Thursday, August 28, 2008 by Niels Hartvig

It's been a long time since the last podcast, but we're finally back. This time it's with Ruben 'DataLayer' Verborgh and Tim 'nibble.be' Geyssens who're talking about the progress of the exciting new LiveEditing features in Umbraco 4.

This week I'm in Belgium together with Ruben and Tim to make the last adjustments to the Live Editing functionality so we can get it tested. If you're thinking Live What? there's a good explanation - we've kept it a secret until now.

Live Editing is our vision of a next generation UI for a Web CMS. One where the CMS itself becomes transparent and the website implementation becomes the context of editing. Not only for content, but also for editing and adjusting templates, css, xslt, etc. Our ambitions are big and we believe that our LiveEditing implementation is a genius and solid platform for the coming versions of umbraco. Even though this video shows unpolished work in progress you should be able to get a good feeling of what we're working on and why we're really excited.

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(Podcast 6: Live Editing in Belgium - 8 minutes)

Links to stuff mentioned in the podcast:

10 comment(s) for “Podcast 6 - Live Editing in Umbraco 4”

  1. Gravatar ImageSoeren Sprogoe Says:
    28 Aug 08 @ 08:38 GMT+1

    Very interesting!

    I can't wait to take it for a spin!

    But just a little warning: Messing with the UI of a backend usually needs a ton of practical, real world usability testing.

    One of the reasons why Umbraco is such a neat and friendly system to work with (IMHO), is it's a simple and no nonsense backend that isn't bloated with features that you don't need.

    I'm not saying that it shouldn't change, just make sure you put some extra effort into testing it on people, who isn't already deeply involved in v4 development. Or even know about Umbraco.

  2. Gravatar ImageAdam Perry Says:
    28 Aug 08 @ 10:31 GMT+1

    Great work, good to see I wasn't the only one up late last night :-) Where do you get all the cheesey music from?!

  3. Gravatar ImageKim Løwert Says:
    28 Aug 08 @ 03:05 GMT+1

    GOD DAMN IT GUYS!!! That is soooo cool... Can't wait to try it out...

    That is going to make umbraco compete even better in the marketplace, and make it an even easier sell to the clients.

    To Adam... The Chaasey music is from Ole Erling (http://www.ole-erling.dk/)

    All the best from DK ;o)

  4. Gravatar ImageHartvig Says:
    28 Aug 08 @ 03:19 GMT+1

    @Søren: This won't replace the backend for Umbraco 4, but it's the vision on a longer term to see if we can move more things to in-context editing. Also, umbraco will *never* grow bloaded - that's a promise.

    I bought Silverback (http://www.silverbackapp.com) to do some usability studies on random people over the next weeks. Nothing scientific, but just testing the live editing for 8-10 people to see how they respond. If you have other ideas for how we can test, please let me know - I'm very interested.

    @Adam: Yes, it's Ole Erling, except for the exclusive chocolate intro in this podcast which features the Belgium National Theme as a midi file ;-)

    @Kim: Thanks. It'll be even cooler once it's polished for the RC. And it's so lightning fast and optimized. And you'd even like the code. Very beautiful, full of documentation and following IDesign coding standards :-)

  5. Gravatar ImageSimon Justesen Says:
    28 Aug 08 @ 03:50 GMT+1

    Great work guys!

    Adding a little dotted border or something to indicate where the editable areas are could improve the userfriendliness .. just a little idea.

  6. Gravatar ImageDarren Ferguson Says:
    28 Aug 08 @ 08:07 GMT+1

    A quick thought.

    Can you give some consideration to permissions for the context editing toolbar. e.g. Some of the users that I know would get rather freaked out by the Insert Macro option - they don't know an d shouldn't need to know what a Macro is.

    Also, although I really like the idea, please make it something that can be enabled in config and not available by default!

    Good work. Interested to see how you handle custom datatypes!

  7. Gravatar ImageHartvig Says:
    28 Aug 08 @ 10:46 GMT+1

    @Darren: Only users with permissions for settings/developer will have the insert macro button by default as it modifies the template (however one could make a neat datatype which could enable it for content users as well).

    This will definitely be enabled by default - why would you enable this? When it's done it'll be much more user friendly than the current back office.

  8. Gravatar ImageJames Says:
    29 Aug 08 @ 10:11 GMT+1

    Are these features not very similar to what's been available in DNN for the last couple of years? Module drag/drop and in-place editing? Perhaps I've missed something as the footage isn't the clearest?

  9. Gravatar ImageHartvig Says:
    30 Aug 08 @ 12:06 GMT+1

    @James: There's a new podcast coming with more details. I'm not claiming we're the first to have inline editing (we were inspired by Flickr and others), but I think the way we've manage to integrate it makes it something very useful and not just a smart optional way of editing that's good for sales demos.

    The performance of our LiveEditing and the flexibility it gives combined with the fact that it works out-of-the-box for all umbraco datatypes and for any implemented design (still no crappy skinning/theming like other WCMS needed here) makes it shine.

  10. Gravatar ImageDarren Ferguson Says:
    01 Sep 08 @ 04:09 GMT+1

    @umbraco - I guess my question is how do you get the toolbar to appear. I guess you have to be authenticated to Umbraco right?

    Do you log in to the Umbraco GUI and then the toolbar starts appearing all over the site?

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