Here at Lake Solutions, we are excited to hear about the launch of Umbraco 11 – which will not only see Umbraco CMS running .NET 7 but the introduction of the ‘much anticipated' Block Grid Editor. This is set to make the job of content editors much more straightforward, moving it over to being ‘component driven with bells on!’ It means that Umbraco is now firmly offering a first-class content editing experience.
Until now, editors would add content into pages and it could be hard to see how the page would look until the page was viewed in a draft format or published. Now, editing can be carried out on what looks like an actual web page – with editors able to see exactly where content and images will be. This puts so much more control back in the content editor’s hands.
As Umbraco explains: “The new Block Grid Editor focuses on bringing better layout and content structure capabilities to editors. Taking a cue from the Grid Layout editor that has been delivering layout capabilities for content editors since Umbraco 7, the Block Grid Editor is built on modern and future-proof technology and provides a vastly improved developer experience on top.”
At Lake Solutions, we are excited as it makes Umbraco more competitive and gives editors a much better user experience, with content editors can be given the freedom to be more creative.
As the name suggests, the Block Grid Editor is based on blocks (rather than lists) which allows you to configure content and settings in a much easier way than with the old Grid Layout editor. This gives the user more options and tools to tailor the editing experience.
As Umbraco explains, there are two different ways of controlling the layout in the Block Grid Editor. Size Options for individual Blocks, and Areas that create predefined content areas, essentially allowing you to nest your grids and control the functionality of these nested grids. This is done to give flexibility in how you work with layout and allow for varying degrees of freedom and creativity. You can use predefined layouts or a more free-form layout experience where you can resize individual elements.
If we were to look for any negatives – and they are hard to find – then there could be issues with brand guardianship. If a business was using the existing page template-based model for content editing and letting team members add their own blogs, for example, then there wouldn’t be any issues with sticking to a similar design, as the template was set. With this new Block Grid Editor, there could be a chance of different people interpreting design in different ways and not remaining consistent. However, this is more an issue of managing the process and perhaps making sure that pages which do come under different departments have fairly rigid brand guidelines to follow and team members are asked to use particular templates.
Umbraco 11 also includes numerous updates, improvements, and new features for developers and editors alike.
Umbraco explains: “This time it’s not just the CMS that is getting updates though. Along with version 11, you also get a shiny new Umbraco Marketplace, for browsing packages, integrations, and Tech Partners, directly from the back office or the new website. Documentation for Umbraco 11 is also found a new home, with much-improved discoverability, search, and more.”
If you want to find out more about the benefits of using Umbraco and how the new Block Grid Editor works, do get in touch on tel: 020 3397 3222.