Sometimes, when you need to make a change to your site that might take longer than just a few minutes, you don't want the world to see what you're doing until you've got it just right. So, how do you work on content on Water, Sky or LightCMS but keep it hidden from the public until it's ready? Here is a quick guide.
Adding pages or sections of pages
If you're creating a new page, or section of pages, you can simply change the permission settings for those pages so that only people who are logged into your site can view them. To do this:
- Add your pages.
- Go to the page you want to hide and click "page settings" at the top.
- Click the "users and roles" tab.
- Under "Who can view this page," uncheck the box that says "everyone in the world" and check the box that says "users who are logged in." (see image).
- Click update.
That's it. Now, when you log in, you'll see those pages on your menu, but no one else will be able to find them or access them. When you're ready, you can just change the permissions back to publish your pages.
What if I want to edit a page that already exists?
When I'm editing a page, I usually just make my changes live. I'm usually tweaking small things and there's no problem with making those changes in real time. But, if I ever do need to overhaul a page extensively, what I do is add a new page and hide it as described above, then build out the content on the new page like I want it to be. I might even copy the content from the existing over to the new page to serve as a starting point. Then, when it's ready, I delete the old page and make the new page live. You have to delete the old page in order to be able to use the shortcut URL that was being used by the old page, but that is no problem and it takes just a matter of seconds to make the switch.
What about working on blog posts?
If you want to work on blog posts but keep them hidden, all you need to do is set the date of the post forward in time. Blog posts don't show up until their specified date. So, follow this procedure:
- Go to your blog's page.
- Click "Write New Post."
- Give the post a title and set the date forward at least a few days.
- Click "Update."
- This will take you back to the blog's page and you won't see your new post, because the date was set forward.
- Click on "Manage Posts" (which is underneath "Write New Post" -- see image).
- On the resulting list, you will see your new post at the top. Click on its title.
- This will take you to the page showing your new post. You can use the edit button to edit.
- When your post is ready to be published, simply set the date to the current date or a date in the past and click "update."
Posted on
Mon, January 28, 2008
by Tim Wall