Website editor overview

How the editor is laid out, what the sidebar controls, and how saving, undo and redo work.

The editor keeps your website visible and puts the controls beside it. Click something on the page and the sidebar changes to the controls for that thing. Nothing is hidden behind a mode switch.

Opening the editor

Go to your dashboard, open the website you want to change, and choose Edit. The editor opens on the home page of that website.

The layout

The page
Your website, rendered exactly as visitors will see it. Hovering a section reveals its controls; clicking a piece of content selects it.
The sidebar
Everything you can change about whatever is selected. With nothing selected it shows the website-wide settings: pages, navigation, logo, colours, typography and the contact form.
The top bar
The website name, the save state, Save, Undo, Redo and Publish.

Selecting things

  • Click a heading, a paragraph or a list item to edit that text in place.
  • Hover a section to reveal its controls: Move section up, Move section down, Duplicate section, Hide section and Section settings.
  • Click an image to replace it, or an icon to choose a different one.
  • Click a button to edit its label and where it goes.

Choosing Section settings opens that section's panel in the sidebar, where the rest of its fields live, the ones that are not editable directly on the page.

Saving your work

Changes are held in the editor until you press Save. The top bar tells you where you stand: it shows Saving… while a save is running, and reports an error if one fails.

Undo and redo

Undo and Redo sit in the top bar and step through your editing history, up to 50 entries deep.

A continuous action counts as one entry rather than one per keystroke: typing a whole heading and then pressing Undo removes the heading you typed, not its last letter.

What you can change

AreaWhere
Text and buttonsOn the page, or in the section panel
SectionsSection controls and the Add a section drawer
Pages and the menuSidebar, with nothing selected
Images, logo and iconsClick the image or icon; logo in the sidebar
Colours and fontsSidebar, with nothing selected
Website editor overview | Instantsite Docs