Slate's editor is very unopinionated. The only logic it handles by default is logic associated with the contenteditable functionality itself—managing text, selections, etc. That logic in contained in a single plugin, called the "core" plugin.
The default behavior of the core plugin performs the following logic:
When text is entered, the core plugin inserts the text from event.data into the editor.
When a key is pressed, the core plugin handles performing some of the "native" behavior that contenteditable elements must do. For example it splits blocks on enter, removes characters backspace, triggers an undo state from the history on cmd-z, etc.
When the user pastes content into the editor, the core plugin handles all pastes of type text and html as plain text, and does nothing for pastes of type files.
The core plugin renders a default block and inline node, wrapping in a <div> and <span>, respectively. Each of these nodes contains shouldComponentUpdate logic prevents unnecessary re-renders.
The default block node also controls its own placeholder logic, which is controlled via the <Editor>'s placeholder options.
The core plugin adds a default mark with an empty set of styles.
Any plugin you add to the editor will override the default behavior of the core plugin, because it is always resolved last.
However, sometimes you might want to disable the logic of the core plugin without actually adding any logic yourself. For example, you might want to prevent the enter key from performing any action. In those cases, you'll need to define a "noop" handler.
A noop onBeforeInput handler looks like:
function onBeforeInput(event, state, editor) {
event.preventDefault()
return state
}Notice that is calls event.preventDefault() to prevent the default browser behavior, and it returns the current state to prevent the editor from continuing to resolve its plugins stack.