EditLive! provides a rich, full featured and user friendly editing experience, but sometimes you need to roll a system out to users that may not have Java installed and that can sometimes cause deployment headaches. In the past the only option was to give up much of the functionality and ease of use that EditLive! provides and use a JavaScript based editor instead - great for users without Java but limiting and often frustrating for everyone else. So we've come up with a solution that gives you the best of both worlds and we call it Express Edit.

To get as many users up and running as fast as possible, Express Edit adds a JavaScript based editor to EditLive! with a subset of EditLive's functionality yet providing a quick and easy way for users to switch over to the full editor. The best part is that both the JavaScript and the full editor use the same configuration and provide nearly identical interfaces to the user. In fact, taking advantage of Express Edit only requires two minor changes to your existing EditLive! setup.

1. Include the Express Edit JavaScript file. Do this immediately after you include the standard editlivejava.js file, for example:
   <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="/editlivejava/editlivejava.js"></script>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="/editlivejava/expressEdit/expressEdit.js"></script>
2. Instruct the instance of EditLive! to enable Express Edit.
   editlive.setExpressEdit("true");

We think Express Edit is a huge benefit for both users and system administrators. For users, the single configuration for both editors means that the interface is familiar whether they are using the JavaScript editor or the full editor so upgrading to the full editor is painless and just lets them keep working. For administrators and developers, having a single configuration file reduces maintenance costs and dramatically simplifies development and deployment - we've taken care of it all for you.

Since this functionality is so new, you'll need to be using one of the early access builds from version 6.2.7.73 and above. Also, on OS X Java is always installed and available so we always load the full editor. Otherwise, initially the JavaScript editor loads and the user can chose to switch over to the full editor if they desire. Once as user has switched to the full editor, it will load by default to give them the best experience possible by default in future.

Express Edit will be a part of the EditLive! Productivity Pack but feel free to try it out even if your license doesn't include the productivity pack. Over the next few weeks we'll look more in depth at Express Edit and what it can and can't do.

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