I've been waiting for months for version 6.2 to come out and now I have to ask, is ALL the focus on version 7 and none on 6 ?
I understand that 7 is exciting and new but there are probably none Umbraco 7 websites out there that matter at the moment, Cant the team focus just a little on getting the more important version 6.2 out ?
I love working with Umbraco and the community is awesome but I feel the core team needs to put the focus on the right places instead of just jumping between things, get the things that are out there right first before creating new things.
At least give better info on why version 6 has just stopped.
This is how I would think the priority should be :
version 6.2
Replace or update the Tinymce to help content editors working with Umbraco, they are the people that matter most !
Documentation
Version 7
These are just my 2 cents, hope I offend no one :) would love to here what people think the right priority should be.
Accordingly to the v6.2.0 page there isn't a set release date yet. But don't lose faith, the core team are working on it - just look at the v6.2.0 branch commits on GitHub
I don't work for HQ, so don't quote me on this, but I believe the focus on v7 and 'Umbraco as a Service'.
As for your priorities, I'm curious about the TinyMCE issues - apart from it's not the latest version, maybe a pull-request if you know how?
Same with documentation, if there's anything specific that is lacking, that could be raised on the issue tracker? So that can be added to the roadmap ... I do know that Umbraco.tv is getting more content/tutorials in coming months.
The team seems to be working on 6.2.0 and it had a release date that they then took out. I can see that version 7 is getting more updates much faster and the same issues are always stopped at 6.2.0 so it looks like there is no work really going on. But if it is I would love to know the reason for the delay.
There are so many things wrong and bad with Tinymce at the moment that it is getting really hard selling it to clients. We have to make allot of customizations on it just to make it work out of the box. f.ex adding the styles from the page to the content.css file, adding heading elements, macros styling works really bad and editing allot of html attributes can change some of the attributes we put in. the list goes on and on and on..
It would be little better if they would upgrade it at least from v3 to v4 but that would just be a temporary fix.
When clients have worked with other CMS that have f.ex live editing and can drag/drop control/macros on page this editor looks few years out dated.
I have read few post where people are arguing about the old canvas edit and say it didnt really work as expected, it could be true but that is not an excuse to just abandon the idea, they should just make it work the right way, there are some many examples of cms system doing it well now.
Umbraco has so so many thing going for it but working with content in it is not up to par, anybody who argues against this has not worked on large website or other cms systems.
I'm not sure if you've had a chance to install Umbraco 7 or not? The Angular.JS UI makes the back office feel very modern versus inline/canvas editing and other fanciful drag and drop features!
I think it would be fair/prudent to say the canvas method has been distanced because property types can be created to represent some pretty complex and flexible data structures. Wheras the canvas mode can only really allow for simple text editing.
I would argue that content editors don't really need a WYSIWIG representaton of the page they're creating or editing too. They're not designers.
It's one of the fundamental floors of SharePoint that I have to deal with every day, content editors who think they can make a page look good....and fail miserably. Umbraco saves you from this nightmare.
On the tinyMCE front, i know there are a few issues starting to appear with IE11. But I wasn't aware of anything mega serious preventing it's use. What problems, specifically are you having?
I have checked out Umbraco 7 and it it a big step up from the old UI, but that is just an UI and there are no new changes really on the content editor.
There is nothing modern with editing and inserting data/content to pages throught Tinymce, let me give you some examples.
How would you insert an accordion menu that have title and content into an Umbraco page at the moment ? would you create an macro that fetches nodes ?
Or customize the TinyMce by adding a new button and creating javascript for it ?
Or.. Try inserting an Grid.. two columns 6 by 6 and insert accordion into them both.. ?
I would not want to create an extra template for stuff like this or have extra nodes just for accordion content.
But think about how nice it would be if you would have just added an area to the template that you could insert macros into throught live edit (I'm not talking about editing on the live pages but in the backend. so you could have list of macros that you could move to the areas.). Then you could have special grid macro that you could tell to be 6/6 and they would create areas you could drag/drop textareas you could live edit in.
The Tinymce is great for really simple users that only need to do what we have specifed in the document type but they have no real freedom.
And just to be clear, when I'm talking about live edit i'm not talking about editing the page "live" but changing the content section to have iframed the page you have selected in the node tree. and then work with it through it.
and here is one bug that you can try.
Add a bootstrap button link to an content site like so : <a href="link here" class="btn btn-primary">Link text</a>
Now try to edit the hyperlink..... it will remove the class. this is just one simple idea how bad this editor is and not to mention the whole html popup window.
To sum up : Tinymce is great for simple cases that just needs text and headings.. but when trying to create pages that have more complexity and flow to it the editor is really hard to work with for the developer and client.
Hope this describes my frustration a little about content editing in Umbraco :)
I think in some respects you might be missing the point of a CMS?
