Forum for discussing general topics related to Couch.
3 posts Page 1 of 1
I recently became aware of CKEditor's new inline editing feature: http://nightly-v4.ckeditor.com/3703/samples/inlineall.html

It got me thinking about the feasibility of editing content on the front end. Theoretically it would not be too difficult with JavaScript and HTML5's 'contenteditable' attribute to create a form with the appropriate editable region inputs. If for now we forget about integrating more advanced features like CKEditor, repeatable regions, file/image uploading, etc..., and only consider a basic editable region like 'text', would this 'front end editing' ability be reasonably attainable?
Seems like this works, but all the fields you don't specify end up clearing themselves:
Code: Select all
<cms:editable type='text' name='test_text'/>

...

<form accept-charset="utf-8" method="post" action="<cms:admin_link/>">
   <input type="text" value="<cms:show k_page_title/>" name="f_k_page_title">
   <input type="text" value="<cms:show test_text/>" name="f_test_text">
   <input type="hidden" value="save" name="op">
   <input type="submit">
</form>
Cheesypoof, first of all, let me say that the possible solution you posted above is intriguing :)
Next, apologies for the delay in my reply.

Coming to inline editing - when I started work on Couch a couple of years back I looked very seriously into this topic.
Inline editing can certainly make things easier for not so tech-savvy users as it can do away with the admin-panel completely and provide a unified view of the site.
However, there were two points that dissuaded me from implementing this feature -

1. Works (or makes sense) on only certain kinds of pages. In Couch's context it is only the 'page-views' that can be edited this way. The 'list-views' are basically only 'windows' to the real pages and do not lend themselves to inline editing very well. Also Couch supports listing of pages of any masterpage on any other page. If this listing is present in a page-view, this again cannot be edited inline.

Even the page-views do not show all the editable regions so something additional would need to be implemented to make editing such regions possible (this will quickly lead to implementing some kind of an admin-panel attached directly to the page - not strictly inline).

This inconsistency as to what can be or cannot be edited, and in which context, can confuse the end-user easily.

2. More importantly than the first point, the reason that really convinced me that inline editing is not such a good idea is this - inline editing will necessarily be implemented using JavaScript (more likely using some library like JQuery). Now remember that Couch's USP is that it can be integrated in just about any design you care to throw at it. If that design contains (and more often than not, it will contain) JavaScript of its own, you can never be sure if the inline JavaScript will play fair with it.
In short, Couch's claim of being integrable with any design was likely to be proved wrong more often than I would have liked.

Those were my thoughts on the subject. Do let me know what you think of the arguments.
3 posts Page 1 of 1
cron