After you have created or inserted a content block in an article, you can edit, unlink, or remove the content block as needed. You manage a content block from within an article. There is not a central repository of content blocks for management.
Guide admins can manage content blocks. Agents can manage content blocks in articles where they have permission to edit.
Editing a content block
You can edit a content block from any article that is using it. Any changes you make to a content block will affect all articles that use that content block.
To edit a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to edit in edit mode.
- Hover over the content block, then click the options menu (
) and select Edit.
- Make any changes you need to.
You can edit the name of the block or any text in the content block. You can reformat the content using the dialog toolbar, for example, by adding bold or inserting a link.
- Click Update all articles.
Your updates are applied, and all articles that use the content block are updated with your changes.
Unlinking a content block
If you want to include content from a content block in an article, but modify it without affecting other articles that use the same content block, you can unlink the content block. The content block text is inserted into the article as regular text.
To unlink a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to unlink in edit mode.
- Hover over the content block, then click the options menu () and select Unlink.
There is not a confirmation dialog. The content block becomes regular text and is no longer a content block.
Removing a content block
If you want to remove a content block from the article completely, use the remove option.
To remove a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to remove in edit mode.
- Hover over the content block, then click the options menu () and select Remove.
The content block disappears from the article. The content block itself is not affected. It remains in any other articles where it is being used and is still available for reuse.
25 Comments
Liking content blocks so far, can definitely see a lot of potential.
Feedback: Would be great to have more options for things like colour, underline etc. We envision using this as a "template" tool where someone can put the block in and then just edit the content within the block - even as far as providing options/lines in the block and allowing the article editor to just delete options from the block. A "flexible block" almost.
As a question:
Is it possible to delete Content Blocks? I discovered a "bug" where if you hit create twice (before it gives you the saved prompt) it will create two blocks. I know I can remove the block from the article but is it possible to delete the block as an option?
I think the content blocks feature is a good first attempt, but it doesn't solve any real content reuse problems for me. This is a deal breaker: You manage a content block from within an article. There is not a central repository of content blocks for management.
I have to remember articles where a content block might exist. It's practically impossible to pass that information on to other users. I have the same issue with other content that is stored and managed inside articles, like images and videos.
Grant Foster
Thanks for your feedback. We'll be continuously adding more tools to edit content in Content Blocks. Can you let me know what styling options would be the most important for you? That will help us prioritize them.
You are totally right! At this early stage, it's not possible to delete a block (and thanks for reporting the bug). It's something we'll be adding soon.
JACQUELINE LEHR
I hear you! We will be looking into that kind of central management for Content Blocks. Can you explain how would you use it? What would be the most important to have, see in a central Content Blocks repository?
Central management for content is key. I see the value and much prefer a system where content is more modular, like DITA. Managing and storing content in Guide articles gets out of control very quickly.
I'd like to see images treated as content blocks so they an be managed from a central location. I use the same image in more than one article frequently. It's currently impossible to manage that. I want one place to update an image so it will be updated in all the articles where it appears. It would be GREAT to see a list of where the images are used.
I want to manage other content from one place, too, like paragraphs or the contents of an entire article. We have two help centers. Sometimes I reuse content between them, sometimes only inside one or the other.
It would also be GREAT to see a list of dependencies so if I delete a content block or an article I don't break links to it in other articles.
Thanks for asking, Katarzyna Karpinska!
I think we'd be keen on seeing some of the basics first - to match as closely with the normal editor in an article.
Notable omissions were underline and text colour.
I think our use case for content blocks is a bit beyond the original scope though. So understand it might not all be possible. Agree with some of Jacqueline's ideas though. Central management, images as content blocks.
Thanks for the note on the bug. Not a big deal for us to have double ups at this stage.
One thing I'd love to see is the ability to add a content block within a paragraph itself (rather than the entire paragraph being in the content block).