A CMS is meant to hold your website in a structured manner that is updateable and maintainable and trackable by people who most probably understand structure and data far more than they understand design and presentation.
Why on earth would you want to drop an accordian into a tinyMCE in the first place? In fact some of the design agencies i've worked with in the past have done exactly that, dropped in all sorts of complex mark-up, JQuery and so on....THATS NOT WHAT tinyMCE is for and it misses the point of Umbraco and CMSs.
TinyMCE is for simple end-user text markup ONLY! Sure you do more complex things like drop in movies, tables, styles etc... But you should keep much of that away from end-users as it will ultimately lead to poor presentation on the page.
If you need structure that will be visually represented as an accordian build it Umbraco using the node tree and then write code to automagically render it out onto the page/navigation in question (XSLT or Razor). If the accordian is considered a "one-off" first ask the question...'Do I actually need to use one in the first place?' or 'How can I make it re-useable elsewhere in the site?' or 'How can represent the information more simply?'
@Garðar - I know your accordion is just an example issue ... for me with that type of functionality, I'd be looking for an alternative editor control (as @Martin says, TinyMCE isn't really suitable for that)
For Umbraco 7, take a look at the video demo for Archetype - it lets you define your own content structures and work with them how you need.
Gardar, Archetype is a great example of how you can build complex data structures that can be managed an maintained easily by your end users. You write the code and presentation for them and they need not be concerned about dropping in any markup or code that would in fairness scare them off!
Archetype is also a sniff at what to come for designers and developers in Umbraco 7. It's exciting times!
If I may, I would like to get back to the original question: What is happening to 6.2.0?
It has had several release dates, and they have all been removed without any explanation. Right now it just says "Not yet determined".
Version 6.2.0 has a lot of bugfixes that we would like to have avaiable. Can we please have an explanation on what's going on?
This is from the bolg from October 30th 2013: "As for Umbraco 6.2 we haven't got a release date planned, but it'll be post v7." At least that part is true, if not very helpful. Nothing about a releasedate has been heard since.
Version 6.2, whats happening ?
Hi,
I've been waiting for months for version 6.2 to come out and now I have to ask, is ALL the focus on version 7 and none on 6 ?
I understand that 7 is exciting and new but there are probably none Umbraco 7 websites out there that matter at the moment, Cant the team focus just a little on getting the more important version 6.2 out ?
I love working with Umbraco and the community is awesome but I feel the core team needs to put the focus on the right places instead of just jumping between things, get the things that are out there right first before creating new things.
At least give better info on why version 6 has just stopped.
This is how I would think the priority should be :
These are just my 2 cents, hope I offend no one :) would love to here what people think the right priority should be.
Hi Garðar,
Accordingly to the v6.2.0 page there isn't a set release date yet. But don't lose faith, the core team are working on it - just look at the v6.2.0 branch commits on GitHub
I don't work for HQ, so don't quote me on this, but I believe the focus on v7 and 'Umbraco as a Service'.
As for your priorities, I'm curious about the TinyMCE issues - apart from it's not the latest version, maybe a pull-request if you know how?
Same with documentation, if there's anything specific that is lacking, that could be raised on the issue tracker? So that can be added to the roadmap ... I do know that Umbraco.tv is getting more content/tutorials in coming months.
Cheers,
- Lee
Hi Lee,
The team seems to be working on 6.2.0 and it had a release date that they then took out. I can see that version 7 is getting more updates much faster and the same issues are always stopped at 6.2.0 so it looks like there is no work really going on. But if it is I would love to know the reason for the delay.
There are so many things wrong and bad with Tinymce at the moment that it is getting really hard selling it to clients. We have to make allot of customizations on it just to make it work out of the box. f.ex adding the styles from the page to the content.css file, adding heading elements, macros styling works really bad and editing allot of html attributes can change some of the attributes we put in. the list goes on and on and on..
It would be little better if they would upgrade it at least from v3 to v4 but that would just be a temporary fix.
When clients have worked with other CMS that have f.ex live editing and can drag/drop control/macros on page this editor looks few years out dated.
I have read few post where people are arguing about the old canvas edit and say it didnt really work as expected, it could be true but that is not an excuse to just abandon the idea, they should just make it work the right way, there are some many examples of cms system doing it well now.
Umbraco has so so many thing going for it but working with content in it is not up to par, anybody who argues against this has not worked on large website or other cms systems.
Best regards
Gardar
Hi Gardar
I'm not sure if you've had a chance to install Umbraco 7 or not? The Angular.JS UI makes the back office feel very modern versus inline/canvas editing and other fanciful drag and drop features!
I think it would be fair/prudent to say the canvas method has been distanced because property types can be created to represent some pretty complex and flexible data structures. Wheras the canvas mode can only really allow for simple text editing.
