This is the third day of our preview series looking at the upcoming Alloy v3 release. If you’ve missed the previous days you can go to this thread, which links to all of the currently released previews:
DAY THREE:
Let’s shift gears from Embeds and Droplets and look more at Alloy’s mainstay – blogging.
In Alloy v3 I’ve revamped the Editor’s design to make things not only more pleasing to the eye, but also to add a lot of functionality and improve your workflow.
Let’s begin with logging into your Editor directly on your site. In Alloy v2 we had a pretty nice login experience with a customizable logo feature. In Alloy v3 though we’ve upped the ante. Alloy now has the option of having a full-page login screen for your Editor. You can configure not only a custom logo, but also style the design and choose either a preset or custom background for the page. We think this new login system will give you even more flexibility when customizing your Editor, whether it is for yourself or for a client.
Blog Posts List View & Editor
The Blog Posts list view has gotten an overhaul as well. Each post now displays a small thumbnail of the post’s topper image on the far left-hand side of the row. You can optionally have the Editor display the Category and Tags for each individual post as well when setting up the Editor page in RapidWeaver.
As before posts are sorted into Future, Draft and Active categories so you can always tell which posts are live, and which posts might need attention or are scheduled to go live at a future date and time. And speaking of Future posts – Alloy v3 now also takes the time of the Blog Post into consideration for when a future dated post will be shown to your visitors. The time can be set when creating your Blog Posts.
The Blog Post editor has also gotten a facelift, some new stylish icons, and several new features, as well as an inmproved layout. In addition, you can now do more with the toolbar in the Editor as well.
Tags & More
We’ve added an oft-requested feature for Blog Posts in the form of Tags. While each post can be placed into a single Category, you can now also sub-categorize posts using multiple Tags.
This update also includes a new Decorative Label for posts, time settings, the ability to drag-and-drop images into the blog post’s main body field, SVG image support, more toolbar button options, improved side-by-side editing, Custom Summary capability and so much more. Of those things, let’s touch on Custom Summaries quickly.
Custom Summaries
When configuring your Editor in RapidWeaver you can opt to allow Custom Summaries for your Blog Posts. When enabled your online Editor will include a field just above the main body content for your Blog Post. This field can contain a Custom Summary for your post. This summary will be displayed on the blog’s summary view, as well as on the search results, categories and tags views as well. This allows you to customize the summary to your liking for each individual post. This gives you more flexibility over your summaries. That said, I would encourage you to keep each summary relatively the same size. This helps to maintain a neat, organized summary list view for your blog.
Blog Post Content Management
Let’s take a look at the new Blog Posts Content Management video today, which shows much of what we’ve been talking about today.
We think all of these features, as well as rest that we didn’t even begin to touch on, will really help improve your workflow.
Coming Up
Tomorrow we’ll be looking at our new Blog Layouts feature, the new Blog Search tool for your visitors, the Previous / Next Controls, and the ever popular Pretty URLs support.
Bonus: Blog Entires stack settings
Let’s also take a look at the some of the settings foundin the Blog Entries stack as a bonus video today. Many of these settings will seem familair if you’re already an Alloy user. But we’ve also added a LOT of new customization options as well to take your blog and your posts to the next level!
This video will also give you a sneak peak of some of tomorrow’s topics as well!