Enterprise friendly visual editor
DM Editor is a visual editor fitting enterprise need: for editors not designers, maintainable code, integration friendly.
It's for editors, not designers
Keynote/Powerpoint is for editor, Photoshop is for designer. Similarly, DM Editor is for edit users, not designers.
The difference between for editor and designer is that, editor should mainly focus on content not design. May have some design need, but mostly for layout, spacing, font size weight, etc. For complex design, edit user will select pre-defined style instead of making by him/herself.
Some of the market visual editors are too complex that the edit user doesn't understand how it's working, in the end it's the designer who use those features. For example, a block's margin bottom and next block's margin top can cross line but editor will not understand. - in DM Editor the margin bottom is removed.
Below show how the designer, developer, and editor work in different approaches:
Way 1: some visual editors are for designer also. Most of style is done by designer inside the visual editor.
DM Editor's way: for editor not designer. Means editors just have what they needed style to CHOOSE (made by developer designed by designer).
One of the cons in way 1 is: there are too many options editor doesn't need or understand, which can lead to confusion, in the end affect user experience.
Tip: when a developer makes a function in widget, tries to consider some of the elements are 'stylable', so the same function can be reused with different looking - widget style.
Maintainable code
Enterprise needs solid and maintainable code for reliability. If possible the code should be in version control like git, instead of in database.
Some website builders use online css/js way, which is easy to use, but this approach may not fit enterprise, because of:
- Reliability: the system may crash. Mixing dev environment with production is not reliable.
- Version control: developer want to see change, review or track back to time to see change. It is not possible if the css/js is edit in the system.
Extendability & Integration friendly
Integration is important in enterprise since business system mostly has multiple system, like CRM, own management system, especially when it comes to web publishing. An enterprise editor should be integration friendly.
DM Editor is designed to be a library instead of whole system, and it's minimal design ensure extendability (also easy to extend).
Within react ecosystem, DM Editor can use both server side and client react and js libraries and react components. Below are some interagtion scenarios:
Scenario | How to support |
|---|---|
Fetch data and display | Fetching with remote api, graphql, or local db access are possible using nodejs |
Using existing react component | react component can be wrapped into DM Editor widget render directly. |
Data synchronization | Using nodejs api |
Using js library | Using js api |
Use CSS frameworks | Compatible with mainstream css frameworks like tailwind, boostrap, etc. |
Updated: 2025-01-19 09:11
