Knowit.Umbraco.EditorLock 1.0.0

Knowit.Umbraco.EditorLock

Stop two editors from changing the same Umbraco content node at the same time.

When an editor opens a document, they hold an editing lock on it. If a second editor opens the same document, their editor turns read-only (with a red border) and the normal Save buttons are replaced by Request access and Force access. Real-time, over SignalR.

Built for the new (Lit/Web Components) Umbraco backoffice. Umbraco 17+.

Screenshots

Second editor — locked out (read-only, red border, lock buttons):

Requesting access — the holder is prompted to accept or decline:

Force access — confirm before taking over:

The holder keeps editing as normal:

Features

• 🔒 Automatic locking — the first editor to open a node holds the lock.
• 🟥 Read-only + red border for anyone else who opens the same node.
• 🙋 Request access — politely ask the current editor to hand over; they get an Accept/Decline prompt.
• ⚡ Force access — take over immediately (with a confirmation naming the current editor).
• ♻️ Never stuck — if the holder closes their browser or goes idle, the lock auto-releases so others can edit.
• 🧹 Save / Save and publish / Save and preview are hidden while you're locked out — only the lock actions show.

Installation

dotnet add package Knowit.Umbraco.EditorLock

That's it — there's nothing to register. The package wires up its SignalR hub and backoffice extensions automatically. Restart the site and the lock is active on the content section.

How it works

• A SignalR hub (/umbraco/knowitEditorLockHub, secured to backoffice users) carries the whole protocol: acquire/observe, release, request, respond, force, and heartbeats.
• A backoffice workspace context acquires/observes the lock for the open document and toggles read-only via the content workspace's read-only guard.
• Active locks are held in memory (a singleton service). This means locks reset on app restart and are not shared across load-balanced servers. For those scenarios, supply your own IEditorLockService implementation (it's a clean drop-in seam).

Configuration

Defaults live in Constants.cs: lock timeout 60s, heartbeat/cleanup interval 20s. Detailed SignalR errors are enabled to aid debugging — you may want to disable that for production.

Building from source

The backoffice client (Lit/TypeScript) compiles into wwwroot/App_Plugins/Knowit.Umbraco.EditorLock.

# 1. Build the client (required once on a fresh checkout — the SDK globs wwwroot at evaluation time)
cd Knowit.Umbraco.EditorLock/Client
npm install
npm run build

# 2. Pack (a Release build re-runs the client build automatically)
cd ../..
dotnet pack Knowit.Umbraco.EditorLock/Knowit.Umbraco.EditorLock.csproj -c Release -o ./artifacts

Requirements

• Umbraco CMS 17+
• .NET 10

License

MIT. Built with AI assistance and reviewed before release.