Collaborative Editing

The collaborative editing feature allows multiple users to edit the same document simultaneously. Document content is transmitted to the server in real time and can be stored directly on the server, eliminating the need for clients to initiate manual save requests.

Collaborative editing requires server-side support from Umo Editor Server, although you may also configure your own provider.

Effect Screenshot

Umo Editor Collaborative Editing

Demo Video

Features and Advantages

Support for private deployment, allowing you to deploy privately or customize service providers to ensure data security and controllability;
Real-time offline and online collaboration, supporting synchronization of document changes even when users reconnect after being offline;
Real-time communication with the server through WebSocket to achieve instant document content synchronization;
Communication with other applications through Webhook to synchronize document content, comments, and other information;
Support for document comment collaboration, where users can comment on documents with real-time synchronization to the server;
Umo Editor Server supports 100,000+ users editing simultaneously, enabling efficient multi-user collaboration with cluster deployment support.

Use Cases

Co-author meeting notes: the host outlines the structure, attendees fill in key points
PRD/spec reviews: edit while discussing to reduce copy/paste across versions
Contract/policy drafting: multiple roles edit in parallel and converge in a single source of truth
Papers and reports: divide sections and keep formatting and TOC consistent
Marketing copy: iterate wording and layout together and publish faster
Pre-sales proposals: sales, product, and delivery teams contribute sections and assets
Training materials: instructors and TAs refine examples and exercises collaboratively
Distributed weekly reports: remote teams update progress and risks in real time
Support/knowledge base: keep FAQ up to date and reduce edit conflicts
Policy updates: continuously iterate the same document with an auditable collaboration trail

Works Well With

Comments

Collaboration is for co-editing; comments are for discussion and decisions: Comments
Use @mentions to route questions to the right owner and track resolution

Track Changes

Enable Track Changes during collaboration to review “who changed what”, then accept/reject to finalize: Track Changes
Filter by author during review to converge by role

Version History

Use versions for milestones while collaboration covers day-to-day editing: Version History
Create versions for approvals/releases to make rollback and comparison easy

AI

Use AI to polish/rewrite/expand a section and write the result back into the shared doc: AI
Use comments to discuss AI suggestions, then apply the final edits in the document

Default Configuration

const defaultOptions = {
  // Collaborative editing configuration
  document: {
    id: '', // In multi-user collaboration scenarios, document ID is required to uniquely identify a document
  },
  collaboration: {
    enabled: false,
    provider: {},
  },
}

Unsupported Configurations

When online collaboration is enabled, the following configurations are not supported:

const defaultOptions = {
  document: {
    content: '',
    autoSave: {
      // ...
    },
  },
  onSave() {
    // ...
  },
}

This is because in collaborative scenarios, document content is transmitted to the server in real time and can be stored directly on the server, removing the need for the client to trigger save requests.

Configuration Description

collaboration

Configuration related to collaborative editing. For implementation principles and mechanisms, refer to: https://tiptap.dev/docs/hocuspocus.

collaboration.enabled

Description: Whether to enable online collaboration.

Type: Boolean

collaboration.provider

Description: Configuration of the collaboration service provider. Umo Editor Next provides a default Node.js server-side solution based on Express, which includes a built-in Hocuspocus Server (see: Umo Editor Server). This option supports all configuration options of the Hocuspocus Server.

Type: Object

Configuration: Options follow the Hocuspocus Server configuration, see: https://tiptap.dev/docs/hocuspocus/provider/configuration.

Method List

For examples of method usage, see: Method List.

getCollaboration

Description: Retrieves information related to online collaboration.

Parameters: None

Return Value: Object or undefined. The returned object contains the following information:

connect: Boolean — whether the connection to the provider was successful.
user: Array — the list of users currently collaborating on the document.
provider: Object — the service provider information. With this information, you can listen to relevant events to implement custom features. See: https://tiptap.dev/docs/hocuspocus/provider/events#option-2-binding.

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