I have been evaluating umbraco as a potential framework for our fairly
large (10,000+ html docs, 20,000+ pdfs in document library) corporate
website. I have a few lingering questions about umbraco and its
suitability for us. I'll break them out into a few separate threads.
Styled Editing
One complaint I've had from users is that the editing process in umbraco is not WYSIWYG enough. *I* understand why it's good to have just plain content for users to create and edit, and let me (and our designers, etc) worry about how it will look once published, but the users are a bit confused about what their content will "really" look like.
I realize there is a "preview" link available, and users can click on that at any point to see what things look like, but we have more than a dozen content providers of varying skill level who are used to using Contribute and seeing that, when they choose H2 for a title, it will be orange, arial, and bold (or whatever), and they find this reassuring (and frankly are more productive / ask for less support as a result).
Am I overlooking something? Is there any plans for change in the future? Does the MS Word client behave differently?
If you attach the style sheets to the richtext editor, they should be able to see the styles applied to the text. The items available in the "Styles" dropdown allow you to provide specific styles, like h2, strong etc to your content editors to apply, which they will be able to see in the RTE. These styles are defined by right clicking the stylesheet in the settings section and clicking create.
Also look into allowing your users to edit in Canvas for a real-time preview. Takes a bit more configuring and upfront work but might be what you're looking for.
Styled Editing
I have been evaluating umbraco as a potential framework for our fairly large (10,000+ html docs, 20,000+ pdfs in document library) corporate website. I have a few lingering questions about umbraco and its suitability for us. I'll break them out into a few separate threads.
Styled Editing
One complaint I've had from users is that the editing process in umbraco is not WYSIWYG enough. *I* understand why it's good to have just plain content for users to create and edit, and let me (and our designers, etc) worry about how it will look once published, but the users are a bit confused about what their content will "really" look like.
I realize there is a "preview" link available, and users can click on that at any point to see what things look like, but we have more than a dozen content providers of varying skill level who are used to using Contribute and seeing that, when they choose H2 for a title, it will be orange, arial, and bold (or whatever), and they find this reassuring (and frankly are more productive / ask for less support as a result).
Am I overlooking something? Is there any plans for change in the future? Does the MS Word client behave differently?
Thanks in advance
Jonathan
If you attach the style sheets to the richtext editor, they should be able to see the styles applied to the text. The items available in the "Styles" dropdown allow you to provide specific styles, like h2, strong etc to your content editors to apply, which they will be able to see in the RTE. These styles are defined by right clicking the stylesheet in the settings section and clicking create.
Also look into allowing your users to edit in Canvas for a real-time preview. Takes a bit more configuring and upfront work but might be what you're looking for.
-Chris
Chris, thanks for pointing me to the In Canvas mode -- that definitely looks like what I would want for my users
Cheers
Jonatan
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