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?

[Adam7]

Hey @MightyGoldbreg! The preview link that you've read about is a feature of our Designer Platform.  If you're building a site for a client, it's natural that you'd want to show them a preview of it like you mentioned.  It's also more likely that you'll have added more advanced content that might not function in the editor.

Have you checked out the designer platform yet?  You can sign up for it here:

https://www.weebly.com/dhpv.php

You'll need to use a different email address that you haven't used before since you won't be able to convert an existing account.

[MightyGoldbreg]

Ok, no I didn't know about the designer version of Weebly.  But I'm not a freelance designer with clients.  My situation is simply that my sister-in-law, who is creating a personal weebly.com site, added me as an authorized user/editor of her new site.  She needed some help setting things up.  But she gets hung up on little things like, "why can't I see the navigation sub-menus that I created?"  And alas, I can't show her.  She doesn't want to publish the site yet (she's not done designing it and adding content).  It would be nice to just be able to generate a fully functional preview of its current state.  Instead, I have to instruct her to publish the site temporarily (something she's really reluctant to do, because this is her business, and she doesn't want anyone to accidentially stumble upon it in a draft state), review everything, and then quickly unpublish it.  It's quite confusing for her as a not-so-technical user, and it's just really annoying and not intuitive to me, as someone who actually knows how a WYSIWYG editor and CMS is supposed to work.

I'll go ahead and use it as-is obviously, but please take this as feedback to the dev team.  I compared a few similar site builder options and recommended that she use Weebly (having never used it myself).  If I am going to make the same recommendation to anyone else (vs. Wordpress or Squarespace or Wix, etc.), then a live preview really needs to be a standard feature for all users.  Thanks for the quick reply, though.  

[Adam7 · Accepted solution]

That article is referring to a feature that was specific to the Weebly Designer platform. 

The best way to preview a site for someone else is to temporarily publish a site to an alternative address. This can be a free subdomain through us, or a subdomain of a custom domain you intend to use for the site. For example, if your custom domain is myonlineguitarstore.com, you could publish to preview.myonlineguitarstore.com.

If you think the preview might be up for a little while, you can temporarily block the site from search engines until you're ready. For the classic Weebly website editor this is found in Settings > SEO within the website editor, and for the Square Online editor you find this in Website > SEO & Social Media on the dashboard.

[MightyGoldbreg]

Well don't I feel rude. It's working for me, too. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case when we were looking at it this morning. Maybe we were doing something wrong then, or it requires more than one submenu. In any event, I'm satisfied with that, but I'd still like a full preview for other dynamic features. Thanks for the help!

[Adam7]

No worries, @MightyGoldbreg! I'm not sure why it wasn't working for you then, though your other points are valid.  At any rate, I'm glad that it'll help you design the site for your sister-in-law!

[curlyfilms]

Hi Adam, So does that mean there isn't a preview button then? I'm sure there used to be?

[alyander]

If you download the weebly app on Google Play Store there is a preview option. This is what I use for previews esp regarding custom html content that don't display in the editor. I am able to veiw it on my phone using the Weebly app. Hope this helps.

[Ihestar]

i upgraded my domain to a paid connect plan.what should i do next

[edcull]

I have the same requirement.

What des this mean please?

"One thing that should be working are the navigation menu dropdowns.  When I mouse over the middle option in the site's navigation, I see the subnavigation menu show with to pages in it."

Ta

Eddie

[Adam7]

That means that site navigation works the same in the editor as it does on the live site. If you have subpages, these will show in the menu for your site in both the editor and live site.

[JSmith21]

How do you publish to the preview.domain.com vs just your regular domain?

[Bernadette3]

Hi @JSmith21 It's not possible to do this. You can publish to a Weebly subdomain if you are not ready to publish to your custom domain. Is this what you mean? 

[JSmith21]

Yes, I guess that is what I do mean! Can you explain to me how to do that? I'm creating a website for my company but need to show my superiors and outside clients the website before it goes completely live. I'm new to website creation though, so any help would be great!

[Adam7]

Not a problem, @JSmith21. Go to the Settings tab of the website editor and click the Change button for your site address, then in the site address field enter a full Weebly subdomain, e.g. testingwebsite1234.weebly.com.

It should show an option at the bottom of the popup to use that as the site address.

[JSmith21]

Thank you!!

[Ali41]

My app logged me
Out. When I logged back in both my sites were not there and the only option available was to build a new site. My sites are alimulroy.weebly.com artofclimbing.weebly.com

[PeterGlass]

Hi Adam,

In your post, shown below, you said:

"The best way to preview a site for someone else is to temporarily publish a site to an alternative address. This can be a free subdomain through us..."

Can you explain how I can publish it to a free Weebly subdomain?

Thanks -

Peter Glass

[Adam7]

Hi, @PeterGlass.

After you click the button on the Settings tab of the website editor to change the site address, enter the full Weebly subdomain you want in the domain search field (e.g. iwantthissubdomain.weebly.com). I should show an option on the popup to use that as the address of the site.

[PeterGlass]

Thanks, Adam -
Peter Glass

[KarlDenham]

I am trying to preview while designing so I can see my progress. Is there no way to do this. Also the builder doesn't update while I'm building. how can I see my progress while building? this is shockingly bad.  This is making the Godaddy sitebuilder look good