Inline vs. In-Context Editing

Inline editing simply means the ability to update your content in the context of the page its on. Interfaces like SDL Tridion’s Experience Manager give authors the ability to click and start typing to make changes  which might be impressive (or not). But the strongest feature is being able to find your pages with a navigation you’re familiar with and edit content in the context of its surrounding  content.

If you notice, even blogging tools like Blogger don’t do complete inline editing. If logged in to Google, I can however, click the icon to jump to a form view.

I'm one pencil click away from editing this post.

Blogger has drag-and-drop layout, but it’s in a clean, easy-to-follow interface, independent of your template.

Experience Manager Content Types and Regions

I've seen and had questions about the relationship between SDL Tridion Pages, Regions, and Content Types with Experience Manager (XPM), the inline editing interface.

• User Harald Hoffelinck had the same question on StackOverflow. 
• I asked how to confirm how to control what gets added to a page as well.

The concepts can easily get blurry, considering the definitions:

More SiteEdit Insight

I had a chance to fly the 11 plus hours to the SDL Web Content Management mothership (Tridion for the veterans) for a sneak peak at SDL Tridion's next version of inline editing. You may have read Nuno's debriefing on the upcoming sweet features, here's my functional take on the next version.

R&D has done an impressive job at simplifying "SiteEdit" for multiple roles.

• Infrastructure consultants (IC) can focus on the install and content delivery setup
• Technicals and functionals have access to settings within the CME for content types, page types, and even color settings
• Authors will get a smoother experience, with terms and a process that fits their model of the content management system (CMS)