As an author/producer, I would like the ability to open a Composer article in a read-only view without locking the story for someone else. I want to be able to view the info in the different tabs — Planning, Circulate, Compose, Meta, Featured Media.
I would want to be able to do this from the Composer List Results page. Example, if the user clicks the headline they try to take the lock, but if they click a different icon then they could get a read-only version that doesn't lock the article for other authors/producers who may need to make timely updates to the article.
Another nice to have would be to be able to click an Edit button from the Read-Only view and then lock the article for an update.
Sara Skinner Cole
Arc is addressing the use case I posted last month -- yay Arc!
But the original idea still stands: can you enable a user to enter a story directly into Read-Only mode instead of forcing them into Edit mode then having them select Read-Only from within the story?
A follow-on to this idea:
When User A is in the story and User B then opens that story. Often User B goes into the story only to review it -- they never intend to edit it. When User B opens the story it is indeed in a read-only mode but there are two problems:
Arc hides the drop-down for view-status where the user can switch between Editing, Suggesting, and Read-only. Yes, a user can read the file but there’s no indication that they are actually in Read-only mode and they do not have any control over their view-status. As such, they cannot go into Suggesting mode if they need to.
More importantly, when User A releases the story, User B unknowingly and automatically gets put into Editing mode, which in turn locks out everyone else. When there is breaking news a lot of people are coming and going into a story so it’s critical that the newsroom has control over their view-status.
The newsroom is looking for two things accordingly:
Don’t hide the view view-status drop-down. That would clearly indicate that the user is in Read-only mode and it would let them switch to Suggesting as needed. Obviously, Editing would be greyed-out.
Do not automatically put User B into Editing mode when User A releases the story. That way when User A releases the story, no one else is unintentionally locking it.
Thank you for submitting this idea. This is certainly on our radar for future consideration!