Sneak Preview: Radical Overhaul of Moonfruit Sitemaker Edit Environment
By Wendy on Tuesday, September 22 2009, 11:24 - SiteMaker features - Permalink
We love the autumn(fall)! After a refreshing summer break everyone's 'back to school', sleeves rolled up and raring to go! The Moonfruit team is no exception: we're dying to show you the new product improvements we've been working on over the last few months.
One of the areas we've wanted to improve and simplify for several years now is the editing workspace for Moonfruit. We wanted to provide old Moonfruiters with quicker access to hidden power-user tools and to help newbies get to grips with customising their websites faster and even more intuitively. So here's a glimpse of what's coming very soon...
General edit functions (click to enlarge image).
Pages section (click to enlarge image).
Admin section (click to enlarge image).
And that's not all. Our next release will have a few extra tasty goodies too (the eagle eyed will spot some in the sneaky pics). Watch this space ....
Comments
Looking good!
Probbaly take a bit of getting used to but I can see where you are going with this. Looking forward to getting my eagle eyes & hands on the "Copy Site" and "Select All" features.
oOoOoOo Looks Awesome! :D
Also, have you guys got anywhere nearer the commerce stuff? I hate paying payloadz $30-odd a month for their incompetence. I've been using them for years now. Been using you guys much longer, and i'd much prefer that money to go to you. A) It keeps all my online commerce in one place and B) You don't f*** things up. It's that simple. I have 100% faith in you.
Hi Kris,
We are still working on it, but it's going to be while yet I'm afraid. Everything we're doing (including this new interface) is heading towards the ecommerce in terms of laying the new technology out and integrating it into the current structure. It is taking much longer than we expected, but we will get there. The fully functional HTML widget (also out soon) will help alleviate some of the ecom pressure as things like paypal storefront become available. But we do understand this is only an interim solution. When we have some dates we'll be sure to let you know, but as I say, a while yet. Thanks for your patience,
Joe
Hi Joe,
What about a facelift or upgrade for the news blog, directory and calender wigdets? anything soon? thanks!
It's no problem, Joe. I'm willing to wait.
And yes, the HTML widget should take priority.
Thanks for the response.
Hi Altas,
We'll be looking at the blog again soon (ish), for the calendar things like Goolge calendar using the HTML widget will soon be possible and easy, but the directory is a bit more complicated. This could be an extension of the ecommerce work, as it is about creating and displaying records (products), but we'll have to see. Thanks for the feedback!
Joe
Hello, very nice the "copy site" function, could be used for make website backups?
When do you think we can taste the offline backup of our website?
This is amazing!! I have been a user of Moonfruit for about 3 yeas now and it feels amazing when you release new stuff. You should release a BETA of this so users could get a feel of the new SiteMaker before it is released. Not to edit there sites with just a blank site where users can get use to the new design.
Is this going to be a next version of SiteMaker like 4.1 or 5.0 or something?
Cant wait until its released, Keep up the good work. : )
Hi Dave,
The copy site function won't copy 'everything' in the site, e.g. all forum posts/comments, so it can't really be used as a complete backup. It's designed to allow people to copy a site to use a starting point for a new site (like a template), so it will copy all pages/text/images, etc. It may meet your requirements for a backup, but you'll have to try it and see.
As for backups, we do keep multiple copies of your site data on our servers, and also we keep a number of previous page saves so you can request that we revert a page to a previous version via support. We may make this available to users in the future so you can revert yourself, but we do not yet have a robust interface for this.
I hope that makes sense!
Joe
Well guys as a pretty new guy to this great system i recon these changes are very cool. keep up the good work your always there & thats good to know.
Ray
Joe and Moonfruit Crew,
Screenshots look good. As with other Moonfruit users still waiting for the Ecommerce Solutions to be done. Will they cost much extra as I already pay for a Resellers package.
I also agree that the blog and calender widgets need updating, as they are both very poor compared to the high quality of moonfruit.
Please hurry with the ecommerce updates!!
Mikey High Jinks
Crew,
It's all v exciting and can't come soon enough! Will the new features allow for more robust javascript embeds - calls to external scripts/widgets - or am I just dreaming?
Hi Mikey,
As far as pricing goes for e-Commerce tools, it is more than likely that users on higher-end packages (including resellers) will have these included in their subscription. We may offer this across the board but it's too early to say at present.
