Proposal for Improved Custom Preview Implementation in Decap CMS

[Deanfei]

Hi team,

First, I want to say thank you for all the hard work on Decap CMS. It’s an amazing open-source project, and I truly appreciate the efforts behind it.

One challenge I’ve been facing, though, is implementing a custom preview, especially for complex content structures. It’s not straightforward, and I believe improving this feature would greatly benefit non-technical users. While the editorial workflow provides a way to review content before publishing, it can be overwhelming for users with little technical experience. Many of my clients struggle to understand the different status changes, making the process confusing for them.

I’d like to propose an alternative approach inspired by Payload CMS—implementing a custom preview route that listens for data via window.postMessage. This method enables live preview updates in a separate preview window, offering a smoother and more intuitive experience for users.

Would this be something worth exploring? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea and how we might make custom previews more user-friendly in Decap CMS.

Looking forward to your feedback!