Selecting your UI

Last update: March 5, 2025

Topics:
Authoring

CREATED FOR:

User
Admin
Developer

The Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) touch-enabled UI is the standard UI. However, there may be times when the user wants to switch to the classic UI. There are several options for doing this.

There are various locations where you can define which UI is to be used:

Configuring the default UI for your instance
This sets the default UI to show at user login. The user may be able to override this and select a different UI for their account or current session.
Setting Classic UI Authoring for your account
This sets the UI to be the default when editing pages, although the user can override this and select a different UI for their account or current session.
Switching to the classic UI for the current session
Switches to the classic UI for the current session.
For the case of page authoring, the system makes certain overrides in the relation to the UI.

CAUTION

Various options for switching to the classic UI are not immediately available out-of-the-box, they must be configured for your instance.

See Enabling Access to Classic UI for more information.

NOTE

Instances upgraded from a previous version retain the classic UI for page authoring.

After upgrade, page authoring is not automatically switched to the touch-enabled UI, but you can configure this using the OSGi configuration of the WCM Authoring UI Mode Service ( AuthoringUIMode service). See UI Overrides for the Editor.

Configuring the Default UI for Your Instance

A system administrator can configure the UI that is seen at startup and login by using Root Mapping.

This can be overridden by user defaults or session settings.

Setting Classic UI Authoring for Your Account

Each user can access their own user preferences to define if they want to use the classic UI for page authoring, instead of the default UI.

This can be overridden by session settings.

Switching to Classic UI for the Current Session

When using the touch-enabled UI, desktop users might want to revert to the classic (desktop only) UI. There are several methods to switch to the classic UI for the current session:

Navigation Links

CAUTION
This option for switching to the classic UI is not immediately available out-of-the-box, it must be configured for your instance.
See Enabling Access to Classic UI for more information.

If this is enabled, whenever you mouseover an applicable console, an icon appears (a monitor symbol). Tapping/clicking this opens the appropriate location in the classic UI.

For example, the links from Sites to siteadmin:
URL

The classic UI can be accessed using the URL for the welcome screen at welcome.html. For example:

https://localhost:4502/welcome.html

NOTE
The touch-enabled UI can be accessed via sites.html. For example:
https://localhost:4502/sites.html

Switching to Classic UI when Editing a Page

CAUTION

This option for switching to the classic UI is not immediately available out-of-the-box, it must be configured for your instance.

See Enabling Access to Classic UI for more information.

If enabled, Open the Classic UI is available from the Page Information dialog:

syui-02

UI Overrides for the Editor

The settings defined by a user or system administrator can be overridden by the system if there is page authoring.

When authoring pages:
- Use of the classic editor is forced when accessing the page using cf# in the URL. For example:
  https://localhost:4502/cf#/content/geometrixx/en/products/triangle.html
- Use of the touch-enabled editor is forced when using /editor.html in the URL or when using a touch device. For example:
  https://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/geometrixx/en/products/triangle.html
Any forcing is temporary and only valid for the browser session
- A cookie set is set dependent on whether touch-enabled ( editor.html) or classic ( cf#) is used.
When opening pages through siteadmin, checks are made for the existence of the following:
- The cookie
- A user preference
- If neither exist, it defaults to the definitions set in the OSGi configuration of the WCM Authoring UI Mode Service ( AuthoringUIMode service).

NOTE

If a user has already defined a preference for page authoring, that is not overridden by changing the OSGi property.

CAUTION

Due to the use of cookies, as already described, it is not recommended to either:

Manually edit the URL - A non-standard URL could result in an unknown situation and lack of functionality.
Have both editors open at the same time - For example, in separate windows.

recommendation-more-help