Installation

Active development

Templatical is under active development and ships frequently. The public API is stabilizing — we follow SemVer, use changesets for every release, and document breaking changes in the changelog. Pin a version in production and watch GitHub releases to stay current.

Have a feature request or hit a rough edge? Open a discussion — feedback shapes the roadmap.

Requirements

• Modern browser -- support depends on which mount mode you use:
  • Default mode (shadowDom: true, Shadow DOM) — Chrome 80+, Edge 80+, Firefox 101+, Safari 16.4+. Firefox and Safari minimums are driven by the adoptedStyleSheets API the shadow path relies on.
  • Opt-out mode (shadowDom: false, light DOM) — Chrome 80+, Edge 80+, Firefox 80+, Safari 14+. Use this if you need to support older Firefox or Safari, or if your integration requires light-DOM access to editor internals. See the Shadow DOM guide for trade-offs.
• Container element -- must have a defined height (the editor fills its container). In default mode, must be an element type that can host a shadow root (e.g. <div>, <section>, <article>). See container element requirements.
• No transform on an ancestor of the container -- do not apply transform, filter, perspective, or will-change to any element that wraps the mount point. Each establishes a CSS containing block for position: fixed, which offsets the editor's floating UI (color pickers, rich-text toolbars) and its drag ghost away from their anchor — even while the transform's computed value is none (an active or animated transform still promotes the element). This is a CSS containing-block rule, not a Templatical-specific limitation; it affects any library that positions overlays with position: fixed. For a scroll or entrance effect on a wrapper, animate opacity instead of transform.
• No required peer dependencies -- Vue, TipTap, and all internal libraries are bundled into the editor. You don't need to install Vue or any framework runtime, regardless of which framework your app uses. (@templatical/renderer, @templatical/quality, @templatical/media-library, and pusher-js are optional peers — install them only if you use the corresponding feature; see Optional peers below.)

npm

npm

npm install @templatical/editor

pnpm

pnpm add @templatical/editor

yarn

yarn add @templatical/editor

bun

bun add @templatical/editor

@templatical/editor is the visual editor. To convert templates to MJML, also install @templatical/renderer:

npm

npm install @templatical/renderer

pnpm

pnpm add @templatical/renderer

yarn

yarn add @templatical/renderer

bun

bun add @templatical/renderer

The renderer is optional. Install it where you need MJML output:

• Browser, with the editor — when calling editor.toMjml() to export from the user's session.
• Node.js / server — when you only have stored template JSON and want to convert it to MJML server-side. You don't need the editor for this; install just the renderer.

If you call editor.toMjml() without the renderer installed, it throws a clear error naming the missing package.

Package overview

Package	Description	When to install
@templatical/editor	Visual drag-and-drop editor and init() entry point. Self-contained — Vue, TipTap, and @templatical/core//types are bundled inside.	Required
@templatical/renderer	Converts templates to MJML for email sending.	Optional — install where you call editor.toMjml() (browser) or renderToMjml() (Node.js, server)
@templatical/quality	Template linters (accessibility, structure, links) that drive the editor's Issues panel and a headless / CI check.	Optional — install to turn on the Issues sidebar tab and inline block badges
@templatical/media-library	Standalone media library (types, composable, API client, Vue components) used by initCloud().	Optional — required only when using initCloud() for the media browser
@templatical/types	Shared TypeScript types, block factory functions, type guards.	Only if you build templates programmatically without the editor (e.g. server-side workflows)
@templatical/core	Framework-agnostic editor logic (state, history) for headless setups.	Only for headless / non-editor consumers
@templatical/import-beefree	Converts BeeFree JSON templates to Templatical format.	Optional
@templatical/import-unlayer	Converts Unlayer JSON design templates to Templatical format.	Optional
@templatical/import-html	Converts existing HTML email templates (table-based) to Templatical format.	Optional

@templatical/editor ships as a single self-contained ESM bundle: every runtime dependency it needs (Vue, TipTap, vue-draggable-plus, @templatical/core, @templatical/types, etc.) is inlined. You never install them separately — and you never get duplicate copies in your app's node_modules.

Optional peers

The editor lazy-loads four optional peers via dynamic import() at runtime, gated by feature use:

Peer	When loaded	Install if you
@templatical/renderer	First call to editor.toMjml()	Need MJML export from the browser
@templatical/quality	Editor mount (Issues panel)	Want accessibility, structure, and link lint in the Issues sidebar
@templatical/media-library	First open of the media browser	Use initCloud()
pusher-js	Cloud realtime connect	Use initCloud()

If you don't install them, the corresponding feature simply disables itself — the editor still mounts and runs.

A note on bundler output

The editor works out of the box with every modern bundler — no consumer configuration is required regardless of which optional peers you install. Vite, esbuild, Rollup, and Rolldown handle the optional dynamic imports silently. Webpack 5 is slightly more verbose: it statically analyzes every import() and prints a harmless Module not found warning for each uninstalled optional peer. The build still succeeds and the editor runs correctly — these warnings are cosmetic only.

