Thread

We are creating our first site with EE. One thing I can’t seem to get a handle in is previewing a complex page in context, complete with all embedded templates, EE code run, stylesheets working, etc. particularly in the case where we’re updating a Open page. We need to be able to preview the page exactly as it will appear without taking it down from the site in the meantime. (If we take it down, our site “breaks.” If we don’t end-users see our interim mistakes as we get a page to look right.)

I don’t think EE can handle this directly. I tried the NSM Live Look plugin, but it seems to have the same limitation, i.e., it wants you to set the page to some other status than Open while you edit it.

Does anyone else have something like this working? I’m willing to consider any way of doing this including running two parallel sites (“stage” and “production”), editing pages that are “live” on stage, and then somehow pushing them to the production instance. It’s the “somehow pushing them to production” part I’m not sure how would get accomplished.

Just wondering if I’m missing something obvious and if anyone else has something like this in place and can offer any insight on getting this done. My timeframe is incredibly short to get something in place that will work.

-dan

Did you try creating a live look template?

You can go to Admin > Channel Administration > Channels -> Edit Preferences

There in path settings you can specify a ‘Live Look Template’. If your status is not open, you can duplicate your life template and change the status in your channel:entries tags to the desired status (eg. pending/closed).

This is ideal for sites with a workflow.

Thanks for your reply, Mike. I am trying out NSM Live Look, but unless I’m missing something (which I’m thinking I must be…), it still seems I cannot work on and preview an entry while the “current” version remains visible on my site. Every solution I’ve looked at requires you either take it out of Open status, which brings it down from the site, which we don’t want. Or your edits must be submitted even to be previewed, and if it’s Open, these interim edits show up on the site as you work on the page.

Maybe workflow is what we need. What’s the state of the art in EE workflow? Is there a good add on?

Thanks again for your reply.

-dan

Okay, got your point now. You want to preview before actually saving the entry… Good one, I’ve also gotten interested now. Let me do some more research.

If you find something in the meantime, please share!

Cheers,
Mike

There was a product from Newism, Publish Plus, that did this, but they have not ported it to EE 2 yet. When I asked them about it, they pointed toward Better Workflow from Electric Putty. It’s in beta now but should be released soon (I’ve got a query into the company asking if they have an official release date.) Looks like just what we need.

Here’s some info on it:

http://labs.electricputty.co.uk/post/building_a_better_workflow/
http://labs.electricputty.co.uk/post/building_a_better_workflow_fun_with_third_parties/
http://labs.electricputty.co.uk/post/better_workflow_approve_this/