When I first looked at front end editing of a TYPO3-driven website, I thought it was really cool. I loved the ability to move around the site using its navigation and simply clicking to items to edit them.
However, when I used front end editing to actually maintain a live website I found it clunky and a little frustrating. Mostly it boiled down to the location of the admin panel. Since the panel was tethered to the very bottom of the page, I found myself constantly scrolling either to the admin panel or else back to the top of the page to access my edit.
Shortly, I began to look for a way to reposition the admin panel, and through an interchange on the TYPO3 mailing list, I was pointed towerd the extension "Admin Panel Wrapping/Positioning" (extension key: ingmar_admpanelwrap). This extension makes the admin panel a floating palette that you can park anywhere in your browser window. And you can reposition it by simply moving it around via clicking and dragging. It even remembers its position as you move from page to page. This extension saves a tremendous of scrolling when using front end editing.
Now I did make one adjustment to the code. I adjusted the code in the "ext_conf_template.txt" file located in the extension's directory. In the later part of the file my adjusted code says:
"onmouseup="saveposition(this)" id="admPanel" style="position:absolute; left:0px; top:0px; width:30px; z-index:5">"
I changed the "left" and "top" values to "0". The original values only allowed me to get the panel to within 30 pixels of the top and I preferred to have the panel closer.
Try it out. This little extension will greatly enhance your front end editing experience.