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University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Working with Direct Edit

Locking out content

When closing out of content, be sure to hit Cancel or Save/Save Changes, and NOT the "Back" button on your browser.  Hitting the "Back" button on the browser can lock the content so that others cannot access it.

For content editors, whose focus is solely on adding and changing content, Direct Edit offers an even easier way to edit content by editing it directly within a page preview. This offers a more intuitive content editing experience since changes appear exactly as they will look on the published site, however, some pages that have more heavily coded features will be unable to be edited using the Direct Edit interface.

Who can use Direct Edit?

Anyone with access to edit the page can use Direct Edit to edit the page.

Access Direct Edit

To launch any page in the direct edit interface, scroll down to the footer of the page. On the bottom left you will see a + icon. Click the + icon to launch the page in Direct Edit.

Working in Direct Edit

The Direct Edit screen is made up of two areas:

  1. Sidebar which contains page options 
  2. Direct Edit area which shows a preview of the page with editable (highlighted with a dashed line) and non-editable areas
Though areas highlighted as non-editable cannot be edited within the Direct Edit area, some, like the Page Name, can be edited from the Sidebar. Others, such as navigation elements generated by Navigation Objects, can only be edited from the TERMINALFOUR main interface.

Direct Edit interface

Those parts of the page that are editable are identified with a surrounding dashed line. 

Empty content areas display Insert Content text. Editable areas of the page are highlighted when the cursor hovers over them. Here, we can see the cursor highlighting an editable empty content area, plain text and HTML areas of the page. 

Animated GIF showing plain text and HTML sections of Direct Edit area

We can also see the approval status of the content area on the right-hand side.

Both Plain Text and HTML can be edited in place using Direct Edit. When editing HTML content areas we can add formatting, links and media items using the Tiny MCE HTML editor. 

Selecting the Edit Content Item button will open a dialog box that provides you with additional options for content editing which are not accessible from the Direct Edit area alone.

Full view of Direct edit

Interface of Direct Edit

Minimum user level: Moderator

A minimum user level of Moderator is required for some of this functionality due to its potential for severe impact to the website.

Read more about T4 access levels.

Add page

To add a new child page or section below the page currently being edited in Direct Edit, select Add page and provide a name. Direct Edit will reload with the new page ready to edit. 

Create new page in Direct Edit

Creating a new page in Direct Edit

Sitemap

The Sitemap option will display the site structure of the current site only. From this, you can navigate to other pages or, using the Actions menu, add a child page, or delete a page.

**NOTE: Link Sections cannot be edited in Direct Edit.
Direct Edit Sitemap

Sitemap in Direct Edit view

Preview

Selecting the Preview option from the side menu allows the user to Preview the page outside of the Direct Edit interface. This will give a clearer representation of how the page will look once published.

Edit mode toggle

Selecting the Edit Mode toggle from the side menu allows the user to disable the editing mode in order to get a more accurate view of how the content will look once published, and to click links within the content (with Edit mode enabled, it is not possible to click links within content).

Exit Direct Edit

Be sure to exit Direct Edit when you have finished editing. Select Exit direct edit from the side menu. This provides a message box that allows the user to either Log out of TERMINALFOUR, or switch to the standard inteface.

Exit Direct Edit

Selecting Log out exits the user from T4. Selecting Switch to standard interface brings the user to the T4 Site Structure.

Formatting issues?

If pasting text from Word or outside of T4, select Edit > Paste as text to avoid style and formatting problems.

More from this section

Getting started

Additional guides