Our newest ExpressionEngine add-on is a totally handy plugin that makes site owners happy—we use it every day on our own clients’ sites.  Edit This displays a link from any part of any page on your public site, direct to the control panel page that will let you edit that content.

This is version 1.0, so if you like it and want us to continue to develop it, let us know you’re using it.

How is different from Brandon Kelly’s Editor?

I believe Editor just links to weblog entries, whereas Edit This can link to entries, the template editor for the requested template, category editing, and gallery entries.  Also Editor is an extension and automagically displays edit buttons for entries - Edit This is a plugin that you implement in your markup specifically how and where you want in your templates.

This looks a little more flexible than Editor. I generally just do this with a Fresh Variable that links to the entry and place my links where I want them, wrapped in a member group conditional.

This does look like a nice way to clean up my templates a bit from my current method.

Ours has its own nice pencil icon.

Seriously, though—this one has total flexibility in display placement; allows links for categories, templates and gallery images; doesn’t require you to specify the CP URL; and as a plugin won’t conflict with other extensions.

That said, though, Editor is a nice bit of code, too, and has the advantage of appearing next to every entry call on the site without having to modify any templates.

TTFN
Travis

Your pencil icon has nothing on mine.

Brandon Kelly - 15 April 2009 08:36 PM

Your pencil icon has nothing on mine.

Oh it’s on like Redonkey Kong!

Could someone provide some code examples that explain a little more (real-world example) than the Hop Studios page?  It must be my problem, because I can’t get Editor or this plugin to work.  How about a weblog entry example:

Entries:
{exp:edit_this:entry id=”{entry_id}”}

How would I use this?  And another thing, if I am using this with a page that displays part of all of my entries on one page, then links to the full entry on another page, how can I specify a single entry?  I can’t use this, then?

Something like this is a very simple example:

If you’re having trouble with the plug-in, post a message on our Hop Studios site and we’ll see what we can do for you!

TTFN
Travis

How does this interact with template caching?  It doesn’t seem to work when I’m caching the template but after clearing the cache it works fine, once.  I’d love to start using it but I’d hate give up caching at the template level…

Did someone notice that the link generated by this plug in does not contain the weblog_id and therefore the Reveal Comments extension is not pulling the data into the CP ?

Example:

I just discovered this after exchanging my hard coded links for the plug in generated links on a site I’m developing.

- Ruud -

I can’t post a comment on the thread at your website…but I need help!

Here’s what I was going to post:

OK this isn’t working for me…

Checked for curly quotes, it’s in a weblog entries tag…

I went to cookies-only, and I put a domain in the cookie domain setting. I tried the suggested .yourdomain.com version and www.yourdomain.com (inserting the correct domain of course) and just yourdomain.com, to no avail. I do have an .htaccess set to forward non-www urls to www.thedomain.com. Dunno if that’s interfering?

The weird thing is that Edit This worked, at least on one of my own computers, when I installed it, then I went to a client’s office and it wasn’t working. I then left on vaca and my client says it worked for a bit then stopped working again but the code was not changed at all.

I tried shutting off template caching on that template as well as someone upthread mentioned that was an issue. :(

Anything else that I can try?? I really really need this, client really wants it.

Thanks everyone for using this plugin!

@tuitive—Great question.  I’ll do some testing/exploration and report back (or update the code) with respect to template caching.

@Ruud—Good point.  I’ll fix in the next release.

@LynneL—Did shutting off template caching help?  Enough people have mentioned similar behavior that it’s clearly an issue either with docs or code, but so far I haven’t been able to replicate.  However, there is work underway to handle session types more elegantly, and the “working/not working” sounds like it could be related to sessions (if not related to template caching, that is).  I’ll post here when the next release is up.

Justin

Hi all-

I posted version 1.1.0 of edit_this to the Hop Studios site today.  This is a substantial release—I think it will address numerous issues we’ve heard about. 

One important note: The required parameters and parameter names have changed for ALL tags.  The new parameters enable proper caching of authorization queries.  Luckily, for most of these tags, you can just cut and paste the tag with no changes.

Also, you may be interested in the optional “icon” parameter, which lets you choose an icon color from a dazzling array: yellow, pink, orange, green, red, blue, teal, periwinkle, and burnt_umber!

@tuitive—I was not able to replicate any conflict with template caching, but I did discover an issue that would’ve caused intermittent failures, and would’ve been repaired by clearing cache.  Please let me know if this fixes your issue!

If you try this new release, please post and let us know how it’s working.

Thanks!

Justin

I tried to replace 1.0.1 with 1.1.0 and used the tag code from the new example on an index page but nothing showed. I logged in as an admin and have a number of entries published under my login so I thought it should show, but there’s nothing showing in the page’s source code. I put 1.0.1 back and it works fine.

EDIT: New version works great. I’d put the code in the wrong spot within a conditional statement.

Just for reference, here’s another link: http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/120256/

Does “Edit This” Support the MSM? I’ve created a simple “Edit Link” for logged in users, but if they’re on the wrong site, they get a “You are not authorized” error.

That’s a good observation, and a daily frustration for me, too.  In a nutshell: it’s not that Edit This doesn’t support MSM, it’s that the control panel doesn’t automatically switch sites based on the weblog you’re trying to access, and it gives that message which isn’t strictly true.

So, no, Edit This doesn’t overcome the way that EE is currently designed to function, though in a future update, I’d like to be able to do this.

TTFN
Travis

Hoosteeno - 11 June 2009 02:29 AM

Hi all-
@tuitive—I was not able to replicate any conflict with template caching, but I did discover an issue that would’ve caused intermittent failures, and would’ve been repaired by clearing cache.  Please let me know if this fixes your issue!

If you try this new release, please post and let us know how it’s working.

Thanks!

Justin

FYI, it appears that if templates are cached, then non-logged-in users get the cached version of the template, complete with little pencil icons. They can’t log in to edit, but they still see them, and when clicked, the icon shows the admin CP login page. Tested with and without admin sessions enabled, and on two browsers (therefore diff session cookies).