Introduction to the Components Editor
The Components Editor is our editor for creating and editing content of web pages within SiteBuilder. Add components, including images, news feeds and layout blocks, to your page along with text and tables, configuring and repositioning components to create your own custom layout.
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In this article:
Accessibility
The need for Warwick to comply with accessibility legislation and improve the accessibility of existing content on the website drove the development of the Components Editor. The editor provides an accessibility pane which details issues with the content on your page as you edit it, along with options for fixing them. We will expand the range of issues the editor can detect in future releases, but it's not possible to automatically detect all issues so manual checking is also necessary - see our accessibility checklist.
Main differences from the old visual editor
The Components Editor has options, icons, settings and functionality that will be familiar to anyone who previously used the old visual editor. The main differences are:
- How content is handled: The Components Editor handles and stores content differently from the old visual editor. This means that pages created for the old visual editor need to be converted (see below) before they can be edited with the Components Editor. A page edited with, or created for, the Components Editor cannot then be edited with the old visual editor or the raw editor.
- Page layouts: You can create and rearrange your own page layouts by adding and repositioning content blocks and components.
- Right-hand content: There is no right-hand content that must be edited separately. Separation of content is achieved through layout blocks, so you can edit the entire page in the same place.
- Page history: Previous versions of a page include the contents of components. In the old visual editor, there is no history for content blocks used in layouts.
- HTML: There is no access to edit the HTML for an entire page, as with previous editors. Instead, the Components Editor provides:
- A pop-up window to edit the page's
<head>content. You can use this to add your own<script>,<link>and<meta>tags. - A pop-up HTML viewer, to view all the HTML between the page's
<body>tags. - A Custom HTML component, which you can add to a page along with other components, or have as the only component on the page.
- A pop-up window to edit the page's
Creating new pages with the Components Editor
When you create a new blank page, you have the choice of creating it for editing with the Components Editor or the old visual editor. To use a different SiteBuilder page template, your choice of editor determines what you can use to edit the surrounding content of the page.
Note: Some functions that were previously page templates in the old visual editor are available as components in the Components Editor.
Converting existing pages to the Components Editor
You can convert pages that currently use the old visual editor or raw editor so that they're editable using the Components Editor instead. This process automates, as far as possible, converting the page content into a format editable within the Components Editor. You can then see how your content looks, make changes and preview the page before publishing it, which completes the conversion process. Selecting Cancel within the Components Editor cancels the page conversion.
Important: once you convert and publish a page using the Components Editor it is no longer possible to edit the page using the old visual editor or the raw editor. This is highlighted in the Components Editor before you publish. Pages that are not published using the Components Editor are unaffected and you can continue to edit them with the old visual editor or raw editor.
After a page is converted, you can use SiteBuilder's History tab to view previous versions of it, as usual, but can only restore versions published using the Components Editor.