jQuery UI, AJAX and CKEditor - CKEditor only loads the first time - ajax

Question

I'm having an issue similar to the issues reported both here and here, with a only a few changes in how my form data is loaded.
The solution provided in the second link seemingly resolves my issue, but removing the show/hide scaling effects should not be required in order for CKEditor to instantiate properly. There's bound to be a much better alternative to resolving this conflict.
My issue:
When I open my page, and click the edit button, a jQueryUI Dialog pops up, loads its data via ajax, and then I attempt to replace the textarea added to the dialog with a CKEditor instance. The first time I load the page, the dialog works without a hitch. I'm able to modify the data within the editor, save my form data, and get on with life. However, if I close the dialog, then open it again, the editor is no longer enabled. The buttons still have hover effects, and are clickable, but do nothing. The text area of the editor is disabled and set to "style: visibility: hidden; display: none;". Nearly all the information I can find regarding this issue is from many years ago, and the fixes involve using functions/techniques that no longer exist or are applicable.
Control Flow
I open the page containing a text link 'Edit Update', which calls my Javascript function openEditTicketUpdateDialog.
function openEditTicketUpdateDialog(tup_id, url)
{
simplePost(null, url, new Callback
(
function onSuccess(data)
{
$('#editticketupdatedialog').dialog('option', 'buttons',
[
{
text: 'Save Edits',
click: function()
{
// Save the Update info
var formData = {
tup_update: CKEDITOR.instances.tup_update_edit.getData(),
tup_internal: +$('#tup_internal_edit').is(":checked"),
tup_important: +$('#tup_important_edit').is(":checked")
};
simplePost(formData, data['submitRoute'], new Callback
(
function onSuccess(data)
{
$('#update-' + tup_id).html(data.input['tup_update']);
$('#updateflags-' + tup_id).html(data.flags);
$('#editticketupdatedialog').dialog('close');
},
function onFail(errors)
{
console.log(errors);
}
));
}
},
{
text: 'Cancel',
click: function()
{
$(this).dialog("close");
}
}
]);
$('#editticketupdatedialog').dialog('option', 'title', data['title']);
$('#editticketupdatedialog').html(data['view']);
$('#editticketupdatedialog').dialog('open');
destroyEditor('tup_update_edit');
console.log('CKEDITOR.status: ' + CKEDITOR.status);
createEditor('tup_update_edit');
},
function onFail(errors)
{
console.log(errors);
}
));
}
This function uses three helper functions, simplePost, destroyEditor and createEditor.
function simplePost(data, url, callback)
{
post(data, url, true, false, callback);
}
function createEditor(name)
{
console.log('Create editor: ' + name);
console.log('Current Instance: ');
console.log(CKEDITOR.instances.name);
if (CKEDITOR.status == 'loaded')
{
CKEDITOR.replace(name,
{
customConfig: '/js/ckeditor/custom/configurations/standard_config.js'
});
}
else
{
CKEDITOR.on('load', createEditor(name));
CKEDITOR.loadFullCore && CKEDITOR.loadFullCore();
}
console.log('After instance created: ');
var instance = CKEDITOR.instances.name;
console.log(instance);
}
function destroyEditor(name)
{
console.log('Destroy editor: ' + name);
console.log('Current Instance: ');
console.log(CKEDITOR.instances.name);
if (CKEDITOR.instances.name)
{
console.log('Instance exists - destroying...');
CKEDITOR.instances.name.destroy();
$('#' + name).off().remove();
}
console.log('After instance removed: ');
var instance = CKEDITOR.instances.name;
console.log(instance);
}
This method of creating a CKEditor instance was gathered from here. This method of destroying a CKEditor instance was gathered from here.
As you can see, openEditTicketUpdateDialog fires an AJAX call to my getEditUpdateForm function through Laravel routes.
public function getEditUpdateForm($tup_id, $update_number)
{
$update = Update::find($tup_id);
$data = [
'title' => 'Editing update #' . $update_number . ' of ticket #' . $update->tup_ticket,
'view' => View::make('tickets.ticketupdate-edit')
->with('update', $update)
->render(),
'submitRoute' => route('tickets/update/submit', $tup_id)
];
return Response::json(array('status' => 1, 'data' => $data));
}
From here, a status of 1 is returned, and the onSuccess function is called. I've attempted to add the create/delete calls before the $('#editticketupdatedialog').dialog('open'); call, but to no avail. I've also tried multiple other solutions that I've found surfacing, which involve hacked implementations of jQueryUI's Dialog functions and attributes: _allowInteraction and moveToTop. I was originally successful in resolving this issue the first time it arose by calling this function before doing a CKEDITOR.replace:
function enableCKEditorInDialog()
{
$.widget( "ui.dialog", $.ui.dialog, {
/**
* jQuery UI v1.11+ fix to accommodate CKEditor (and other iframed content) inside a dialog
* #see http://bugs.jqueryui.com/ticket/9087
* #see http://dev.ckeditor.com/ticket/10269
*/
_allowInteraction: function( event ) {
return this._super( event ) ||
// addresses general interaction issues with iframes inside a dialog
event.target.ownerDocument !== this.document[ 0 ] ||
// addresses interaction issues with CKEditor's dialog windows and iframe-based dropdowns in IE
!!$( event.target ).closest( ".cke_dialog, .cke_dialog_background_cover, .cke" ).length;
}
});
}
After updating to Laravel 5, and making a few other changes serverside, this fix no longer works. I have been successful in resolving my issue by removing the show/hide properties from my dialog. I would very much prefer not to have to remove these properties, as half the reasoning for having the dialog is the aesthetics of an animation. Here is my dialog initialization.
$('#editticketupdatedialog').dialog({
modal: true,
draggable: false,
minWidth: 722,
autoOpen: false,
show:
{
effect: "scale",
duration: 200
},
hide:
{
effect: "scale",
duration: 200
},
closeOnEscape: true
});
When I have these animations enabled, the first time I use the dialog, it works perfectly. The second time, I receive the error TypeError: this.getWindow(...).$ is undefined - ckeditor.js:83:18 in the JS console, which refers to this line:
function(a)
{
var d = this.getWindow().$.getComputedStyle(this.$,null);
return d ? d.getPropertyValue(a) : ""
}
Recap
My main goal here is to find a fix for this issue, without having to remove the jQueryUI Dialog animation. I am unsure whom to point fingers at, as I really can't determine if the issue lies in CKEditor, jQueryUI or my implementation.

Answer 1

I finally found a solution that works in my case. losnir updated the outdated solution to a post here, and adding the open function to my dialog initialization resolved my issue.
My initialization is as follows:
$('#editticketupdatedialog').dialog({
modal: true,
draggable: false,
minWidth: 722,
autoOpen: false,
show:
{
effect: "scale",
duration: 200
},
hide:
{
effect: "scale",
duration: 200
},
closeOnEscape: true,
open: function()
{
$(this).parent().promise().done(function ()
{
destroyEditor('tup_update_edit');
console.log('CKEDITOR.status: ' + CKEDITOR.status);
createEditor('tup_update_edit');
});
}
});