If you'd prefer a clean Webpack log, you can opt into silencing them with ignoreWarnings:

// webpack.config.js — optional, only if the warnings bother you
module.exports = {
  ignoreWarnings: [
    {
      module: /@templatical[\\/]editor/,
      message:
        /Can't resolve '(pusher-js|@templatical\/(quality|media-library|renderer))'/,
    },
  ],
};

Framework integration

Templatical mounts into any DOM element. It creates its own isolated application internally, so it works with any framework — or no framework at all.

Vanilla JS

import { init } from "@templatical/editor";
import "@templatical/editor/style.css";

const editor = await init({
  container: "#editor",
  onChange(content) {
    console.log("Content changed", content);
  },
});

// Later, when removing the editor:
editor.unmount();

React

import { useRef, useEffect } from "react";
import { init } from "@templatical/editor";
import "@templatical/editor/style.css";
import type { TemplaticalEditor } from "@templatical/editor";

export function EmailEditor() {
  const containerRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);
  const editorRef = useRef<TemplaticalEditor | null>(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    if (!containerRef.current) return;

    let cancelled = false;
    init({
      container: containerRef.current,
      onChange(content) {
        console.log("Content changed", content);
      },
    }).then((ed) => {
      if (!cancelled) editorRef.current = ed;
    });

    return () => {
      cancelled = true;
      editorRef.current?.unmount();
    };
  }, []);

  return <div ref={containerRef} style={{ height: "100vh" }} />;
}

Vue

<script setup lang="ts">
import { ref, onMounted, onUnmounted } from "vue";
import { init } from "@templatical/editor";
import "@templatical/editor/style.css";
import type { TemplaticalEditor } from "@templatical/editor";

const container = ref<HTMLElement>();
let editor: TemplaticalEditor | null = null;

onMounted(async () => {
  if (!container.value) return;

  editor = await init({
    container: container.value,
    onChange(content) {
      console.log("Content changed", content);
    },
  });
});

onUnmounted(() => {
  editor?.unmount();
});
</script>

<template>
  <div ref="container" style="height: 100vh" />
</template>

Svelte

<script lang="ts">
  import { onMount, onDestroy } from 'svelte';
  import { init } from '@templatical/editor';
  import '@templatical/editor/style.css';
  import type { TemplaticalEditor } from '@templatical/editor';

  let containerEl: HTMLElement;
  let editor: TemplaticalEditor | null = null;

  onMount(async () => {
    editor = await init({
      container: containerEl,
      onChange(content) {
        console.log('Content changed', content);
      },
    });
  });

  onDestroy(() => {
    editor?.unmount();
  });
</script>

<div bind:this={containerEl} style="height: 100vh;" />

Angular

import {
  Component,
  ElementRef,
  OnDestroy,
  OnInit,
  ViewChild,
} from "@angular/core";
import { init } from "@templatical/editor";
import "@templatical/editor/style.css";
import type { TemplaticalEditor } from "@templatical/editor";

@Component({
  selector: "app-email-editor",
  standalone: true,
  template: `<div #editorContainer style="height: 100vh"></div>`,
})
export class EmailEditorComponent implements OnInit, OnDestroy {
  @ViewChild("editorContainer", { static: true })
  containerRef!: ElementRef<HTMLElement>;

  private editor: TemplaticalEditor | null = null;

  async ngOnInit(): Promise<void> {
    this.editor = await init({
      container: this.containerRef.nativeElement,
      onChange(content) {
        console.log("Content changed", content);
      },
    });
  }

  ngOnDestroy(): void {
    this.editor?.unmount();
  }
}

Important

Always call unmount() when removing the editor from the page. This cleans up event listeners, timers, and DOM elements. This is especially important in single-page applications where components mount and unmount during navigation.

TypeScript support

All packages ship with full TypeScript type definitions. Configuration options, callback payloads, block types, and instance methods are fully typed:

import { init, unmount } from "@templatical/editor";
import type {
  TemplaticalEditor,
  TemplaticalEditorConfig,
} from "@templatical/editor";
import type {
  TemplateContent,
  Block,
  ThemeOverrides,
  FontsConfig,
} from "@templatical/types";

CDN

If you prefer not to use a package manager, load the editor directly via script tags:

<link
  rel="stylesheet"
  href="https://unpkg.com/@templatical/editor/dist/cdn/editor.css"
/>
<script type="module">
  import { init } from "https://unpkg.com/@templatical/editor/dist/cdn/editor.js";

  const editor = await init({
    container: "#editor",
  });
</script>

<div id="editor" style="height: 100vh;"></div>

The CDN build is fully self-contained — all dependencies are bundled. Heavy libraries (TipTap, Vue, Pusher, etc.) are code-split into separate chunks and loaded on demand.