Inline edit blocks
Describes inline blocks introduced to improve the publishing process
CMS UI 12.22.3 and newer
Inline blocks are turned off by default, but from version 12.22.3 you can opt-in so that whenever you create a new block from a ContentArea
property you create an inline block stored inside the parent content item.
Inline blocks are no longer IContent
instances. Instead they are just property bags stored inside ContentAreaItem
.
Inline blocks do not have a Name
or ContentLink
or other base properties.
For example, if there is a block type defined in the following way:
[ContentType(Guid = "67F617A4-2175-4360-975E-75EDF2B924A7")]
public class TeaserBlock : BlockData
{
public virtual string Foo { get; set; }
}
If you add an instance of TeaserBlock
to Assets pane as shared block then it has all the properties implemented from IContent
such as Name
, ID
, and so on.
However, if you decide to add TeaserBlock
via Create a new block
link in Content Area then it prompts the editor to enter the value for the Foo
string property and serializes that object and stores inside the ContentAreaItem.InlineBlock
property.
It does not have ContentLink
of its own. It does not have a publishing or approval lifecycle of its own but will be managed only through its parent content.
You cannot differentiate inline blocks; they are just shown as block types.
Caution
`
InlineBlockEditSettings
is being obsoleted and will be removed in CMS 13.
ILocalAssetNameGenerator
has no influence on Inline Blocks because as stated above inline blocks do not have Name
property on their own.
Inline blocks are very convenient in on-page editing. However, because those blocks are no longer IContent
and thus have no Name
property on their own it can be difficult to distinguish them in All Properties view.
Inline block labels are just their type names, which is fine if there are just a few, but if the list of blocks is long it may become problematic to find the block you need to edit (because in contrast to the on-page editing, you do not see the view of the block). You can instruct
ContentArea
to use a specific property from block type as a label by using the InlineBlockNameProperties
options which can be set in appsettings.json
:
"EPiServer": {
"CmsUI": {
"InlineBlockNameProperties": {
"Contact": "Heading",
"Teaser": "Heading"
}
}
}
Or in Startup.cs
services.Configure<InlineBlockNamePropertiesOptions>(options =>
{
options.Add("Contact", "Heading");
options.Add("Teaser", "Heading");
});
It is a simple Dictionary\<string, string>
of BlockTypeName / PropertyName.
After adding those options the ContentArea
looks like this:
This is because you instructed the ContentArea
editor to use Heading
property as label for Contact & Teaser block types.
Opt-in to inline blocks
In version 12.22.3, you can turn on the ability to create inline blocks from ContentArea
by using UIOptions
.
services.Configure<UIOptions>(uiOptions =>
{
uiOptions.InlineBlocksInContentAreaEnabled = true;
});
You also can opt-in from appsettings.json
.
"EPiServer": {
"CmsUI": {
"UI": {
"InlineBlocksInContentAreaEnabled": true
}
}
}
After turning that flag on, the link to Create a new block creates blocks inline to the parent ContentArea
property, potentially creating a new version of the current content item.
CMS UI 12.20.0 and older
The inline edit dialog box is designed to be simple while still letting editors edit the most common properties of a block.
Optimizely introduced the InlineBlockEditSettings
configuration attribute so that you can apply it to your block content type and hide/show the Name
and Categories
properties. Additionally, you can also use this attribute to hide specific groups to make the editing form cleaner.
The attribute contains three properties:
Property | Default value | Description |
---|---|---|
ShowNameProperty | false | When true, then Name property is displayed. |
ShowCategoryProperty | false | When true, then Categories property is displayed. |
HiddenGroups | Advanced | Comma-separated list of tabs that should be hidden. |
Note
Advanced group is the Settings tab in the user interface, which is hidden by default in the inline edit dialog box.
Change settings for a specific block content type
To turn on the Name
property for a specific block content type:
[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 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; }
}
To hide more than one group:
[SiteContentType(GUID = "9E7F6DF5-A963-40C4-8683-211C4FA48AE1")]
[SiteImageUrl]
[InlineBlockEditSettings(HiddenGroups = "Advanced, Contact")]
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.Contact)]
public virtual string Text4 { get; set; }
}
Change settings for multiple block content types
If you want to show Name
for several block content types, you can configure the setting in their base class, like this:
[InlineBlockEditSettings(ShowNameProperty = true)]
public abstract class SiteBlockData : EPiServer.Core.BlockData
{}
[SiteContentType(GUID = "9E7F6DF5-A963-40C4-8683-211C4FA48AE1")]
[SiteImageUrl]
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.Contact)]
public virtual string Text4 { get; set; }
}
Note
If you want to change a setting in a child block type, while still wanting to have some other settings from the base class, you have to copy those settings to the child block type class because the settings in the child block type override the settings in the base class.
Override auto-generated name for inline-creating blocks
Because the Name
property is hidden by default, blocks created from an inline edit dialog (which is inline create) get an automatically generated name. The name is generated using ILocalAssetNameGenerator
, and the default format is PageName BlockType AutoIncrementId.
To override the default auto-generated name format, you just need to implement ILocalAssetNameGenerator
.
Updated about 1 month ago