Hard Break & Trailing Paragraph

This page covers two small editing-behavior plugins:

Plugin	Purpose
HardBreakPlugin	Adds an inline hardBreak node that serializes to <br>.
TrailingParagraphPlugin	Ensures the document ends with an empty paragraph when the last block is not already one.

import {
  HardBreakPlugin,
  TrailingParagraphPlugin,
  createQalmaEditor,
} from '@qalma/editor';

const editor = createQalmaEditor({
  plugins: [HardBreakPlugin, TrailingParagraphPlugin],
});

HardBreakPlugin

HardBreakPlugin registers one command and one shortcut.

Contract	Description
insertHardBreak	Replaces the current selection with a hardBreak node when the selection is inside one inline-content parent.
Shift-Enter	Runs insertHardBreak.

<button type="button" qalmaCommand="insertHardBreak">
  Line break
</button>

The hard break node:

Property	Value
Inline	Yes
Selectable	No
HTML parse	<br>
HTML serialize	<br>
Plain leaf text	'\n'

The command returns false when the selection crosses parent boundaries or the current parent cannot accept an inline hard break.

TrailingParagraphPlugin

TrailingParagraphPlugin has no public commands or queries. It installs a ProseMirror plugin that appends a paragraph when the final document child is not already an empty paragraph.

This keeps the cursor reachable after terminal blocks such as code blocks, blockquotes, lists, or media-heavy paragraphs.

const editor = createQalmaEditor({
  content: '<pre><code class="language-typescript">const ok = true;</code></pre>',
  plugins: [CodeBlockPlugin, TrailingParagraphPlugin],
});

The inserted paragraph is marked with addToHistory: false, so the automatic trailing paragraph does not become an undo step. The plugin also queues a microtask on mount and update to ensure the trailing paragraph exists after the view is ready.

Styling

No extra CSS is required for the plugin behavior. If your product gives empty paragraphs a visible min-height, the trailing paragraph will inherit that styling like any other paragraph.