Episerver Labs - Block Enhancements

The project contains a few features that, in general, make the life of Episerver editors easier. The vision is to make it possible to edit and publish blocks directly on the page without a need for switching context. The page is selected at all times, and all actions around local blocks is performed inline.

The list of current features is:

• Publish content with local blocks
• Inline block editing
• Show block status on content area
• Inline publishing
• Content Draft View

All features work together, but you can decide which ones are enabled by Configuring enabled features.

Publish content with local blocks

This is an extra command available in the global menu. It automatically checks the "For this page" folder of the current page and lists all draft versions of blocks that could be published with the page.

After running the command, a dialog box with a list of all draft versions of local blocks is displayed. The editor can decide which blocks will be published using check boxes next to the local block name.

The command will publish the page and all selected blocks.

Using this feature, the editor do not have to manually click through all local blocks just to check if all of them have already been published.

Inline block editing

This feature allows editors to edit block content directly on the page. There is a new "Inline block edit" command added to content area items menu.

The command opens a dialog box with an editable block form. The editor can edit blocks the same way as when switching to blocks editing context.

As you can see, the layout is a bit different than in the Forms view. Tabs are replaced with sections which makes more sense for blocks that usually have only a few properties.

The changes can also be published directly from the dialog box.

Additionally, the command is available from the assets pane.

In many scenarios, blocks are not using Name and Categories properties during rendering. This is the reason why we introduced the InlineBlockEditSettings configuration attribute. You can apply it to your block content type and hide those properties. Additionally, you can also use this attribute to hide specific groups to make the editing form cleaner.

The attribute contains three properties:

For example, the only property that is editable for the Editorial block type in the Alloy templates is "Main body". There is no need to display other built-in properties or group properties into sections:

Another example is the Teaser block which has just a few simple properties:

To turn on the Name property:

[SiteContentType(GUID = "67F617A4-2175-4360-975E-75EDF2B924A7",
    GroupName = SystemTabNames.Content)]
[SiteImageUrl]
[InlineBlockEditSettings(ShowNameProperty = true)]
public class EditorialBlock : SiteBlockData
{
    [Display(GroupName = SystemTabNames.Content)]
    [CultureSpecific]
    public virtual XhtmlString MainBody { get; set; }
}

And below is an example of how to display Name and Categories properties and Settings group.

[SiteContentType(GUID = "9E7F6DF5-A963-40C4-8683-211C4FA48AE1")]
[SiteImageUrl]
[InlineBlockEditSettings(ShowNameProperty = true, ShowCategoryProperty = true, HiddenGroups = "")]
public class AdvancedBlock : SiteBlockData
{
    [Display(Order = 1, GroupName = SystemTabNames.Content)]
    public virtual string Text1 { get; set; }

    [Display(Order = 2, GroupName = SystemTabNames.Content)]
    public virtual string Text2 { get; set; }

    [Display(Order = 1, GroupName = Global.GroupNames.Products)]
    public virtual string Text3 { get; set; }

    [Display(Order = 2, GroupName = Global.GroupNames.Products)]
    public virtual string Text4 { get; set; }
}

Showing block status on content area

Another enhancement is the way to get a few more details about particular content area items. Each content area item will display status icons similar to the page tree. You will now see if a block is a draft or if a language branch is missing.

Additionally to help distinguish local blocks from shared blocks, there is a new "Local block" icon.

Thanks to those flags, the editor can easily see if the page is ready to be published or not.

Inline publish

This feature is just a convenient way to publish Content Area Items directly from the list, without the need of switching context.

There is a new command available in the content area menu.

And also from the assets pane.

Content Draft View

Allow editors to preview draft versions of content area blocks.

There is now a new button in the top bar.

By default in edit view, the editor sees the published blocks versions when a page is rendered.

The editor can use the new "Content Draft View" button to get an overview of how the page will look after all blocks have been published.

Configuring enabled features

To turn off one or more feature, use the BlockEnhancementsOptions options class and then, for example, in the initialization module, set false on the feature that should not be available. All features are enabled by default.

[InitializableModule]
public class CustomBlockEnhancementsModule : IInitializableHttpModule
{
    public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context)
    {
        var options = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<BlockEnhancementsOptions>();
        options.InlineEditing = false;
        options.PublishWithLocalContentItems = true;
        options.ContentDraftView = true;
        options.InlinePublish = false;
        options.StatusIndicator = false;
    }

    public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context)  {  }

    public void InitializeHttpEvents(HttpApplication application) {  }
}

This documentation can also be found on our github page.

The NuGet is available on the EPiServer NuGet feed at: https://nuget.episerver.com/package/?id=EPiServer.Labs.BlockEnhancements&v=0.1.0

Please note

Episerver Labs projects are meant to provide the developer community with pre-release features with the purpose of showcasing ongoing work and getting feedback in early stages of development.

You should be aware that Labs are trials and not supported Episerver releases. While we hope you use them, there are a few things you should expect:

• Functionality may change
• Labs projects have not been through the same quality assurance process as the versioned products and, in some cases, may show unexpected behaviour.
• The software may not work on all environments
• There is no promise of support; however, we will gratefully receive all feedback

The software is provided “As is” without warranty of any kind or promise of support. In no event shall Episerver be liable for any claim, damages or liability in relation to the software. By using this software, you are agreeing to our developer program terms https://www.episerver.com/legal/program-terms/ .