Umbraco 8's new Block List Editor is a flexible system that lets you define blocks of content that you want to display on a page. It's great for helping editors be creative on their page layout without violating the site's style guides. However, by default it's not the most user-friendly editing experience. Thankfully, Tim is here to show us how to customise your Block Lists to make them editor friendly!
The conference season is cancelled and most of us are required to stay at home as we deal with the pandemic. But Umbraco Spark held its second annual event in early March. Among the attendees to this was Tim Payne, who decided to bike 400 km to the event as an adventure. He shares the fun and pain of the trip, inspiring us to consider doing the same when we're allowed back in the great outdoors.
It's easy to get stuck in a rut, both personally and professionally. Although we're often happy in our habits, it's by taking some risks and getting outside of our comfort zones that we can learn what we're capable of and make new friends in the process. Tim shares his own experiences with doing more crazy stuff and how that's improved his life.
Twelve years ago, Tim was diagnosed with cancer. He survived, and in the process learned valuable lessons that he's sharing with us that apply to both life in general as well as to our lives as web professionals.
Overworking ourselves is a common thing in development, especially with the dreaded crunch time! Tim has some great advice on how to recognize when you're reaching burnout, mitigating it before it hits that point, and what to do when it's too late.
There are always several ways to accomplish the same task in Umbraco. And it's not always clear which is the right one. Querying content is one of the biggest examples of this, with many different techniques and levels of performance as a result. Tim walks us through the methods available and testing which is best.
It's no secret that many developers twitch at the thought of working with an SEO agency, and Tim won't deny it either. But what he will show you is how to painlessly set up an Umbraco site to be friendly towards these agencies and minimize their pain (and yours) when optimizing in Umbraco.
Tim runs us through some of the dos and don'ts when it comes to upgrading Umbraco sites. He offers advice on common gotchas and pitfall, advice on when to upgrade versus when to scrap and rebuild, and resources from others who've been there, done that.