Cheers Jason,
And yes, it certainly will accommodate more robust JS, external files and scripts. We can't guarantee everything will work (there is way too much 3rd party stuff out there for us to test) but everything we've thrown at it (the new version) so far has worked!
Walt
And will the new improved HTML Widget work across all of the major browsers including Chrome & Firefox?
Hi Justin,
Our current testing indicates that they should work. But there are no guarantees that any updates from Google or Mozilla won't cause further issues. Warnings aside, we are miles ahead of where we were a few weeks (months!) ago so it's all looking very, very positive.
Walt
These look absolutely fantastic. Does it incorporate an easy way to change sites that you are editing (ie. a dropdown list) whereby you can change sites on the fly from within the editor?
Hi Matt,
No it doesn't. But that's a good piece of feedback. I'll talk to the team about it. Thanks,
Joe
well the eagle eyed is looking, and it looks like that is an offline builder!! so im guessing we can build the website offline, and then upload it when we wish.... very nice!!
Hi Ian,
I'm afraid it won't work offline, so you still will need to be connected. Sorry about that!
Joe
The screenshots look like a vast improvement on the current environment, so I'm looking forward to seeing it for real!
One of the most annoying things about editing text boxes at the moment is the bizarre behaviour of the arrow keys for moving the cursor. One arrow key press sometimes moves one character, sometimes more, and your guess is as good as mine as to how many letters will be deleted when you press the delete key! Will the re-vamp sort this problem out? (I use FF3.5 if it's a browser specific thing) And also, is it possible for text boxes to link to FF's spellchecker, or does it have to be an HTML environment for that?
Hi SteveB,
I hadn't heard that bug report before but I'll get the team to check it out. Re the spell check, it does have to be native HTML to use the FF spell checker, but it's on our list to get this sorted in the future. HTH,
Joe
Dear Joe and Moonfruit,
If you guys want to improve the editor design that´s great, but please don´t take or change any actual fuctions out, the editor as it is right now is so great...and with the future widget and ecommerce functions moonfruit website maker will be the best online aplication to make websites in the world, thanks a lot in advance.
Chris.
THAT LOOKS UGLY .... I dont like it - will you still have the advance view still?
Will the HTML widget work with the stuff from http://sproutinc.com ?
I have tried it in the BETA version of the widget and I can get it to work, but you have to go through a lot of permissions settings. It needs to be seamless.
On the positive side, you guys have a great product! And it looks like it is only getting better.
Hi Chris, all the key functions will remain and we've added a few more to improve the overall editing of the software. And thanks for the feedback.
Hi Mitch, well don't hold back. Seriously, we've had a lot of very positive feedback about our changes and all we can ask is to try it when it goes live and give us some specific, detailed feedback as to what doesn't work for you. The advanced view will continue to be present, in fact for the short-term when you log in you have to chose the new Beta view.
Hi Locke, we haven't tried the snippets on the site you mention (we get swamped with sites/snippets/recommendations) but I can say our new widget will be a lot more robust and overcome some of our earlier limitations. Once it goes live, give it a try, and then give us some feedback.
Thanks
Walt
hey guys. Im building a band website and im trying to figure out how to make it to where when you click on the pictures of my band mates in the about us section another page or screen or something comes up where you can read about us. I nknow you have something like this with the pop up gallery but the text box is not really bug enough for what im trying to do... HELP?
Hi Damen,
Could you please use the Forum for this query. This article is about the new release so we'd rather answer your query where it's more relevant. You will also find that the Forum is a great place for advice, tips and tricks from the Moonfruit Community as well as the Support team (otherwise known as Comdot).
Thanks
Hello, I do like the new UI however I have stumbled across a little problem,
When ever I try to Press Upload or Files or Save nothing happens, I have all the updated software. I tryed using Upload File in the Editor Arrow but it clicks (OnClick Image works, but seems like the command is blank) nothing else happens it doesnt even focus on task. Previously the Help button didnt work, but it does now.
Since these issues are recurring I have to say the old Interface is much better, and seems like you had more options.
Thanks
how do i change back to the old one this one is to weird and gets in the way.
Maybe you could re direct me to the support as I cant find it, and its been over a week and no reply
Thanks
Hi Moonfruit
I am very impressed by the new Sitemaker Edit Environment, well done.
As a photographer I am very interested in the image tool palette. Have you any further updates or new widgets in the pipeline for us snappers.What would be rather good is if you could position where the pop-up appeared other than in the middle of the picture grid. I have worked out a way around this but it is rather tedious and takes a bit longer to load.
Many Thanks Tim