Setting up “Live Look” in ExpressionEngine
November 16th, 2007
A few days ago, I wrote about the release of ExpressionEngine 1.6.1. In it, I highlighted the “live look” feature, as a great new addition. Live look allows you to preview a post within a template, rather than previewing only isolated content. So you can see what your content will look like inside your template. This is great if you have a future entry, or a post that you are leaving “closed” until you have a chance to finish it up.
But there has been a bit of confusion about how live look should work. Essentially, all it does is load your entry into a template, so if you have a future dated entry, or a closed entry, it won’t be visible by default. The solution? Create a “preview” template, and take advantage of the status and show_future_entries parameters. Essentially, make it look like this
{exp:weblog:entries weblog="default_site" status="open|closed" show_future_entries="yes"}
I’d further recommend that you take advantage of Template Access Restriction in your preview template. Without it, anyone who guesses your preview template will be able to see upcoming or closed content. Probably a good idea to restrict it to the same member groups as your authors.
Happy ExpressionEngineering!
This entry was made on November 16th, 2007 @ 14:10 and filed into ExpressionEngine, How-To.
Bruce wrote on November 17th, 2007 @ 15:34
This is AWESOME. This is exactly what I needed. Thanks so much Derek.