Previously on this blog, I’ve mentioned that Guide for Craft CMS was made in the spirit of the old Craft Help plugin for Craft CMS 2.x. While Guide has changed over the years, the core functionality inspired by Craft Help remained: you can create documentation in the form of Twig templates and show them in your Craft CMS Control Panel.
Over the years I split up the functionality between the LITE and PRO editions of Guide into two general ideas:
LITE
The ability for developers to create a CMS user manual, using Twig templates that are uploaded alongside the rest of the source code—just like Craft Help.
PRO
The features of the LITE edition, plus the ability for clients and developers to create guides in a code editor and distribute them to Widgets, CP Pages, UI Elements, etc...
The editions table in the Craft CMS Plugin Store, showing the split of features across both editions.
In my head, PRO was the paid commercial plugin, where LITE was kept at the scope of Craft Help, free for anybody who wanted that limited set of features.
Editing Guides in the LITE Edition
After the release of Guide 5 I thought about the authoring experience for the LITE edition and realized that it doesn’t feel like a complete plugin as-is. My thoughts turned to how I would build Guide LITE if I were starting over today and I feel like, instead of requiring Twig templates to manage Guide content, the code editor would have been the primary way to create guides.
So today I want to change that.
As of Guide 5.3.0, the Guide Editor will be available in the LITE edition so you and your clients can log in, create a guide using Markdown or Twig, and add it to the CMS Guide page in Guide.
There are some Guide Editor features that are still part of the PRO edition, such as components and the CSS and JavaScript editor fields.
Be Free, Code Editor
I mentioned to a developer friend that I had been thinking about doing this and they asked why I would give away a feature for free that previously was part of a paid tier. My thought is that after this change it’ll now feel like the LITE edition is the complete CMS Guide feature. Yes, I want folks to pay for the PRO edition, but I also think the LITE edition should also be a decent plugin on its own.
I’m hoping that folks who only need a CMS user manual will enjoy using the LITE edition more now, and they’ll pick up the PRO edition when they need to make widgets, use slideouts, create CP pages, and all the other good stuff in the PRO edition.
If you haven’t used Guide in a while, check out the new LITE editor and—as always—I’m eager to hear your feedback.