Undo

We provide an UndoManager that helps you manage the undo/redo stack and can be used during concurrent editing. It also supports cursor position transformation. In the case of concurrent editing, you will want the undo/redo to be local, meaning it should only undo/redo local operations without affecting other collaborators' edits.

Why Local Undo/Redo?

If undo/redo is global, it often does not meet expectations. Consider the following scenario:

• User A and User B are collaborating: They are likely editing different parts of the document.
• User A performs an undo: If this undoes User B's operations, User A might see no changes and think the undo failed, as User B might be editing content outside of User A's view.
• User B's perspective: User B would find their recent edits deleted without knowing how it happened.

Usage

To create an UndoManager, you can specify:

• Which local operations are not recorded.
• The merge range for undo operations.
• The stack depth.

const undoManager = new UndoManager(doc, {
    maxUndoSteps: 100, // default 100
    mergeInterval: 1000, // default 1000ms
    excludeOriginPrefixes: ["sys:"], // default []
    onPush: ...,
    onPop: ...
}));

Limitations

• It can only track a single peer.
• If the document's PeerID changes during the process, an error will be thrown.

Restoring Selections

When utilizing undo/redo functionalities, it is important for our application to restore the selection to its position prior to the operation that is being undone or redone. This task is particularly challenging in a collaborative setting where remote operations can alter the cursor's position (for instance, if the cursor needs to revert to the 5th position, but remote operations have added new characters before this position).

Solution

We support storing cursors for each undo/redo action within the UndoManager. The UndoManager will adjust the stored cursors to reflect changes from remote edits or other undo/redo operations, ensuring they match the current state of the document.

They need be handled by the onPush and onPop callbacks.

On onPush, you can return a list of Cursors that you want to store. On onPop, you can retrieve the stored cursors and use them to restore the selection.

Typically, you may need to store selections in an undo/redo item in the following cases:

• When a new local change is applied, we need to record a new undo item. Therefore, we must store the selection before the operation to be undone.
  • Purpose: Storing the selection before is crucial because we may lose the selection after applying the operation. If the user selects text and deletes it, after undo, the onPop can retrieve the state of the selected deleted content.
• First undo operation: Store the current document's selection for the corresponding redo item.
  • Purpose: After redo, it can return to the initial selection state.

Internally, we also automatically handle the storage and reset of cursors in the undo/redo loop state.

const doc = new Loro();
let cursors: Cursor[] = [];
let poppedCursors: Cursor[] = [];
const undo = new UndoManager(doc, {
  mergeInterval: 0,
  onPop: (isUndo, value, counterRange) => {
    poppedCursors = value.cursors;
  },
  onPush: () => {
    return { value: null, cursors: cursors };
  },
});
 
doc.getText("text").insert(0, "hello world");
doc.commit();
cursors = [
  doc.getText("text").getCursor(0)!,
  doc.getText("text").getCursor(5)!,
];
// delete "hello ", the cursors should be transformed
doc.getText("text").delete(0, 6);
doc.commit();
expect(poppedCursors.length).toBe(0);
undo.undo();
expect(poppedCursors.length).toBe(2);
expect(doc.toJSON()).toStrictEqual({
  text: "hello world",
});
// expect the cursors to be transformed back
expect(doc.getCursorPos(poppedCursors[0]).offset).toBe(0);
expect(doc.getCursorPos(poppedCursors[1]).offset).toBe(5);

Demonstration