I would argue that content editors don't really need a WYSIWIG representaton of the page they're creating or editing too. They're not designers.
It's one of the fundamental floors of SharePoint that I have to deal with every day, content editors who think they can make a page look good....and fail miserably. Umbraco saves you from this nightmare.
On the tinyMCE front, i know there are a few issues starting to appear with IE11. But I wasn't aware of anything mega serious preventing it's use. What problems, specifically are you having?
Regards
Martin
Hi Martin,
I have checked out Umbraco 7 and it it a big step up from the old UI, but that is just an UI and there are no new changes really on the content editor.
There is nothing modern with editing and inserting data/content to pages throught Tinymce, let me give you some examples.
How would you insert an accordion menu that have title and content into an Umbraco page at the moment ? would you create an macro that fetches nodes ?
Or customize the TinyMce by adding a new button and creating javascript for it ?
Or.. Try inserting an Grid.. two columns 6 by 6 and insert accordion into them both.. ?
I would not want to create an extra template for stuff like this or have extra nodes just for accordion content.
But think about how nice it would be if you would have just added an area to the template that you could insert macros into throught live edit (I'm not talking about editing on the live pages but in the backend. so you could have list of macros that you could move to the areas.). Then you could have special grid macro that you could tell to be 6/6 and they would create areas you could drag/drop textareas you could live edit in.
The Tinymce is great for really simple users that only need to do what we have specifed in the document type but they have no real freedom.
And just to be clear, when I'm talking about live edit i'm not talking about editing the page "live" but changing the content section to have iframed the page you have selected in the node tree. and then work with it through it.
and here is one bug that you can try.
Add a bootstrap button link to an content site like so : <a href="link here" class="btn btn-primary">Link text</a>
Now try to edit the hyperlink..... it will remove the class. this is just one simple idea how bad this editor is and not to mention the whole html popup window.
To sum up : Tinymce is great for simple cases that just needs text and headings.. but when trying to create pages that have more complexity and flow to it the editor is really hard to work with for the developer and client.
Hope this describes my frustration a little about content editing in Umbraco :)
Hi Gardar
I think in some respects you might be missing the point of a CMS?
A CMS is meant to hold your website in a structured manner that is updateable and maintainable and trackable by people who most probably understand structure and data far more than they understand design and presentation.
Why on earth would you want to drop an accordian into a tinyMCE in the first place? In fact some of the design agencies i've worked with in the past have done exactly that, dropped in all sorts of complex mark-up, JQuery and so on....THATS NOT WHAT tinyMCE is for and it misses the point of Umbraco and CMSs.
TinyMCE is for simple end-user text markup ONLY! Sure you do more complex things like drop in movies, tables, styles etc... But you should keep much of that away from end-users as it will ultimately lead to poor presentation on the page.
If you need structure that will be visually represented as an accordian build it Umbraco using the node tree and then write code to automagically render it out onto the page/navigation in question (XSLT or Razor). If the accordian is considered a "one-off" first ask the question...'Do I actually need to use one in the first place?' or 'How can I make it re-useable elsewhere in the site?' or 'How can represent the information more simply?'
Always think D.R.Y - Don't Repeat Yourself!
Hi Gardar
Add a bootstrap button link to an content site like so : <a href="link here" class="btn btn-primary">Link text</a>
This is exactly what i'm talking about BTW.....You DONT ever put your OWN markup into a tinyMCE!
Gardar are you an developer/designer/implementor or a content editor/end user?
@Garðar - I know your accordion is just an example issue ... for me with that type of functionality, I'd be looking for an alternative editor control (as @Martin says, TinyMCE isn't really suitable for that)
For Umbraco 7, take a look at the video demo for Archetype - it lets you define your own content structures and work with them how you need.
Cheers,
- Lee
Thanks for the pointer Lee. :-)
Gardar, Archetype is a great example of how you can build complex data structures that can be managed an maintained easily by your end users. You write the code and presentation for them and they need not be concerned about dropping in any markup or code that would in fairness scare them off!
Archetype is also a sniff at what to come for designers and developers in Umbraco 7. It's exciting times!
All the best
Martin
If I may, I would like to get back to the original question: What is happening to 6.2.0?
It has had several release dates, and they have all been removed without any explanation. Right now it just says "Not yet determined".
Version 6.2.0 has a lot of bugfixes that we would like to have avaiable. Can we please have an explanation on what's going on?
This is from the bolg from October 30th 2013: "As for Umbraco 6.2 we haven't got a release date planned, but it'll be post v7." At least that part is true, if not very helpful. Nothing about a releasedate has been heard since.
Hi Allan
I'm wondering if its because some of the updates have to be back-peddled into v6 from v7? Therefore one may be holding up the other slightly?
Martin.
is working on a reply...