How do I preview my site without publishing?

[MightyGoldbreg]

[Note: The title of this post has been edited by a moderator.]

I feel like I'm missing something.  I get the WYSIWYG editor, and that's great.  It gives me a pretty accurate representation of the basic appearance of my site within the editor/designer itself.  But certain JavaScript features cannot be tested in this editor view.  For example, if I have a nested navigation menu, I can't expand the top level menu items.  If I have an image that is supposed to launch in a lightbox or a new tab, that won't work.  If I add any custom HTML or JS, that is not executed in the editor mode.  

I want to just see a "live" preview of the entire site with full functionality without actually publishing the site.  I want the site's owner to be able to confirm that these dynamic features actually work the way she expects before we go live.  That's not too much to ask from a site editor, is it?

To make things worse, the help center is really ambiguous about all of this.  There are a handful of knowledge base articles suggesting the existence of a "Preview" button in the upper right of the designer.  I see no such button.  I see only Upgrade and Publish.  For example, what's the deal with this one?

https://hc.weebly.com/hc/en-us/articles/217039287-How-Do-I-Preview-a-Site-for-a-Client-

I don't have that interface at all, and the article seems to be pretty recent.  In the upper right of my editor I see only this:

And judging by the -41 helpful score for that piece, I'd say most users are similarly scratching their heads.  So, what am I missing?  How can I preview my site?  How can I generate a "preview link" that some people seem to talk about in the community?  I agree with everyone that it's silly to have a preview that expires (without the option to not do so), but...I can't even find a way to get a self-destructing preview.  What's the deal?

[Jabjo]

OK, I'm a complete beginner at this, so before I do the publish/unpublish preview trick, (I'm trying to check out Lightbox function)  could you please tell me where the Unpublish button will be when I need to find it? Since I do already have an active word press site on Powweb, will it be bumped off if I do this? thanks.

[Bernadette3]

Hey there. The unpublish button is on the same page you set the Site Address. Click on the Settings tab and scroll all the way down to the bottom. You could also publish to a Weebly subdomain to check it out. 

[GWarlord]

You're a hero.

[Rocketswitch44]

I use a Mac.  There is no Preview button for me to trial my website before publishing?  Is this true Weebly?

[Adam7]

The editor itself acts as a pretty good preview of your site, @Rocketswitch44. What you see there is what you'll see once published.

[MichaelAtRemote]

I've been away from Weebly for quite a while....but I've just got back in and have been hunting around for the ability to preview my site without publishing.  I never had that problem in the past, but now I can't seem to find how to do it - so then I stumbled across this thread.

I don't think "the editor gives you a pretty good idea", or, "you can publish and then unpublish" are suitable solutions!

I used to use the preview time and time again to check how the site was hanging together as I built it.  But now it seems to have gone missing.   Where'd it go?

[MichaelAtRemote]

Sorry Migs.  Missed your post.  I can see that yes I can preview via the theme editing menu item.  But compared to last time I was in Weebly, this preview ability has gone backwards.  It used to be a single click button within the editor - so if you were trialling something tricky and needed a bit of trial and error, you could quickly preview and adjust and try again.

It should be re-instated I reckon!

[Makerofthings]

I'm hoping there's been a resolution to this issue. How can I review a nonpublished site?

(Assuming I don't want the hassle of publishing and un-publishing each time I want to look at a preview)

Thank you,
David

[cti666]

My quick the dirty fix to share preview/prototype page - I use site password protection.

[dgrasberger]

Stop saying this. It simply is not true. Having a true preview is completely different from having a WYSIWYG editor.

[Bernadette3]

Hi @dgrasberger I'm not sure what post you are responding to, but is this in regards to a preview option? There's actually a way to preview the site without publishing and it can be found on the same page you are making your custom html/css changes. Click on the arrow icon in the bottom right corner from Theme>html/css to access a pop-up preview of the website. Hope this helps!

[dgrasberger]

Pretty obscure, but it's something. How can I share the preview with someone who has requested the changes?

[Bernadette3]

It's super obscure and unless you were editing the html/css I doubt you wouldn't know it was there. Even then, it's not very obvious! I don't think you can share the link since you would have to already have the editor open for it to work. If you are on a designer platform you would be able to share preview links with people, though. I understand that doesn't help you much in this case, and I apologize for that. 

Does the person you need to send the link to have access to the editor? 

[peterthooper]

Preview without publishing because the editor "looks like" what you'll see...

NOT if it's a blog post, it won't.

Because the project I'm working includes poetry, how the text looks on the page is important. and needs to be carefully checked. I thought a blog would be a good option for a site that will receive ongoing updates of the blog kind, but I NEED to be able to preview before publishing.

The whole "publish-check-unpublish" ringamarole comes off as very clumsy (and, frankly, from the programming end, lazy).

In paging through the entries here, I read that in 2017 promises were made that the Weebly folks were working on a site preview option. 2017! This is an functional enhancement that is coming at a glacially slow pace (if it is happening at all)!

Maybe I just don't understand the insurmountable technical difficulties. Odd, though, because other platforms of similar kind provide for preview.

[Soul2soul2018]

SOLVED.  Before you pick a domain use the Weebly subdomain.    It is the bottom selection in the domain options.

You site will be yoursite.weebly.com and you can publish and preview there!

[peterthooper]

Again, clumsy. Grrr...