Making Minor Blog Changes Quickly

This post looks at two Word Press plugins that allow direct editing of content. Front-end Editor and Inline Editor let you bypass the WP back-end to edit posts and pages. These plugins are good when developing a site where your client provides lots of content pages. It's even more useful if the client is new to WP. The client needs to log in, but then simply presses "visit site."

I'm developing a site for a client who needed to tweak the existing page content. So I installed the Inline Editor for her to use. No need to send me an e-mail about a minor word change. No need to fear going into the WP post editor.

Inline Editor Plugin

Wpexand's editor is fairly limited. You can change only text and images in posts or pages. Titles and other WP elements are off-limits. But it works for my purposes.

Activate the inline editing by checking one of the first two boxes under "settings"; the third is optional.

Show edit button—adds a clickable pencil icon that opens the edit feature.
Convert WordPress edit link—uses the WP link instead of the icon but only works if theme has one. [edit]
Edit content on double click—you can double click to open edit feature.

Also under "settings" you can specify the level of editing allowed:

- a simple panel of icons for only bold, italic, underline, alignments, lists and linking.
- a full panel of all NicEdit buttons.
- a custom panel of icons you select.

To save your change and continue editing, press the blue disc icon on top left.

At the very end of the post there are 2 large gray buttons: 'Save Editing' will save and close the edit window. "Cancel Editing" will erase unsaved changes and close the window.

If you want to keep it simple, restricting the editing tools that the client can access, then this might be the plugin for your site.

Front-end Editor Plugin

Scribu's editor is more tightly hooked into Word Press, giving you a great number of elements to control inline. It's nice to be able to edit comments inline without going to the dashboard (text only). You can also customize your own elements.

The image lists the standard editable fields.

Activate the inline editing by checking one or more of these boxes:

Enable the WYSIWYG editor—rich text editor with familiar icons. Otherwise, you see plain text. That's a step backward...
Edit one paragraph at a time, instead of an entire post—the edit window shows only what you select.
Highlight editable elements—you'll see a light yellow background behind areas you can click.

Here's the rich text editor in the edit window:

To save your edit, you need to press the "save" button, otherwise "x" to cancel. The buttons are at the end of the content.

The Front-end Editor is probably meant for developers or experienced WP users who want to move fast.

Is in-line editing right for you?

Imagine. The client simply double-clicks on the screen to update a business address. Imagine. You just published a post and spotted a typo. Just click and edit the displayed article! If your premium theme has no "edit" link, imagine no longer going through the dashboard to find the page you want to change.

Based on my brief experience with these plugins, I found they keep the integrity of your WP post revisions list. Each save will update your database and allow you to restore to earlier versions. You can use the plugins for draft articles. It also may be useful for Editors who need to make a quick pass of a post before or just after it publishes.

If you decide to try in-line editing of drafts, always preview from the "Edit Pages" list. If you work in the preview from the post-edit window, they could be out-of-sync.

Does this type of direct editing seem like something you could use? Is the client being coddled? Does it add a layer of complexity—or make the blogger lazy? Leave a comment about your opinion and experience with in-line editing.