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On-page editing with client-side rendering

Describes how to make client-side rendering easier with on-page editing.

Suggest Edits

Optimizely offers some features to make client-side rendering easier. These features are framework agnostic so you can use them with any JavaScript framework, such as Angular, React, or Vue.

Edit HTML attributes

Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) user interface provides the attribute data-epi-edit that can be added to editable DOM elements:

<span data-epi-edit="YourProperty">
  {your JS framework decides how the value is actually rendered}
</span>

Using data-epi-edit="YourProperty" is equivalent to adding 3 other HTML attributes as below:

<span data-epi-property-name="YourProperty" 
      data-epi-property-render="none" 
      data-epi-property-edittype="floating">
  {your JS framework decides how the value is actually rendered}
</span>
  • data-epi-property-name="YourProperty" – This attribute marks an element for editing.
  • data-epi-property-render="none" – This attribute prevents the DOM from being modified directly when editing. Using data-epi-property-edittype="inline" overrides this and will modify the DOM (note, "inline" is the default for string properties).
  • data-epi-property-edittype="floating" – This attribute creates a dialog for editing and should be used for string types.

Re-render

To know when to re-render, subscribe to the topic contentSaved. If the application is a .NET project, then the controller must contain the attribute [RequireClientResources] unless it inherits from PageController or ContentController, because these both include the attribute by default. Require the resources in a razor view with other scripts for the site using @Html.RequiredClientResources("Footer").

If the application instead is a JavaScript-based application, then explicitly add the resources included by the [RequireClientResources] or develop an equivalent of them.

📘

Note

The resources included by @Html.RequiredClientResources are by default:
/EPiServer/Cms/latest/ClientResources/communicationInjector.js
/EPiServer/Cms/latest/ClientResources/deliveryPropertyRenderer.js

Handle context modes

To properly apply edit overlays and enable or disable client-side routing as needed, the client requires some indicator of the current context mode. For this purpose, Optimizely provides the following properties in the epi object :

  • inEditMode – True in edit mode and preview mode
  • isEditable – True in edit mode and false in preview mode
  • ready – True if the property isEditable is initialized. Otherwise, subscribe to epiReady to get those properties when they are available

Navigate on-page edit

There are two requirements to update the editing context (page tree, for this page folders, and so on) when navigating the site by clicking links in the preview iframe. The links must be actual hyperlinks with an <a> tag, and the href attribute needs to be an "edit mode" URL.

📘

Note

Pages can be retrieved in three modes using different URLs:

  • View mode – When the content is delivered to the site visitor.
    URL – /en/artist

  • Edit mode – When the content is loaded in the CMS UI, and the content is editable in OPE.s/"
    URL – /EPiServer/CMS/Content/en/artists,,6_7/?epieditmode=True

  • Preview mode – When the content is loaded in the CMS UI, but rendered as it would in View mode.
    URL – /EPiServer/CMS/Content/en/artists,,6_7/?epieditmode=False

Content delivery API

Optimizely has released a content delivery API to simplify a headless implementation. See Content Delivery API.

SPA template site

To demonstrate some useful concepts when creating a single-page application (SPA) with working on-page editing, see the MusicFestical SPA template site on Github.

Recommended blog series

  1. JS SDK public preview
  2. Introducing a SPA template site: MusicFestival
  3. Routing in a SPA with a working On-Page Editing experience (CMS UI 11.11.0)
  4. Tips and tricks for a great On-Page Editing experience in SPAs and other client-side rendered sites
  5. Represent the concept of "pages" and "blocks" with matching client-side components in a SPA

Blog posts

Updated 10 months ago