Limit the number of character in tinyMCE

Question

Im using tinyMCe for my project.Everything is working fine but now i want to restrict the number of character that will be insert into tinyMce text

Answer 1

The solution below works good for me: 1 - in the html code of the textarea it is necessary to include the value of maxlength and id of textarea.
2 - in script part, code below. If you want, uncomment the alert() line, and put your message.

<script type="text/javascript">
  tinymce.init ({
    ...
    ...
      setup: function(ed) {
        var maxlength = parseInt($("#" + (ed.id)).attr("maxlength"));
        var count = 0;
        ed.on("keydown", function(e) {
          count++;
          if (count > maxlength) {
            // alert("You have reached the character limit");
            e.stopPropagation();
            return false;
          }
        });
     },

<textarea type="text" id="test" name="test" maxlength="10"></textarea>

Answer 2

There is no tinymce configuration setting max_chars, except you implement it yourself:

tinyMCE.init({
   ...
   max_chars : "10",
   setup : function(ed) {
      ed.onKeyDown.add(function(ed, evt) {

        if ( $(ed.getBody()).text().length > ed.getParam('max_char')){
          e.preventDefault();
          e.stopPropagation();
          return false;
        } 

      });
   }
});

Answer 3

This is the solution that worked for me.

I basically took the code provided by @needfulthing and fixed the errors and improved it.

function initTinymce(){

        tinymce.init({
            selector: '.richtext-editable',
            plugins: ['paste'],

            max_chars: 50000, // max. allowed chars

            setup: function (ed) {                              
                var allowedKeys = [8, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46];
                ed.on('keydown', function (e) {
                    if (allowedKeys.indexOf(e.keyCode) != -1) return true;
                    if (tinymce_getContentLength() + 1 > this.settings.max_chars) {
                        e.preventDefault();
                        e.stopPropagation();
                        return false;
                    }
                    return true;
                });
                ed.on('keyup', function (e) {
                    tinymce_updateCharCounter(this, tinymce_getContentLength());
                });                             
            },

            init_instance_callback: function () { // initialize counter div
                $('#' + this.id).prev().append('<div class="char_count" style="text-align:right"></div>');
                tinymce_updateCharCounter(this, tinymce_getContentLength());
            },

            paste_preprocess: function (plugin, args) {                             
                var editor = tinymce.get(tinymce.activeEditor.id);
                var len = editor.contentDocument.body.innerText.length;                             
                if (len + args.content.length > editor.settings.max_chars) {
                    alert('Pasting this exceeds the maximum allowed number of ' + editor.settings.max_chars + ' characters for the input.');
                    args.content = '';
                }                                   
                tinymce_updateCharCounter(editor, len + args.content.length);                               
            }

        });

        function tinymce_updateCharCounter(el, len) {
            $('#' + el.id).prev().find('.char_count').text(len + '/' + el.settings.max_chars);
        }

        function tinymce_getContentLength() {
            return tinymce.get(tinymce.activeEditor.id).contentDocument.body.innerText.length;
        }

}

Answer 4

Just to improve a little bit the good example given by Vladimir Miroshnichenko, to get a more accurate count, mainly for languages with accented characters.

I also inlcude the Javascript SpellChecker as the tinyMCE's one (4.1) cannot be used anymore. So the ed.addButton() will include a button in the toolbar to call $Spelling.SpellCheckInWindow('editors'). That perfectly works with tinyMCE 4.1.7.

I also added a count of words, if you prefer to trig the alarm on word instead of characters.

<textarea id="paragraph1" name="description_edit"><?=htmlspecialchars($this->company->description);?></textarea>

<div><span>Characters left:</span> <span id="chars_left"></span></div>

<script type="text/javascript" src="tinymce/tinymce.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="JavaScriptSpellCheck/include.js"></script>

<script>
var max_chars    = 300; //max characters
var max_for_html = 1000; //max characters for html tags
var allowed_keys = [8, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 34, 35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46];
var chars_without_html = 0;

function alarmChars(){
    if(chars_without_html > (max_chars - 25)){
        $('#chars_left').css('color','red');
    }else{
        $('#chars_left').css('color','gray');
    }
}        

$(function() {
    tinymce.init({
        selector: "textarea#paragraph1",
        theme: "modern",
        plugins: [
            "advlist autolink lists charmap preview hr anchor pagebreak",
            "visualblocks visualchars insertdatetime nonbreaking",
            "directionality paste textcolor"
        ],
        menubar:false,
        statusbar:false,

        toolbar: "bold italic underline | alignleft aligncenter alignright alignjustify | forecolor backcolor | bullist numlist | charmap | preview | Spellcheck", 

        setup : function(ed) {
            ed.addButton('Spellcheck', {
                title : 'Spellcheck',
                image : '/img/dict.png',
                onclick : function() {
                    // Add you own code to execute something on click
                    $Spelling.SpellCheckInWindow('editors');
                }
            });

            ed.on("KeyDown", function(ed,evt) {
                    whtml = tinyMCE.activeEditor.getContent();

                    without_html = whtml.replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig,"");
                    without_html = without_html.replace(/&([A-za- z])(?:acute|cedil|caron|circ|grave|orn|ring|slash|th|tilde|uml);/ig,'$1');
                    without_html = without_html.replace(/&hellip;/ig,'...');
                    without_html = without_html.replace(/&rsquo;/ig,'\'');
                    without_html = $.trim(without_html.replace(/&([A-za-z]{2})(?:lig);/ig,'$1'));

                    chars_without_html = without_html.length;
                    chars_with_html    = whtml.length;

                    wordscount = without_html.split(/[ ]+/).length;  // Just to get the wordcount, in case...

                    var key = ed.keyCode;

                    $('#chars_left').html(max_chars - chars_without_html);

                    if(allowed_keys.indexOf(key) != -1){
                        alarmChars();
                        return;                                                         
                    }

                    if (chars_with_html > (max_chars + max_for_html)){
                        ed.stopPropagation();
                        ed.preventDefault();
                    }else if (chars_without_html > max_chars-1 && key != 8 && key != 46){
                        alert('Characters limit!');
                        ed.stopPropagation();
                        ed.preventDefault();
                    }
                    alarmChars();                                                   
                }
            );
        },
    });

    whtml = $("#paragraph1").text();

    without_html = whtml.replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig,"");
    without_html = without_html.replace(/&([A-za-z])(?:acute|cedil|caron|circ|grave|orn|ring|slash|th|tilde|uml);/ig,'$1');
    without_html = without_html.replace(/&hellip;/ig,'...');
    without_html = without_html.replace(/&rsquo;/ig,'\'');
    without_html = $.trim(without_html.replace(/&([A-za-z]{2})(?:lig);/ig,'$1'));

    chars_without_html = without_html.length;

    $('#chars_left').html(max_chars - chars_without_html);
    alarmChars();                                           
});    

I hope it will help as tinyMCE team seems to be a bit stubborn on this subject...