Operations are the granular, low-level actions that occur while invoking transforms. A single transform could result in many low-level operations being applied to the editor.
Slate's core defines all of the possible operations that can occur on a richtext document. For example:
editor.apply({
type:'insert_text',
path:[0,0],
offset:15,
text:'A new string of text to be inserted.',
})
​
editor.apply({
type:'remove_node',
path:[0,0],
node:{
text:'A line of text!',
},
})
​
editor.apply({
type:'set_selection',
properties:{
anchor:{path:[0,0],offset:0},
},
newProperties:{
anchor:{path:[0,0],offset:15},
},
})
Under the covers Slate converts complex transforms into the low-level operations and applies them to the editor automatically. So you rarely have to think about operations unless you're implementing collaborative editing.
🤖 Slate's editing behaviors being defined as operations is what makes things like collaborative editing possible, because each change is easily define-able, apply-able, compose-able and even undo-able!