Mentor Web Blocks is a ground breaking free and open source Umbraco
package that further enhances the already fantastic Umbraco CMS. Mentor
Web Blocks adds drag and drop website building functionality for content
editors, and excellent code encapsulation for developers.
Developed
by certified Umbraco developers at Mentor Digital, the Mentor Web
Blocks project is the culmination of 12 months of front and back end
development work. The Web Blocks system is already in use by 4 major NHS
websites, FTSE 250 companies, charities and large scale membership
organisations.
The Web Blocks system has been developed to encapsulate code for each
block in a re-usable and loosely coupled way. Blocks can now make use of
Razor scripts, XSLT scripts and .Net user controls, neatly organising
your scripts into re-usable and shareable snippets. Templates can be
developed to be pre-populated with blocks and also blocks can be added
retrospectively to templates populating all pages using this template
with the new block that has been added. For interface developers the Web
Blocks system is very flexible and can adapted to work with any
interface framework though at present at Mentor Digital our Umbraco
Developers mainly use the 960 grid system.
Read the Getting started guide for developers at http://www.mentorwebblocks.com/support/getting-started-for-developers/
The Web Blocks system provides the ability to drag blocks of content
into defined areas on a preview canvas, directly from the content tree.
Users can create blocks in the content tree in the same way as creating
normal pages i.e. from pre-defined block/content types. Blocks behave
just like any other node in the content tree and can have parameters
just like normal content pages. Once created blocks can be dragged into
the preview panel and re-ordered by dragging around the canvas. Once on
the canvas, a block can be double-clicked to pop-up an overlay showing
the parameters of that block including WYSISYG editor, media pickers
etc.
Read the Getting started guide for content editors at http://www.mentorwebblocks.com/support/getting-started-for-developers/
For the Mentor Web Blocks showcase visit http://mentorwebblocks.com/showcase/
DOWNLOAD NOTES: the Mentor Web Blocks with Runway site is a web site zipped up. All you need to do is unzip and point IIS at it and you are ready to go!
Runway site username: admin
Runway site password: webblocks
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