@examind/react-anchored-comments

A headless React component library for Google Docs-style commenting and markdown highlighting. Provides precise positioning logic and markdown highlighting capabilities while leaving the UI implementation to the consumer.

⚠️ WARNING: Early Alpha Release

This library is in early alpha stage. The API is not stable and may change significantly between versions. To avoid breaking changes, please install a specific version:
npm install --save-exact @examind/react-anchored-comments
Do not rely on semver ranges (^, ~) until we reach v1.0.0.

Features

📝 Google Docs-style commenting system
🎯 Precise text selection and highlighting
🎨 UI agnostic - bring your own components
📦 Lightweight and tree-shakeable
💪 Written in TypeScript
⚡ Framework agnostic positioning logic

Installation

npm install --save-exact @examind/react-anchored-comments

# or

yarn add --save-exact @examind/react-anchored-comments

# or

pnpm add --save-exact @examind/react-anchored-comments

Quick Start

import {
  AnchoredCommentsProvider,
  CommentSection,
  CommentView,
  ContentSection,
  ContentView,
  Highlight,
  NewComment,
} from '@examind/react-anchored-comments';
import type { CommentAnchor } from '@examind/react-anchored-comments';

const commentToAnchor = (comment: MessageComment) =>
  ({
    id: comment.id,
    selectionRange: comment.selectionRange,
  }) satisfies CommentAnchor;

const commentsToAnchors = (comments: MessageComment[]) =>
  comments.map(commentToAnchor);

function App() {
const messages: Message[] = [
  {
    id: '1',
    content:
      "Hi",
    role: 'user',
  },
  {
    id: '2',
    content:
      '**Hello**, how can I help you today?',
    role: 'assistant',
  },

  const comments = [
    {
      id: 'comment-1',
      messageId: '2',
      content: 'First comment',
      selectionRange: {
        contentId: '2',
        startOffset: 8,
        endOffset: 20,
      },
    } satisfies MessageComment,
  ];

  return (
    <AnchoredCommentsProvider anchors={commentsToAnchors(comments)}>
      <ContentSection addIcon={<span>+</span>} iconRight="-3.5rem">
        {messages.map(message => (
          <ContentView key={message.id} contentId={message.id}>
            <div>
              Your markdown content goes here. Users can select text
              and add comments to any part of it.
              <Highlight
                contentId={message.id}
                markdown={message.content}
                anchors={commentsToAnchors(
                  comments.filter(
                    c => c.messageId === message.id,
                  ),
                )}
                color="#fef2cd"
                activeColor="#fcbc03"
              />
            </div>
          </ContentView>
        ))}
      </ContentSection>
      <CommentSection>
        <NewComment>
          {({ selectionRange, onAddSuccess, onCancel }) => (
            <div>New Comment Form</div>
          )}
        </NewComment>
        {comments.map(comment => (
          <CommentView key={comment.id} commentId={comment.id}>
            {({ isActive, onDeleteSuccess }) => (
              <div>Render comment here</div>
            )}
          </CommentView>
        ))}
      </CommentSection>
    </AnchoredCommentsProvider>
  );
}

Core Components

AnchoredCommentsProvider

Root component that provides commenting context and manages state.

ContentSection

Wrapper for all contents that can be commented on.

ContentView

Wrapper for each markdown content block. Provides text selection.

Highlight

Component for rendering markdown content with comments. Highlights text based on comments.

CommentSection

Wrapper for all comments.

CommentView

Component for positioning each comment. You must provide your own comment rendering components.

API Reference

Types

import type {
  CommentAnchor,
  SelectionRange,
} from '@examind/react-anchored-comments';

Development

This project uses npm workspaces with a monorepo structure:

react-anchored-comments/
├── packages/
│ └── core/ # Main library code
└── demo/ # Demo application

Setup

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build core library
npm run build

# Run development environment
npm run dev

Scripts

npm run build - Build the core library
npm run dev - Run both core (watch mode) and demo
npm run dev:core - Run core in watch mode
npm run dev:demo - Run demo application

Link

To test the library in a local project, you can use pnpm link:

# In the plugin directory (packages/core)
cd packages/core
npm run build  # Build your plugin first
npm link

# In your other project
npm link @examind/react-anchored-comments

Unlink

To unlink the library:

# In your other project
npm unlink @examind/react-anchored-comments

# In the plugin directory
npm unlink