Theming & Styling

@qalma/editor is headless. It ships no component styles and does not depend on Tailwind or a design system. The consuming application owns all presentation.

CSS hooks

Hook	Where it appears
.qalma-editor	Host class on <qalma-editor>.
.qalma-content	Host class on <qalma-content>.
.qalma-content-surface	Internal mount element inside <qalma-content>.
.qalma-toolbar	Host class on <qalma-toolbar>.
.qalma-command-active	Added to button[qalmaCommand] when command state is active.
.ProseMirror	The editable ProseMirror element mounted inside the content surface.

Minimal styles:

qalma-content .ProseMirror {
  outline: none;
  white-space: pre-wrap;
  word-break: break-word;
}

Style document content

Document HTML comes from your plugins, so style the resulting elements.

qalma-content .ProseMirror h2 {
  margin-block: 1rem 0.5rem;
  font-size: 1.5rem;
  font-weight: 700;
}

qalma-content .ProseMirror ul {
  list-style: disc;
  padding-left: 1.5rem;
}

qalma-content .ProseMirror blockquote {
  border-left: 4px solid var(--accent);
  padding-left: 1rem;
}

Tailwind

Tailwind works well because Qalma exposes normal DOM.

<qalma-content
  class="block min-h-64 p-4
    [&_.ProseMirror]:outline-none
    [&_.ProseMirror_h2]:text-2xl [&_.ProseMirror_h2]:font-bold
    [&_.ProseMirror_ul]:list-disc [&_.ProseMirror_ul]:pl-6
    [&_.ProseMirror_blockquote]:border-l-4 [&_.ProseMirror_blockquote]:pl-4"
/>

Keep Tailwind in the app. Do not move product styling into editor plugins.

Design tokens and component systems

The docs app uses a shadcn/spartan-ng token contract in apps/docs/src/styles.css and the QalmaButton directive from @qalma/kit, an optional, separately published Tailwind-styled UI kit. @qalma/editor itself does not depend on it — you can wrap native <button> and <a> elements with your own component system just as easily.

The same pattern works for any component system:

<button
  type="button"
  qalmaBtn
  variant="ghost"
  size="icon"
  qalmaCommand="toggleBold"
  aria-label="Bold"
>
  B
</button>

Placeholder styles

PlaceholderPlugin adds a class and data-placeholder. You render the visible placeholder text with CSS.

.qalma-placeholder::before {
  content: attr(data-placeholder);
  color: var(--muted-foreground);
  float: left;
  height: 0;
  pointer-events: none;
}

Selected nodes

Selectable nodes such as images use ProseMirror's selected-node class.

qalma-content .ProseMirror .ProseMirror-selectednode {
  outline: 2px solid var(--accent);
  outline-offset: 2px;
}