The latest build of unroole includes several new features that were on the road map for this build and some workflow tweaks the community requested. When we said we were working on it we meant it, these issues were driving us nuts as well!
New features:
- Ability to add new users with different user roles
- Common Elements, groupings of widgets that can be used on several pages but changed in one place
- Events
Workflow tweaks:
- Copy and paste for widgets in the page and layout editor
- Add your own aliases to widgets in the page and layout editor
- Opening table icon links in new tabs in the core of unroole
One Account - infinite users
The benefits of cross-channel content distribution can easily be diminished by the amount of overhead setup needed for content creators to use it wisely. The content-centric paradigm is not there only for the end user, but is helpful for all teams involved - developers, marketing and content creators. Since each member of the team uses content with a different purpose, we’ve created tailor-made user roles to reflect the most common needs of unroole users:
- Code Creator - creates themes, code snippets and widgets, layouts and pages blueprints
- Code Publisher - same privileges as code creator plus scheduling, publishing, deleting and creating from blueprints
- Content Creator - creates articles, assets, galleries, and events
- Page Builder - same as content creator plus navigations, layouts, pages, common elements, and blueprints
- Content Publisher - same as page builder, plus scheduling and deleting
Like before, the Administrator role has the ability to access everything in the system.
Common Elements - it’s all about re-usability
Common elements are a new mash up of widgets and pages. You build them by adding and configuring a series of widgets in the editor, just like you build pages. Unlike pages, you insert them, like widgets, into pages or layouts.
Many pages have elements that are repeating on some, but not all pages (like a sidebar, for example). It’s not scalable to use different layouts for every one of these differences and apply them to each particular page. Also, these elements can be combined out of several widgets, and adding/removing them on each page is not a fun thing to do. This is where common elements come in. In the example of the sidebar, you could create a sidebar common element, configure all necessary widgets inside it, and simply include it with a single widget to any pages you want.
Events - new content type
Events are a new type of content that is used for, well, events. You can add start and end time of an event, location, category, title, summary, notes and a featured image. Events can be grouped by categories as well as locations. Event locations contain fields for latitude and longitude, which you can use to generate pins on maps. We have included new liquid objects to retrieve these data in your widgets.
In the following week we will go more in-depth on each of these features and how you can make the most of them.
Workflow tweaks
One of the most sought out features is finally here – widget copy/paste in the page and layout editor. When you have to add same widget several times, and when there is a nested widget structure you would like to repeat, now you can just copy and paste it in the desired location. Furthermore, the content of the original widget structure will be pasted as well. Copy and paste works within a single page or layout as well as between different pages and layouts.
In this release we’ve also tackled the issue of widget names. Previously, all widgets of the same type had the same name in the widget tree. This is where aliases come into the picture. You can assign custom aliases to each widget you add, so you’ll know at first glance what content it holds.
We’ve also added the ability to open links from table icons in new tabs, which will tremendously speed up your workflow in unroole.
We are eager to hear your feedback on the upgrades we made, so please sign in to your account and take them for a spin.