When adding a link to any word in the editor, I cannot ever exit the link unless I press enter (go to new line). Pressing escape, multiple spaces or anything else fail.

[kherona]

📝 Provide detailed reproduction steps (if any)

Download CKEditor 5 ClassicEditor build and use the sample html file and add link to text, the link doesn't exit unless I press enter.

✔️ Expected result

Link editing should exit on space or exit or both.

❌ Actual result

Link editing is not exiting, below is an example from sample downloaded (same problem on my site):

📃 Other details

Here is gif file to describe the problem. Its super annoying if you are trying to past/insert a link while editing a document and there is no workaround unless you break your flow.

• Browser: Tested this on Chrome + Firefox. Same behavior.
• OS: Windows 10
• CKEditor version: CKEditor 5 ClassicEditor build (sample html file + my project are affected by this)
• Installed CKEditor plugins: nothing extra

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[kherona]

Sorry I forgot to clarify, this happens when doing a custom build https://ckeditor.com/ckeditor-5/online-builder/
I downloaded build 20.0.0 from https://ckeditor.com/ckeditor-5/download/ and didn't face the same issue.

[FilipTokarski]

Hi, I just checked editor from online builder and it works fine for me. Here's a screencast:

Please note that to exit the link, you need to use arrow right or arrow left. Here you can read more about typing around links.

[kherona]

Thanks for the update Filip.

I found about this earlier today, I even had to inform my users about this (as it gets super frustrating to exit a link if the user doesn't know about the arrows and I dont expect every user on my platform to read CKEditor docs to work on it).

Below is an example from Word Processor (its almost the standard way of word processing), as you can see, if the user selects a word or group of characters and enters a link, then the link editing mode exits immediately (which makes a lot of sense).

Is there a way to configure this to exit on specifc key strokes, i.e double space (and there is no characters after), or maybe exit the link mode when pressing escape as I didn't know about the arrows and spent hours trying to figure this out (consider the case when the first word in the text is a link and you want to add more stuff after it without pressing arrow)

[kherona]

I had to put this after a few users said that links had problem, they couldn't explain the problem, however I believe its due to this.

Now I have to keep this message as there is no way to exit link mode (maybe we can have an icon/button to exit editing as well?)

[Reinmar]

We changed this behavior a bit recently. Now, when you click after a link you will be placed outside that link. It already works this way here: https://ckeditor.com/docs/ckeditor5/latest/examples/builds/classic-editor.html.

We changed that because we understand that two-step caret movement is a bit confusing to some users. It should now be much easier for them to place the caret outside (as intuitively many will click there and those who use keyboard to navigate have a higher chance to learn about 2-step caret movement).

We could also consider adding an option to disable 2-step caret movement via the config but you also gave some interesting idea – pressing Esc could work this way. Do you think that the latter would help?

[kherona]

@Reinmar clicking away indeed helps, but consider the scenario when the first thing you enter is a link, then there is no way to click outside or do any action unless you press enter (new line).

I think you guys should utilize escape key more. i.e for user to close font selector, end link select and many more. esc should exit current toolbar (this is how outlook email/word processor, chrome and everything else works). i.e try to open any menu in chrome and press escape, it will be closed/exited immediately.

Anyway for the link itself, I think escape is less confusing (while I believe for best experience the behavior of microsoft word is the best one), once I add a link to "selection" then there is no need to continue editing that selection, it should just exit link mode and let me continue doing what I was doing.

[CKEditorBot]

There has been no activity on this issue for the past year. We've marked it as stale and will close it in 30 days. We understand it may still be relevant, so if you're interested in the solution, leave a comment or reaction under this issue.

[CKEditorBot]

We've closed your issue due to inactivity over the last year. We understand that the issue may still be relevant. If so, feel free to open a new one (and link this issue to it).