Thread

Hello All,
New to EE and the forums, very happy to have found such a great tool!

My first question is a simple one:
Is there anyway to include PHP in the System Offline Template?
I’d like to pass some variables to this page from referring links to link back out when the site is offline.
I did see 1 previous post as a feature request to include the flexibility of standard templates in the System Offline Template. This would be quite nice, but perhaps its not there yet.
Cheers,
Michael

Michael, welcome to EE, you’re going to love it.  You are correct that PHP in offline templates is not currently supported.  That said though, if you look into your system/utilities folder, you’ll see a page called offline.html.

If I were you, I’d rename the main index.php into offline_index.php, and drop offline.html into the main folder.  Then I’d rename it into index.php and place as much PHP into there as you wish.  When you’re ready to take your site online again, simple rename it back to “offline” and restore the name of your index.php page.

Welcome aboard.

Derek, thanks for the speedy reply. I feel welcome already!
That solution makes perfect sense and I probably would have never thought of it. Thanks!
With that then, the System Offline radio button would always be left selected as online, correct? As I understand it, we’re basically just simulating “offline” by manipulating the files. Are there any drawbacks to this approach? I’m assuming this would also work with a mod_rewrite of index.php as well, which I’m considering.

Thanks again.

Correct!  We’re simulating offline.  Since in EE everything runs through the index.php page, if it isn’t there then the system is effectively offline.  The drawbacks are that in normal “offline” mode, a super admin can still access the site.  With this solution they can’t.  A good way around that would be to go into CP Home ›  Admin ›  System Preferences ›  General Configuration and set “is the system on” to “no” (making it inaccessible to anyone but super-admin) and then setting “Name of your site’s index page” to “offline_index.php”, making your site available to you at http://www.yoursite.com/offline_index.php

And of course you’re correct, a mod-rewrite will do it also.

Great, thanks alot Derek! This is exactly what I was looking for.
Looking forward to delving further and further into this great product.