For example, as part of our documentation standards, any time a screen within our application is mentioned in the documentation, the authors are instructed to hyperlink the name of the screen to the help center article dedicated to that screen. While we already can input a hyperlink to an existing help center article, if we could create a master list of content blocks that were just hyperlinked text, we'd only ever need to update the content block one time should we need to direct the user to a different page within the help center. It'd essentially give us the ability to do a "mass replace" for linking to a new article rather than an older article.
Agree, content block paragraphs is a great starting point, but hopefully any sized content will eventually be possible.
To continue Alex's thought, phrases and hyperlinks are very useful as content blocks.
I would like to echo Alex's sentiment on hyperlinks. 5 of my brands have platform specific content that spans across all our products. For easier navigation, I duplicate the content for those sections in each category. The blocks are great, but I have no way to change the hyperlinks that link back to the general help center, when I need them to link back to the same articles within that brand hc.
Estou homologando essa funcionalidade e quando eu tento editar um bloco de conteúdo apresenta uma mensagem de erro abaixo:
Camila Ribeiro Leao Santos Thank you for reaching out to us I'll create a ticket to look into your issue.
Obrigada Katarzyna Karpinska
Não sei se vocês fizeram alguma atualização, mas agora eu consegui editar, porém a opção de espaçamento entre os parágrafos (Shift + Enter) não funciona na edição do bloco de conteúdo.
To piggy back on the functionality improvements for the content blocks, I'm trying to build out a global glossary (that shows as almost a tooltip in articles) in our documentation using javascript and manual span html tags. It works until it is used in the content block which completely wrecks it.
If that could be in the works down the line, that would be very helpful.
Hi Sara Witte, we are looking into adding a basic support for custom classes in Content Blocks. Not sure how your glossary works but it might help you a little bit.
Is there no code view or any way to edit the HTML in these content blocks?
Hi Sherri Anderson, no at the moment there is no possibility to edit HTML of content blocks. We may be adding it sometime in the future, could you help us understand how you'd use it?
Sure, I would use it the same way I use it on the regular articles. I always go in and clean up the HTML for starters, I get rid of the span tags etc. Lots of times I need to adjust the HTML for things like nested lists or a paragraph within a list item. Custom coding like adding accordions into articles, adding styles, etc. Basically, the content blocks can't really be used by us until they do allow HTML editing.
Our site's H2s have blue font. In a content block, when I code something as an H2, it appears the blue coloring is stripped and the heading becomes black by default. Is there any way to keep our heading styles in content blocks?
Mary Zemaitis we are not able to preserve the formatting when creating content blocks at the moment but we are working on a small feature right now, that will allow you to apply a custom class to an element in content block, which should give you more control over the styling.
To chime in here, I think this is a promising feature if some other basic functionality were added: HTML editing and images.
We generate a lot of custom content using HTML to promote various education pieces across articles in our help center. These aren't possible to recreate using the visual text editor, so having an HTML editor is critical.
Similarly, the ability to add images is a no brainer and has a ton of potential applications.
Where can you delete a content block so that you can no longer select it?
Hi Ronja, it's not currently possible to delete a content block but we'll be adding this functionality pretty soon. When it's available I'll posting some more info about it on Content Blocks EAP Community page :)
Agree with needing a central repository. I want to change the title on some blocks but they are tied to 17 articles - and it says it will "update" all articles, which means they will be put in an "In progress" status - so I will need to publish all of them, even though no content is actually being changes. ***UPDATE: This is not actually a bad thing - see my comment below from 3/4/2021***
Also would love to have text color options, underlining, etc. right there but if I could just have an HTML editor for each block that would be better actually.
Looking forward to images!
Hi Casey Birkholz
Thank you for your feedback. We also have an EAP Community here in case you'd like to engage in a discussion with other EAP users :)
The central repository is on its way and should be available this spring. Unfortunately, the experience you are describing when changing the title of content block puts it in the "In progress" state will remain for a while. But we hear you and other feedback in that regard and will be working on it later this year. The same applies to the formatting options in the CB editor.
Upon further review, I don't think updating Content Blocks is an issue - I just think these points need to be made clear to users:
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