Inline-editing / canvas-mode in Umbraco 4.11.1 or later?
Hi Umbraco Community,
our company recently decided to try Umbraco
as our new CMS. However, we are now not sure whether to use Umbraco or
another CMS due to the following concern:
Isitpossiblein umbraco 4.11.1 to use the inline-edition / canvas-mode? If not, whenis it possible?
We
don't want to offend anyone here, for we really like the CMS in general.
It should be possible to use it - howver I must admit that I can't quite remember what it takes to get it running. I have seen it work though :)
I think it was in the release of 4.9 that the Canvas option was disabled by default. You can however enable it by changing this line in the umbracoSettings.config file <EnableCanvasEditing>false</EnableCanvasEditing> and set it to true.
In order to make it work properly I think you maye need to wrap all your code, inside the <body> tag in a <form runat="server"></form> tag if you're running the webforms templates. I don't know what it will take to make it run if you're using MVC.
I must admit that I personally don't like the concept of inline-editing and in my experience it sometimes confuses the editors more to manage their content this way.
Could you describe the use case and what benefits you're gaining by using canvas editing?
You're certainly not offending anyone - it's legit question and if it's something that you really really need then you of course need to do the research.
My company is in the process of choosing a new CMS. The editors i work with find this inline concept very appealing. Would it be possible to have this as a option in the system? I am sure that some people find this easier, to be editing the content and see how it looks live as they go along.
I also am curious about your statement that this confuses editors. Could you elaborate on that statement?
As I mentioned above it can be really tricky to get the function working properly from a technical point of view. And even if you get it working it's not neccesarily a good editor experience.
You have a very good point that editors are more likely to find it more pleasant to work with when they can see the changes imidiately. But it requires that the workflow around it is working properly to make it a good, non-confusing editor experience. Even though the thought is nice it's not working very well with in the current state and I suppose that's why it's been disabled by default (As far as I remember).
And I don't think that this part of the system has been getting that much attention since it got introduced around 2009 or something like that.
But a lot has happened with web-technologies since then and I think canvas editing is more likely to succeed in the future since the techology is not much more mature and the frontend layer can now handle some of the stuff way better in order update the content in the backend. So it is possible that this will work really nicely in the future.
In the mean-time I suggest using the uEdit this package done by Marc Goodson. From what I've heard it's been really well received by the editors of the http://liverpool.gov.uk/ website and I have implemented it on a lot of our own websites and have only got positive feedback so far.
When it's implemented what it does is adding a "Edit this page" button in the top right corner. So when an editor is logged into the Umbraco backoffice and the editor is browsing the website on the frontend the button will appear in the top corner of those pages the editor has access to edit.
When the editor clicks the button they're transfered directly to the content-node in the umbraco backoffice.
I hope this answers your question. Otherwise please let me know :)
Inline-editing / canvas-mode in Umbraco 4.11.1 or later?
Hi Umbraco Community,
our company recently decided to try Umbraco as our new CMS. However, we are now not sure whether to use Umbraco or another CMS due to the following concern:
Is it possible in umbraco 4.11.1 to use the inline-edition / canvas-mode?
If not, when is it possible?
We don't want to offend anyone here, for we really like the CMS in general.
Best
Hi denism8
It should be possible to use it - howver I must admit that I can't quite remember what it takes to get it running. I have seen it work though :)
I think it was in the release of 4.9 that the Canvas option was disabled by default. You can however enable it by changing this line in the umbracoSettings.config file <EnableCanvasEditing>false</EnableCanvasEditing> and set it to true.
In order to make it work properly I think you maye need to wrap all your code, inside the <body> tag in a <form runat="server"></form> tag if you're running the webforms templates. I don't know what it will take to make it run if you're using MVC.
I must admit that I personally don't like the concept of inline-editing and in my experience it sometimes confuses the editors more to manage their content this way.
Could you describe the use case and what benefits you're gaining by using canvas editing?
You're certainly not offending anyone - it's legit question and if it's something that you really really need then you of course need to do the research.
Looking forward to hear from you :)
/Jan
Hi Jan.
My company is in the process of choosing a new CMS. The editors i work with find this inline concept very appealing. Would it be possible to have this as a option in the system? I am sure that some people find this easier, to be editing the content and see how it looks live as they go along.
I also am curious about your statement that this confuses editors. Could you elaborate on that statement?
Best regards
Halli
Hi Halli
As I mentioned above it can be really tricky to get the function working properly from a technical point of view. And even if you get it working it's not neccesarily a good editor experience.
You have a very good point that editors are more likely to find it more pleasant to work with when they can see the changes imidiately. But it requires that the workflow around it is working properly to make it a good, non-confusing editor experience. Even though the thought is nice it's not working very well with in the current state and I suppose that's why it's been disabled by default (As far as I remember).
And I don't think that this part of the system has been getting that much attention since it got introduced around 2009 or something like that.
But a lot has happened with web-technologies since then and I think canvas editing is more likely to succeed in the future since the techology is not much more mature and the frontend layer can now handle some of the stuff way better in order update the content in the backend. So it is possible that this will work really nicely in the future.
In the mean-time I suggest using the uEdit this package done by Marc Goodson. From what I've heard it's been really well received by the editors of the http://liverpool.gov.uk/ website and I have implemented it on a lot of our own websites and have only got positive feedback so far.
When it's implemented what it does is adding a "Edit this page" button in the top right corner. So when an editor is logged into the Umbraco backoffice and the editor is browsing the website on the frontend the button will appear in the top corner of those pages the editor has access to edit.
When the editor clicks the button they're transfered directly to the content-node in the umbraco backoffice.
I hope this answers your question. Otherwise please let me know :)
Cheers,
Jan
Hi. An icelandic company, Vettvangur, has implemented a canvas solution. Looks nice. Have you guys at HQ seen it?
is working on a reply...