editor 

    <script>  
    $(document).ready(function () {  

        var $btn = $("#<%=btnSubmit.ClientID %>");  
        var $txtEditor = $(".txtEditor");  

        $btn.click(function () {  
            if (tinyMCE.get($txtEditor.attr("id")).getContent() == "") {  
                alert("hi");  
            }  
            else {  
                alert("bye");  
            }  
            return false;  
        })  

    });  

</script>  


<div>  
<asp:TextBox id="TextBox1" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" CssClass="txtEditor212"></asp:TextBox>  
            <asp:TextBox id="txtEditor" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" CssClass="txtEditor"></asp:TextBox>  
        </div>  
        <div>  
        <asp:Button id="btnSubmit" runat="server" Text="Save" onclick="btnSubmit_Click" />  

        </div>  
</asp:Content>
</div>

  2. I don’t know exactly how TinyMCE is used in WordPress.

    But I’ve used TinyMCE before, and the textarea doesn’t get updated as you make edits in the rich text editor (it does get updated on form submit). I used the following code to update the textarea when I needed to (ajax):

    form.find('textarea.rich').each(function() {
    var textarea = $(this);
    var taeditor = tinyMCE.get(textarea.attr('id'));
    if (taeditor) 
        textarea.val(taeditor.getContent());
});

    Hope this helps.