Text Editing

DCS lets you update your website's copy yourself, in the portal — no code and no developer round-trip. Editing happens in the visual editor: your live site renders inside the portal, you click the text you want to change, and type.

How It Works

When you edit text in the portal:

1. You open a site page in the visual editor. The page renders in an embedded preview, and editable text is highlighted as you hover over it.
2. You click a piece of editable text and type the new copy directly in place.
3. You click Save. Your changes are queued for the next deployment — the portal confirms with "Changes queued for deployment."

Saving records your edit; it goes live when the site is next deployed. This is the shipped behavior for every managed site (the "commit" content model — see When changes go live below).

Opening the Visual Editor

1. From the dashboard, open your site.
2. Choose a page to edit. The page loads in the embedded preview.
3. Hover over text to see which elements are editable, then click to edit.

If a page isn't set up for managed editing, the editor shows a banner instead of edit affordances — that page's text isn't wired for portal editing yet. Submit a Development Request to make it editable.

Editing Text

1. Click the text you want to change. An inline field opens on that element.
2. Type your replacement copy.
3. Repeat for as many elements as you like — edits accumulate in the current session.
4. Click Save to queue everything, or Discard to revert.

The Changes Inspector

As you edit, a changes panel lists everything you've modified but not yet saved. From it you can jump back to any changed element in the preview, or discard a single change to restore its original text — all before you Save.

When Changes Go Live

DCS resolves a site's text in a fixed order, and how quickly your edit appears depends on the site's content mode:

Mode	How text is served	When your edit appears
Commit (default)	Text is baked into the site at build time from .dcs/content.yaml	On the next deployment after you Save
Runtime	The site fetches overrides from the DCS API at page load	Near-instantly after you Save, on the next page load

Every managed site ships in commit mode by default: your saved edits are queued and published with the next deployment. Runtime mode is an opt-in configuration for sites that need live updates without a redeploy.

Regardless of mode, the site falls back through: API overrides (runtime mode only) → build-time content from .dcs/content.yaml → the developer's hardcoded defaults.

Text Keys

Behind the scenes, every editable element is tied to a text key. You rarely type keys by hand — the visual editor selects them for you when you click an element — but they follow a predictable structure:

{page}.{section}.{element}

Examples:

• home.hero.title — main heading on the home page
• about.team.description — team section description
• contact.form.submitButton — submit button label

Keys are grouped by page (plus a global group for shared elements like nav and footer) and are discovered automatically when your site's page snapshots are captured. The values themselves live in .dcs/content.yaml.

What You Can and Cannot Edit

You can edit

• Static text content and headings
• Button and link labels
• Descriptions and simple lists
• Managed images (via the image affordance) and managed forms, where a site wires them for editing

You cannot edit here

• Page layout and structure
• Navigation menu structure
• Complex interactive components

For anything beyond managed content, submit a Development Request.

Discarding Changes

If you change your mind before saving:

• Discard a single change from the changes panel to restore that element's original text, or
• Click Discard to drop all unsaved edits in the current session.

Discarding only affects edits you have not yet queued. Once changes are deployed, revert them by editing again (or, for a larger reversal, via a Development Request).

Troubleshooting

My edit isn't on the live site yet

In commit mode, edits appear only after the site is deployed. Check that you clicked Save (and saw "Changes queued for deployment."), then wait for the next deployment to complete.

An element won't let me edit it

That element may not be wired as managed text. Try a nearby element, or submit a Development Request to make it editable.

The preview won't load

Use the editor's retry action to restart the preview. If it keeps failing, contact your development partner.

Next Steps

• SEO Management — Edit page metadata
• Blog Management — Create blog posts
• Development Requests — Request code changes