Preview your content

It is a best practice to preview your content and pages before you publish. This gives you an opportunity to make sure that everything looks as expected before publication.

If the content type and template you are using has a content preview page assigned, you can preview individual content items from the content editor.

You can also preview content that has been placed on a page from the page editor.

Create and assign a content preview page

Each content template can be assigned a preview page. Content created with that template can be previewed directly from the content editor. This prevents you from having to place a piece of content on a page before you can preview it.

We recommend that the content preview pages you create remain unpublished and unmapped. They are typically only used to preview content and not to be part of a live site.

The Utility content item used with the Content View content template is used as a placeholder for content on a preview page.

To create a content preview page

1. Create a new page as you normally would, and as a best practice, give it a name that defines it as a content preview page.
2. Open the new page in the page editor.
3. Click in a droppable area that will render content in the style you want to preview it in, and then click Add New Content.
4. In the Select Content Type menu, select Utility.
5. In the Select Content Template menu, select Content View.
6. Enter a name for the item in the Name field.
7. Click Finish.

To assign a content preview page to a content template

1. In OrchestraCMS Setup, under Templates, click Content Types.
2. Click the name of the content type you want to assign a preview page to.
3. In the Content Templates table, under the Preview Page column, click in the box in the row of the content template you want to assign a preview page to.
4. In the Select Page dialog, do one of the following:
   • Type or select the name of the preview page.
   • Click New and follow the instructions in the Create New Page dialog to create a new preview page.
5. In the Select Page dialog, click Select.
6. Click Save.

Preview content from the content editor

Before you can preview content from the content editor, the content template for the content type you want to preview must be assigned a content preview page. When you preview content from the content editor, it opens in a new window.

To preview content from the content editor

• In the Actions panel of the content editor, click Preview.

Preview content from the page editor

If a content item has been placed on a page, you can preview the content and page from the page editor. When you enter preview mode from the page editor, you can navigate to other pages as though you were viewing the page on a live site.

To preview content from the page editor

• In the Actions panel of the page editor, click Preview.

From preview mode, you can do the following:

• View the page and content as it appeared on your site at a specific point in time.
• Show or hide editing controls for content items.

To show the preview options toolbar

In the preview section for a page, click the expand bar under the section.

When you first enter preview mode, you view the most recent version of a page and its content, whether they are published or not. You can also view how the page and its content appeared on your live site at a point in time in the past.  

To view a page and its content as it was at a point in time in the past

1. On the Preview section, click the expand bar under the section to display additional options.
2. In the date and time boxes, enter the date and time you want to view.
3. Click Go.

Preview your site

You can preview your entire site from the OrchestraCMS main menu. The preview begins at your home page, and you can navigate through your site as you would with the live site.

To preview your site

• On the OrchestraCMS main menu, click Full Preview.

The same options are available in full preview mode as in page preview mode.

From the OrchestraCMS main menu, you can also view your live site in a browser by clicking Live Site.