Renderers control how a field will be displayed when it is being viewed or edited. Some built-in and custom fields have more than one renderer, and for these fields, you can choose which one to use. For example, for text-based fields, such as Description, you can choose to use the simple text renderer or the more sophisticated wiki-style renderer that will allow you to use wiki markup to add more styling.
Jira ships with four different renderers:
- Default text renderer: This is the default renderer for text-based fields. Contents are rendered as plain text. If the text resolves a Jira issue key, the renderer will automatically turn that into an HTML link.
- Wiki style renderer: This is an enhanced renderer for text-based fields. It allows you to use wiki markup to decorate your text content.
- Select list renderer: This is the default renderer for selection-based fields. It is rendered as a standard HTML select list.
- Autocomplete renderer: This is an enhanced renderer for selection-based fields, and it provides an autocomplete feature to assist users as they start typing into the fields.
The following table lists all the fields that can have special renders configured and their available options:
| Field | Available renderers |
| Description | This is a wiki-style renderer and default text renderer. |
| Comment | This is a wiki-style renderer and default text renderer. |
| Environment | This is a wiki-style renderer and default text renderer. |
| Component | This is an autocomplete renderer and select list renderer. |
| Affects version | This is an autocomplete renderer and select list renderer. |
| Fix versions | This is an autocomplete renderer and select list renderer. |
| Custom field of type Free Text Field (unlimited text) | This is a wiki-style renderer and default text renderer. |
| Custom field of type Text Field | This is a wiki-style renderer and default text renderer. |
| Custom field of type Multi Select | This is an autocomplete renderer and select list renderer. |
| Custom field of type Version Picker | This is an autocomplete renderer and select list renderer. |
Perform the following steps to set the renderer for a field:
- Browse the View Field Configuration page for the field configuration you wish to use.
- Click on the Renderer link for the field you wish to set a renderer for (if it is available). You will be taken to the Edit Field Renderer page.
- Select the renderer from the available drop-down list.
- Click on the Update button to set the renderer.
There are other custom renderers developed by third-party vendors. Just like custom fields, these are packaged as add-ons that you can install in Jira. Once installed, these custom renderers will be available for the selection of the appropriate field types.
A good example is the JEditor add-on, which provides a rich-text editor for all text-based fields including Description.