emberjs child component not re-rendering after property update

Question

I have a page component (five-whys) with a number of inputs that the user can choose to finalize the input. When the user clicks finalize, all questions are made to be disabled.

Page component

five-whys.hbs:

{{#each this.whys as |why i|}}
  <Generic::RichTextInput
    @value={{why.content}}
    @onChange={{action this.whyChanged i}}
    @disabled={{this.isFinalized}} />
{{/each}}
<button {{on "click" this.finalizeWhy}}>Finalize</button>

five-whys.ts

interface AnalyzeFiveWhysArgs {
  dataStory: DataStory;
}

export default class AnalyzeFiveWhys extends Component<AnalyzeFiveWhysArgs> {
  @alias("args.dataStory.fiveWhysAnalysis") fiveWhysAnalysis

  @tracked
  isFinalized: boolean = this.fiveWhysAnalysis.isFinalized ?? false;

  @tracked
  whys: LocalWhy[] = this.fiveWhysAnalysis.whys;

  @tracked
  isFinalized: boolean = this.fiveWhysAnalysis.isFinalized ?? false; 

  @action
  async finalizeWhy() {
    this.isFinalized = true;
  }

This works fine when my rich text component is just a regular text area. However, I am trying to implement tinymce which requires me to do stuff outside of Embers little safe space of magic.

My rich text component:

Template:

<textarea id={{this.id}} disabled={{this.templatePieceIsDisabled}}>{{@value}}</textarea>

Typescript:

interface GenericRichTextInputArgs {
  value?: string;
  onChange: (value: string) => void;
  name: string;
  disabled?: boolean;
}

export default class GenericRichTextInput extends Component<GenericRichTextInputArgs> {
  constructor(owner: unknown, args: GenericRichTextInputArgs) {
    super(owner, args);

    this.initializeTinymce();
  }

  id = this.args.name;

  get editor() {
    return tinymce.get(this.id);
  }

  get settings() {
    console.log(this.args.disabled);

    const settings: TinyMCESettings = {
      selector: `#${this.id}`,
      setup: (editor: Editor) => this.setupEditor(this, editor),
      readonly: this.args.disabled ? this.args.disabled : false
    };
    return settings;
  }

  initializeTinymce() {
    Ember.run.schedule('afterRender', () => {
      console.log("re-initializing"); // I expect to see this log every time the isFinalized property in the five-whys component changes. But I only see it on page load.

      tinymce.init(this.settings);
    });
  }

  setupEditor(self: GenericRichTextInput, editor: Editor) {
    ... // details of tinymce API
  }
}

When I click the finalize button, The effect of the disabled flag in the rich text component does not change.

Note:

The tinymce library I'm using sets the text area display to none and the aria-hidden to true. This is because it wraps the textarea in a widget. So I have to use the library's api to set disabled.

Answer 1

I figured it out. Ember doesn't run the constructor for the update life-cycle event. So I need to tell Ember to re-run the initializer when the template gets re-rendered. I had to use https://github.com/emberjs/ember-render-modifiers to do this.

So my rich text editor template looks like:

<textarea
  id={{this.id}}
  {{did-update this.updateDisabled @disabled}}>
  {{@value}}
</textarea>

And I added this action in the code behind of the rich text editor:

  @action
  updateDisabled(element: HTMLTextAreaElement, [disabled]: any[]) {
    this.disabled = disabled;

    this.editor.destroy();
    this.initializeTinymce();
  }