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A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

editable.website

41–50 of 85 posts

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#42
post #7

I edit the website and then refresh and changes don’t persist. Obviously they don’t want people editing their production website, but is it otherwise supposed to persist? If not, what’s the point? For this reason I find the demo a bit confusing.

> Obviously they don’t want people editing their production website, but is it otherwise supposed to persist? The repo notes that persistence requires editors to in with the (shared?) admin user and password. Although the pitch is "CMS-free", this is a Postgres- and S3-backed content management system. The in-place editing is extremely cool.

"CMS-free" as in "does not depend on additional software to manage content". Postgres and S3 through MinIO are my preferred choices, but you can change that to anything you'd like to use instead.

Glad you like the in-place editing. I'm also for the first time happy with the experience. You can press CMD+E for editing and CMD+S saving, and there's no layout shift, so it's really convenient for quick edits. :)

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#43
post #42
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously they don’t want people editing their production website, but is it otherwise supposed to persist? The repo notes that persistence requires editors to in with the (shared?) admin user and password. Although the pitch is "CMS-free", this is a Postgres- and S3-backed content management system. The in-place editing is extremely cool.

"CMS-free" as in "does not depend on additional software to manage content". Postgres and S3 through MinIO are my preferred choices, but you can change that to anything you'd like to use instead. Glad you like the in-place editing. I'm also for the first time happy with the experience. You can press CMD+E for editing and CMD+S saving, and there's no layout shift, so it's really convenient for quick edits. :)

> "CMS-free" as in "does not depend on additional software to manage content". Postgres and S3 through MinIO are my preferred choices, but you can change that to anything you'd like to use instead.

Cool! Postgres and an S3-compatible object store area are both listed as requirements, so you may want to update that.

So by "does not depend on additional software", does that means I can just use the filesystem?

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#44
post #36

From a cursory look, the type of content it supports seems limited. Like something you would use for a minimalist journal. If it could replicate something like https://framer.com I'd be all ears. A gallery with code would help potential users better understand its potential.

yah, this is like the todo app of content management, being able to change the text (and perhaps add bold and some links), and has probably been built thousands of times by now in the short history of the web. building in-place editing for fixed text nodes isn't that hard, whatever the underlying toolkit. a CMS should be able to do that in its sleep. it's when you get beyond text into other media and into layout, spacing, color systems, and dragging-and-dropping arbitrarily interleaved blocks of those things where it actually gets useful (and impressive).

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#45
post #24

I think this pitch overstates the problem with CMSes. It seems for many organizations, their CMS is working well for them. Not saying this doesn't have benefit, but, as for me, I rather like my CMS and don't feel like this is a big win.

This is a huge step down from the experience of many CMSes. Controls are limited and don't really work for building a page. Maybe convenient for very small text edits like spelling fixes but not at all a replacement for a more in depth editing experience.

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#46
post #7

I edit the website and then refresh and changes don’t persist. Obviously they don’t want people editing their production website, but is it otherwise supposed to persist? If not, what’s the point? For this reason I find the demo a bit confusing.

> Obviously they don’t want people editing their production website, but is it otherwise supposed to persist? The repo notes that persistence requires editors to in with the (shared?) admin user and password. Although the pitch is "CMS-free", this is a Postgres- and S3-backed content management system. The in-place editing is extremely cool.

Why is Postgres needed here? Couldn't everything be saved in static files published in S3 or any other CDN?

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#47
post #40

Is there some component library rather than "template" for doing this?

Intentionally there isn't. I wanted to demonstrate that a website with "editing" capabilities is no magic, and to encourage people to hack on every piece. My experience after 25 years of web development is that often examples > libraries. Not always true, but I think particularly for websites it works well and gives you full control over every pixel to be rendered.

Can you create a gallery of examples, then?

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#48
post #36

From a cursory look, the type of content it supports seems limited. Like something you would use for a minimalist journal. If it could replicate something like https://framer.com I'd be all ears. A gallery with code would help potential users better understand its potential.

yah, this is like the todo app of content management, being able to change the text (and perhaps add bold and some links), and has probably been built thousands of times by now in the short history of the web. building in-place editing for fixed text nodes isn't that hard, whatever the underlying toolkit. a CMS should be able to do that in its sleep. it's when you get beyond text into other media and into layout, spa…

To clarify: It's a different concept. And it's more of a starting point, rather than a solution. Its goal is not to build full-fledged a page builder or prototyping tools (such as Framer or Webflow). The layout is entirely up to the developer (and expressed in code), the content (as in structured data) is made editable. It's how Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/Medium etc. work, with the benefit that in many cases, you can edit within the layout. Image upload, drag and drop is all possible. The limit is what you can do with Svelte.

Re: A SvelteKit template for building CMS-free editable websites

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure I am in the minority at this point, but the lack of TypeScript proliferation to me is a plus.

You're not the only one. I don't hate Typescript, but I don't think it's necessarily worth using everywhere. I like using it for libraries that I might share or reuse, that contain some complex logic, in which case it helps my code keep guarantees. But for view-layer code, I really don't get why a lot of people are dying to use Typescript that way. Beyond that, pretty much every Typescript project I've been introduce…

Rich and I chatted a bit about TS vs JSDoc for library authors today on the monthly dev vlog: https://www.youtube.com/live/MJHO6FSioPI?feature=share&t=95

TL;DR - Svelte's codebase will move to JSDoc types but still use TS.

To be clear - Svelte will still have full support for TS, nothing is changing for users of Svelte.

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