[Module] Front End Editing (split from Adding an Edit Button to every page)

Yeah, take a break. You’ve earned it!

Ditto.

A couple suggestions/tips for using this module:

1. I added $cv->description to editor.class.inc.php, around line 136. Nothing fancy for now, just stuck it in a <p> tag. This writes the description of the TV field, helpful for prompting the user for a TV.

2. I have TV’s that aren’t directly included on a page template, but are either accessed in a snippet or are included as part of another element such as a URL or image (where I don’t want to set parameters in a widget). For those I made the following little snippet, called SetVar:
Right now of course this outputs the content of the TV if a manager user is logged in, and the QuickEdit module adds an edit button. Of course if the TV has a lot of text, or if it has values that may confuse the user, this can get cumbersome. The ideal would be a way to output a link to edit the TV without displaying all of its data. Adam, what would you think would be the best way to do this?

Quote from: jlarson at Aug 22, 2005, 06:43 PM

A couple suggestions/tips for using this module:

1. I added $cv->description to editor.class.inc.php, around line 136. Nothing fancy for now, just stuck it in a <p> tag. This writes the description of the TV field, helpful for prompting the user for a TV.

2. I have TV’s that aren’t directly included on a page template, but are either accessed in a snippet or are included as part of another element such as a URL or image (where I don’t want to set parameters in a widget). For those I made the following little snippet, called SetVar:

// Usage: SetVar?thisTV=yourtvname  

if($_SESSION['mgrValidated']) {

$output.="<div style='border:1px dotted gray>[*#".$thisTV."*]</div>";
return $output;
}

Right now of course this outputs the content of the TV if a manager user is logged in, and the QuickEdit module adds an edit button. Of course if the TV has a lot of text, or if it has values that may confuse the user, this can get cumbersome. The ideal would be a way to output a link to edit the TV without displaying all of its data. Adam, what would you think would be the best way to do this?

About adding links for hidden TVs, there is detailed documentation on exactly how to do this coming out in TP3.2 in a few hours. The version you are working with is a bit old now. I’ve been working on a version for TP3.2 for a while now.

Adding, the description is a good idea, I’ll put that into the code but it migt not make it into TP3.2 since we’re so close to releasing it.

Quote from: aNoble at Aug 22, 2005, 06:55 PM

Adding, the description is a good idea, I’ll put that into the code but it migt not make it into TP3.2 since we’re so close to releasing it.

Well if you can within a few hours then I would say go for it

Wow, great job with QuickEdit in TP3.2. The HTML method is just the ticket.

BTW, it took me a while to figure out that I could run the module in the backend and see the documentation. Might be nice to make this more obvious for users.

Quote from: jlarson at Aug 23, 2005, 06:26 PM

BTW, it took me a while to figure out that I could run the module in the backend and see the documentation. Might be nice to make this more obvious for users.

I considered putting a help link in the editor window but the editor is so simple that I thought it would be pointless. Most of the documentation deals with how to get the editor to show. Once you’re using the editor you’re home free. Othere than that there really isn’t anwhere else it can be put at this point. However, I do think that there are some changes planned for modules and plugins which would allow us to attach documentation to them. So modules that had documentation would probably show some sort of a help link.

Ps $cv->caption is better than $cv->description since the names appear the same as the manager.

A small request. I tried to disable the QuickEdit module but the Edittags still showed up in the browser. I figured out that I also had to disable the plugin. It would be convenient it could be done by disabling only the module.

Maybe it is even an idea to include a disable/enable option in the rightclick menu for modules.

I forget if it was Mambo or Xoops, but one of the big CMS scripts I was using (before I needed mulitlanguage support) has a nice control panel for modules, you can enable/disable/delete modules, as well as install new modules from there. Of course, that requires that all modules be packaged in a specific manner and have an info file in a certain format, but it was really nice. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) there was just no reasonable way to have a multilanguage site without almost rewriting the whole CMS. The way Etomite/MODx is designed and the way it manages documents made a multilanguage site quite easy.

I’d like to do a couple of hacks here, and maybe suggest them as improvements to the module:

1. I would like manager users to be able to edit unpublished pages. It’s an easy hack to show the page, but the Quickedit links don’t appear and I’m not finding where to turn them on. Perhaps system events won’t fire for an unpublished page?

2. Instead of having quickedit links showing up for every page whenever a user is logged in, I’d like to put a small, unobtrusive "edit page" button somewhere in a template, e.g. upper right corner, which would refresh the page with links turned on.

Any suggestions on the best way to accomplish these?