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Sitecore Horizon is a next-generation editor tool which is firstly launched with Sitecore 9.3 version.
Sitecore Horizon is a mixture of both Sitecore Content Editor as well as Sitecore Experience Editor. It provides the WYSIWYG editing functionality which is provided by Experience Editor. It also provides a Site tree which is provided by Content Editor.
Sitecore Horizon contains a lot of interesting features but it is not a part of Sitecore Vanilla Instance. You have to install it manually for using it. It also works like a distinct and separate feature along with Experience Editor and Content Editor.
Features of Sitecore Horizon
The Page Editor
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Horizon Page Editor lets you create new pages based on page templates. It also allows you to edit existing pages in Sitecore Content Tree. It provides you with inline editing functionality just like Experience Editor. The Page Editor is the default view when you open Horizon from Launchpad. When you are editing the page in Horizon then you can switch between different device layouts to see how the page will appear on different devices.
You also have an option to undo and redo your changes. Moreover, your work will be saved automatically. If a page belongs to a workflow then you can move the page through different states of workflow in the Page Editor. You can also publish pages from the Page Editor.
The Page Editor has two buttons at the top named Pages and Content.
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Pages - Pages combine both editing and design capabilities. You can view the page as it will appear on your website when you publish it. You can also add components to the page. Moreover, you can directly edit the content on the page similar to Experience Editor. The site tree only contains items with a presentation layer mainly pages.
Content - Content is a tool that let you work with content items independent of presentation. The content tree contains all of the content items for the selected site. Items in the content tree are organized in a hierarchical structure. You can edit all of the fields on a particular item.
The Page Editor is divided into three panes. The first pane is for Site or Content Tree, the Second pane is for editing content and the last one is for details.
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Left-hand pane - When you open the Page Editor then the left-hand pane displays the content tree or site tree. The content tree contains all content items for the current site while the site tree only contains items with a presentation layer. When you create a page or add renderings to the page then the left-hand pane displays a panel specific to the current task.
Central pane - The central page will display the page as it will appear on the site. You can edit the fields of the selected page directly even the fields of any item rendered on the page. You can also add or remove renderings on the page.
It works like Experience Editor which provides WYSIWYG editing functionality. It also includes a helpful feature that lets you view the page on different devices like desktops, Mobile Phones, Ipad, etc.
Right-hand pane - The right-hand pane contains details about the selected item as well as the Workflow state. It displays the details of the section that is selected on the Central pane.
If you select a field, rendering, or placeholder then the right-hand pane display details about the selected element. If you select the whole page then this pane will display information for the whole item like the Item ID, Path, Author, name, etc. You can also use this pane to carry out actions such as changing the workflow status or applying formatting to rich text fields.
The Simulator Mode
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The Simulator Mode in Horizon is used to preview a site. You can see how pages will look on different dates as well as devices.
Example - If you have created a version of the page or you have applied personalization on-page for a specific date then you can view how the page will look before, during, and after based on the selected date.
The Simulator only displays the page that is currently selected in the site tree. You can see how the site looks on the different devices by clicking the phone, tablet, or desktop icon in the Device switcher at the top of the Simulator window.
In Simulator Mode you will see a timeline at the bottom. To preview how a page looks on a specific date, click the date in the timeline. The Simulator displays the site as it will appear on the date that is highlighted in the center of the timeline.
On hovering over the timeline you will be able to see if any changes were made on that date or not. To close the Simulator and return to the editor, click the Close button in the toolbar.
The Insights View
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You can see the insights for the current page by clicking the Insights icon in Horizon. Insight View includes analytics data for the current page. Page Insights displays several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the current page and the selected device type. By using the Device Switcher you can switch from one device type to other or you can select all device types.
Several default insights come with Horizon and if developers want then they can also create new insights.
The visits per day and average value per visit insight is a graph with two lines. One of the lines indicated the number of visits on day. Another line indicated the average value per visit.
The conversion rate by date insight displays the conversion rate for the current page for the last seven days. The conversion rate is calculated as conversions for the page divided by the total number of visits to the current page.
The time on page-by-date insight shows the average amount of time per visit that a visitor spent on the current page. The chart shows the average time on page for the last seven days.
The bounce rate by date insight shows the bounce rate for the current page for the last seven days. The bounce rate of a page is the percentage of visitors who visit the page and then leave the site without viewing other pages.
The Bounce rate insight appears if the current page has a high or low bounce rate (above 55% or below 35%).
References
Sitecore Horizon - https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/users/93/sitecore-experience-platform/horizon.html
What is Sitecore Horizon - https://www.altudo.co/resources/blogs/what-is-sitecore-horizon-and-why-you-need-it
That's all for today.
Happy Coding