Configuring a Coming Soon Page

When you sign up for a new site, we'll usually turn on "Coming Soon Mode" for you, so that you can clandestinely build your site while showing a "Coming Soon" page to the world. If we didn't turn it on (sometimes we don't for brand new domains), you can turn it on under Settings > Coming Soon Pro.

Below you'll find answers to some basic Coming Soon questions and how to's that you may find useful.

What is Coming Soon Mode?

In it's standard usage, when Coming Soon Mode is enabled, only people who are logged-in to the Filmbot admin can see the full site. Anyone who is logged out will see a simple page with a "Coming Soon" message that you can configure. There's also an option to turn on a "Redirect" Mode, where you specify where to redirect your site. If you are logged in, you won't be redirected. These modes let you build your site in private. Whenever you're ready to launch your site, all you need to do is turn off Coming Soon Mode.

Enabling/Disabling Coming Soon Mode

You can enable and disable Coming Soon Mode by going to Settings > Coming Soon Pro. Change the Status to either "Disabled", or one of the other options. There is a brief description of each mode below the radio buttons.

Updating the Coming Soon Page

We'll typically put some basic content into the Coming Soon page for you, but if you'd like to make it more fancy, you can edit the content yourself. Go to Settings > Coming Soon Pro and click on "Edit Coming Soon/Maintenance Page". There are an array of options for editing the content, setting background images, displaying a countdown, and even collecting email addresses for people who want to be notified when you launch.

Giving a Bypass Link To Certain People

Sometimes you want to let certain people bypass the Coming Soon page, even if they don't have a login to the admin area. Some examples of when this would be useful are to let non-technical staff review the site for copy edits before launching, or letting members browse the site to buy tickets before it's launched to the public. In order to do this, you can create a "Bypass URL":

1. Go to Settings > Coming Soon Pro and scroll down to the Access Controls section. 
2. Enter a secret phrase (pick one that's hard to guess) into the field, and then copy the auto-generated "Bypass URL". 
3. You can optionally choose how long their access lasts (if the access expires, they would need revisit the Bypass URL to restart the access period).

Once someone visits this URL, they will have a cookie that lets them bypass the Coming Soon page and see the full site.