We’re excited to announce the next Prismic Early Access Program cohort: Slice Machine Upgrade 2022.

We are building a new feature for editing your mock data via Slice Machine’s previewing feature, Slice Simulator. We’re adding an editing widget that shows you the mock data in your Slice and allows you to customize it however you want. This means any changes you make in the editor widget in Slice Simulator will update on the Slice in real-time, allowing you to see updated mock data render as you make changes. Before we roll this new feature out, we’re granting early access to a small group of users through our Early Access Program.

Before launching this feature to all Slice Machine users, we’re looking to grant early access to a small group of developers, who will have the opportunity to help shape the development of this feature in return for providing us with honest feedback.

Read on to find out more about how to join this cohort.

What will you gain early access to?

With this proposed upgrade, developers will see a vastly improved component development process in Slice Machine, where editing your mock data will directly update the Slice you are working on locally. You’ll be able to battle-test your components and work through variations at a blistering pace. You can push Slices to Prismic with confidence knowing they can handle the content intended for them. Furthermore, as a developer, you’ll be able to get a better sense of the website builder that you ship to marketing teams because you will be able to see all the elements you’ve configured, such as field labels and field configuration, which will help you customize and improve the editing experience.

Those who are granted access will be able to:

• Play with and ship Slices using the newest form of Slice Machine before everyone else.
• Quickly update all of your components to reflect exactly what a Slice is intended to look like with real content.
• Test edge cases, including when content does not look like what the designer intended.
• Understand the editing experience you are providing to your content teams.
• Test what type of content a Slice will support. For example, see how a Slice will respond if a content editor wants to add multiple paragraphs in a Rich-Text field or if it needs to be kept to 1-2 sentences.

Benefits of Participation

By participating in the Early Access Program, you’ll be given the opportunity to test and provide feedback on this new feature before anyone else. You’ll also have access to a private Discord channel with other participants and Prismic team members, including Guy Proops, the Editor Product Manager. There, you can ask questions, provide thoughts on the feature, and connect with other Prismic developers.

Details

Your involvement should take just a couple of hours through each of the two primary phases.

When: Approximately: November 21 – December 16, 2022

Requirements to join: We are looking for developers who are experienced with Slice Machine. Ideally, you meet the following criteria:

• You’ve built and shipped a Prismic website with Slice Machine.
• You have used the Slice Simulator tool

Schedule

The program will have two phases that are each two weeks long. Each phase will have a specific focus following this agenda:

• At the start of the phase, you’ll receive a step-by-step guide on how to install and access the tool and an overview of what needs to be tested.
• Within the first week, you’ll follow the guide. If you come across a bug or have feedback to share, please submit it in the Discord group, and we will create a bug report.
• At the end of the phase, you can join a group call to ask questions, discuss what was tested, and meet the other cohort developers.

We’ll aim to make each phase as low-effort as possible while gathering as much feedback as we can. we know you’re busy and don’t want to waste your time. 🙂

Once you share your bug reports and feedback, we’ll be hard at work fixing those issues and addressing your comments. We may ask you to re-test some parts of your app to confirm the fixes worked.

Phases

• Phase 1 21/11-2/12: We will provide you with a design for a Slice and you’ll rebuild it with the new version of Slice Machine. You’ll be asked to test the mock data editing widget and help us identify any bugs or issues with the product.
• Phase 2 5/12-16/12: We will ask you to test the mock data editing widget again, but this time on one of your existing projects.

Apply for Early Access

If you meet the requirements listed above, submit your name and details using the form below.

You’ll receive an email letting you know if you have been selected for the cohort along with details on how to proceed. Keep an eye out for that email! 👀

Let’s build Prismic together

The Prismic Early Access Program is a new initiative that will lead to better integrations, fewer bugs, and a nicer overall developer experience for you and others.

We plan to have more cohorts in the future as we work on new projects. If the Slice Machine Upgrade cohort isn’t for you, I’m sure we’ll have something in the future that you can take part in.

Keep an eye out for more Prismic Early Access Program announcements here on the Prismic Blog and in our Community Newsletter. Thanks!