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Documentation

Changes between CK4 and CK5

We are updating our documentation library to be ready for the Sector 10! Find out more in our Sector 10 roadmap or head straight to our collection of Sector 10 - Changes and Updates.

Task
Content editing
Topic
Content editing
Product
Sector Starter kit

The introduction of CKEditor 5 will bring major changes for Sector 10 and sites updated from Sector 9 to 10! CK5 is a complete re-write and some of the CK4 features are moving into a paid premium version. The Sector 10 Starter Kit CKEditor 5 config will be free and will cover common editorial tasks with some nice additions.  

The table below lists the differences per feature. 

Feature CK4 CK5         Notes
Toolbar As-is New Now based on Google Docs toolbar
Undo/redo  Yes Yes  
Paragraph styles Yes (Styles) Yes Heading 2 to 5 matching <h2> to <h5>
Styles  Included in Styles above  Yes  Now a separate drop-down with leading and highlighted styles. 
Text align  No Yes  Now in a new dropdown restricted to centred and LHS
Special characters  Yes  Yes   
Link (via Linkit) Yes  Yes Now with advanced features to add aria-labels, classes, ids and relationships.
Bold, italic, strike through  Yes Yes  
Ordered and unordered lists Yes Yes Unordered lists now with 'start with' and 'reverse order'  
Increase / decrease indent Yes  Yes   
Quotes  Yes  Yes  
Subscript and superscript  Yes  Yes   
Tables  Yes (via WYSIWYG templates) Yes  Now using the default table feature
Horizontal line  Yes  Yes   
Media  Yes  Yes   
Source code Yes  Yes Please note: the source view is available in all formats for easy 'debugging' but only the FULL HTML format should have additional tags allowed that are not covered by plugins!!!
Remove format Yes  Yes   
Anchor  Yes  No Workaround is WIP
Show blocks  Yes  No  
Magic line (red line to insert paragraph after element) Yes No Some elements are wrapped in a drag and drop container, including the feature to insert a paragraph before and after elements, but it is missing for templates and other elements ... 
Maximise window  Yes No  
WYSIWYG templates (CKEditor Templates) Yes  No See below!
Embedded content No Yes See below

Known gaps in specific use cases 

Feature CK4 CK5         Notes
User able the edit embedded media items Yes No Under review

 

WYSIWYG templates (CKEditor Templates)

As of September 2023, the CKEditor Templates module has no upgrade path to Drupal 10 but work is being done. Seeing that this is a major migration issue on the upgrade path, we will keep an eye on the issue. 

Introducing embedded content

The ability to add and edit rich design patterns using the WYSIWYG editor is a primary Sector content authoring feature. Looking ahead to Sector 10, we decided to provide an alternative solution using the Embedded Content module

If there is a Drupal 10 CKEditor Templates version available before the end of 2023, both solutions can work in tandem and site owners can decided which to choose. 

Other alternatives

The CKEditor 5 Template module is another alternative worth keeping in mind, but the CK5 templates are built more for editorial use cases in apps rather than websites. Try the templates button on the feature-rich editor demo

Migrating CK4 to CK5

See our blog for some guidance to help you answer the question 'how should you approach upgrading CKEditor 4 to CKEditor 5?'

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Find out more in our Sector 10 roadmap.

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