Saving and publishing

This is the page to know by heart. Every other page in this manual sends you back here.

The short version: saving stores your work, publishing puts it on your website. They are two steps, and doing the first does not do the second.

Saving happens on its own

Open any entry and look at the top of the panel on the right. There is a small word there. It reads Saved most of the time, and flips to Saving… for a second while you type.

When it reads Saved, your work is stored. You can close the tab.

Brand new entries are the one exception. On a blank form the word is a blue Save button instead. Click it once. From then on the entry saves itself.

Draft and Published

Every entry is one or the other, and the Status line on the right tells you which.

A draft. Saved, and waiting.

1. Saved. Your work is stored.

2. Draft. The entry is not on your website. Only people who can sign in to the panel can see it. Type its address into a browser and you get sent away, as if the page were not there.

3. Publish. The button that changes that.

4. Schedule for later. Publishes it for you at a time you pick, covered further down this page.

Published means the opposite: the entry is on your live website, and anyone can read it.

Publishing

Click Publish. A message appears saying the content is now live.

It is live that second. Not in an hour, not overnight. Open Live View in the panel and you are looking at what your visitors see.

That is the whole of it. There is no second step and nothing to approve.

Changing something that is already live

Here is the part that surprises people.

When you edit an entry that is already published, your changes are saved, but they do not go out. The public keeps reading the old version. Your changes sit and wait.

You can tell from the list screen at a glance.

Published, with changes waiting. The public still sees the old version.

Open that entry and the right hand panel says the same thing, with more buttons.

The same entry, open. Number 3 is the button that ends the wait.

1. Saved. Your edit is stored.

2. Pending changes. The yellow tag. It means your edit is waiting.

3. Publish. Sends the waiting edit out to the public.

4. Discard changes. Throws the waiting edit away. The entry goes back to the version the public can already see. You are asked to confirm first.

Important

Finished editing? Check the top right. A blue Publish button sitting there means your work is saved but nobody can see it. Click it, then click Live View and read the page. That is how you know it worked.

Warning

Changing the Slug on a live entry changes its web address, and every old link to it stops working. Set the slug when the entry is new, then leave it alone. The tour of the admin panel explains why.

If you have already changed a slug, a redirect can rescue the old links.

Schedule for later

Use this when the change should go out at a set time. A price rise on the first of the month, or opening hours that change on a Monday.

1. Click Schedule for later.
2. Pick a date and a time in the box that appears.
3. Click Schedule.

The Status line then reads Scheduled, with your date and time under it. When that time comes, the entry publishes on its own. Nobody has to be at a computer.

Changed your mind? Click Unschedule. The entry goes back to being a draft, and nothing is published.

Revisions: your safety net

Every time you publish, the panel keeps a copy of what the entry said. Think of it as a time machine.

Scroll to the bottom of the panel on the right and click Revisions.

Older versions, newest at the top. The circular arrow puts one back.

Click any dated version to see what changed. Removed words show in red with a minus sign, new words in green with a plus sign, one field at a time.

To put an older version back, click the circular arrow on its row. You are asked to confirm, then the entry fills back in with the old wording.

Important

Restoring does not publish. The entry goes to Pending changes, and the public still sees the current version until you click Publish. If you restored by mistake, click Discard changes.

Unpublish: hiding without deleting

Unpublish takes an entry off your website and keeps it. Use it for a service you have stopped offering, or an offer that has ended.

Warning

The moment you click, the entry disappears from your website. Any visitor on that page, and any link or search result pointing at it, lands on nothing. Check that no other page links to it first.

The button sits at the top of the panel on the right, and is named after the kind of entry: Unpublish Service, Unpublish Business Profile. Click it and a message confirms the content has been removed from public view.

Nothing is lost. The entry goes back to being a Draft, word for word as you left it. Click Publish to put it back.

Move to Trash

Trash is a junk drawer, not a shredder. Things you put in it can come back out.

Warning

Moving an entry to Trash takes it off your live website right away, exactly like unpublishing. Do this only when you are done with the entry for good.

The Move to Trash button is at the very bottom of the panel on the right. There is also a red trash icon on each row of a list screen. Either way you are asked to confirm.

Getting something back

Every list screen has two tabs above the table: All and Trash. An entry you move there waits in Trash, with the date it went in.

The Trash tab. Number 2 brings an entry back.

1. The Trash tab. The number beside it is how many entries are in there.

2. Restore. The circular arrow. It puts the entry back on the All tab as a draft. Publish it when you want it live again.

3. Delete Permanently. The red trash icon. Read the warning below before you touch it.

Delete Permanently

Warning

This one is final. The panel says so in its own words: it cannot be undone. Once an entry is gone this way, Trash cannot bring it back, and neither can we.

If you are not certain, leave it in Trash. It costs you nothing to keep it there.

Click the red trash icon on a row in the Trash tab. The panel asks you to confirm, and says plainly that it cannot be undone. Click Delete Permanently only if that is what you mean.

The words, side by side

Word	What it does	Does the public see it?
Save	Stores your work on the entry.	No, not on its own.
Live View	Shows you the entry as a visitor would see it.	No, only you.
Publish	Puts your saved changes on the live website.	Yes, right away.
Schedule for later	Publishes on a date and time you pick.	Yes, when that time comes.
Discard changes	Throws away edits you have not published.	No, they never went out.
Unpublish	Hides the entry. It is not deleted.	It disappears.
Move to Trash	Moves the entry to the Trash tab. You can get it back.	It disappears.
Delete Permanently	Removes it for good. Nothing can bring it back.	It disappears.

When a page in this manual says “publish it”, this is the button it means.