Hi, I have published my website and all went well. But I need to make some changes and I want to put the website in a sort of “offline mode”, so when someone is visiting the site, he/she won’t see the actual site but something like: “Where almost there”. What I did now is deleting the index.php file in my hosting program (and the site is offline) but I guess that this is not the correct way to do. So, can someone explain me how I can put my website in “maintenance mode”? Thank you.
Hi @Jurgen, Sparkle doesn’t have a maintenance mode as such, but there are ways around it…
- You could have a maintenance page as part of your Sparkle project which doesn’t get published, but when the time arrives move it into 1st position and give the “home page” status and take all the other pages offline… and then Publish. When you are done with your “maintenance” just reversed the process.
- Create a totally new Sparkle project and create a maintenance page. In this case you will need FTP access to clear your Sparkle website off the sever. When cleared just upload your maintenance page into position for the time being.
- But the most obvious one is just do all your changes within Sparkle on your macOS and when completed Publish it overwriting what you have online - this would be the easiest!
In the end it would be a great thing if Sparkle did have a maintenance page mode! but it could be overkill as Sparkle is the CMS on your desktop for your online website.
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There might be another option:
Create a subdomain which is not meant to be public on your webspace server. Publish your maintained (new) website content here and test it. If you are satisfied with your work, publish your website to the original location / webaddress.
Not tested yet, but should work…
@Macsteven Thank you for the info. But the #1 suggestion of @FlaminFig seems easier for me and can be used un future times.
Sounds interesting.
I haven’t been in the situation of having to preload a maintenance page yet, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea.
Would it theoretically be enough to make the construction site page as a homepage and only not publish the original homepage? Then everything else is still there, except the links and menus to the subpages.
If you exclude - as suggested - everything except the homepage from the publication, then everything, really everything, is reloaded when restoring, which can then take a very long time? I do not know this unfortunately.
Mr. F.
I wonder…
We have a “Home Page”, and a “Regular Page” setting. Maybe we could have a “Landing Page” (also acting as a maintenance page) setting as well? Once selected it would override on Publish all pages present in the project, until turned off.
Just a thought…
Hello @Jurgen, possibly another solution that might work for you and this is what I am currently using on my latest project. Create a login password protected page on your homepage. so when anyone goes to your site they first get to a blank log in page, this gives you the option of only allowing certain individuals to view the page live and prevent anyone else seeing it and you can put what ever message you like i.e “This site is currently undevelopement and is not viewable without a password” or something similar.
To give you a better idea, my current site is cerberesk.com which is password protected.
Hope that helps.
Si
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Just to let you know @Sicherry, you’ll have to include the rest of your pages as they are visible via the main navigation at the moment…
Very good point @FlaminFig, I didnt realise this and just tested it. Maybe not the best solution then unless it is a one or two page site.
Maybe the best thing is to copy the actual HOME-Site and take all Navigation off and then write just a text i. e. «This website is actually not accessible due to…» and set this site as HOME.
I would solve it in this manner.
Hope it helps.
Hi,
I now used my method successfully. I created a new website for our choir and published it in a subdomain with a seperat folder on the server:
Website linked to —> folder1
Subdomain linked to —> folder2
When all betatesters were happy with the new content, I simply changed the link of the website(s):
Website linked to —> folder2
Subdomain linked to —> folder1
The benefit: If something is wrong with the new website content, I can easiliy switch back to a working content. For the future I will publish new content in the subdomain folder and if ok, swith folders again.
Would it not have been much easier to create a full page pop up over the home page with no navigation on it. Once you’ve updated the rest of the site, turn the pop up off?
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That’s another possible way to do. My way left me many days to create a new website, test it “live” on the internet (preview and live internet are sometimes different), and the “publish” within seconds.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat 
.