Hello,
Might be a dumb question here,
But is possible to make changes, try new things (new menu layout, new collections) while the site is live but invisible to the consumer? Or do i need to put make the site password protected to make trial this changes?
Thank you very much.
Hey, @thefootballwear .
I’m Lizzy, one of the Gurus on the support team at Shopify.
Yes you can do this! If you’re thinking about adding a new theme, you can install it and make changes which your customers won’t see until you hit “Publish”.
If you’re wanting to make updates to your current theme you can duplicate your theme by going to Online Store>Actions>Duplicate. Then you can work on the duplicated version until you’re ready to share your changes with the world. “Publish” will make that theme the live version.
Keep in mind though, any changes you make to products, collections or menus within the back end of the admin, will reflect in those spots live, if they’re linked up in your current storefront. Let me know if you have any questions about this!
Now you can make changes without affecting the experience for any visitors using your store! What sort of updates do you have planned? If you’re re-thinking your design have you had a chance to watch this video series on store design from the Shopify Academy?
Thank you,
Lizzy
Thank you very much Lizzy,
Can i still “play” with collections and products in different collections and menus with my draft theme and not be visible to the costumer?
You’re welcome!
You’ll be able to build collections and add/remove products to them without your customer’s seeing, as long as these collections aren’t linked to your live store. Any collection or product that is linked to your live store will show the adjustments to your customers as you save them.
To avoid this, you could create separate collections to work on and link those to your new theme. They’ll still be connected when you publish your new theme, so the switch over will be smooth.
Does that help to answer your question? Let me know!
Lizzy
After living with my layout for over a year, I’d like to reorganize some things. I didn’t build the site, but have been making simple changes on the backend and managing products, inventory, etc.
Wondering if I can duplicate the site, rework the overall navigation and not cause issues with the existing store? Also wondering if there is a resource where I might locate someone who builds/edits for those of us who need help? My original site designer is no longer available and I’d like to find a new source for help.
Hi Lizzy
Adding new collections and linking them to home page images is fine in a draft copy of a live theme however when you start adding them to the navigation menu (say for instance a collection drop down) it also updates the navigation on the live site!! Therefore I don’t think this is the solution at all. I’ve spent hours on end trying to update my draft site without this happening and it just doesn’t work. The only way to update a site properly without customers seeing anything is to enable the password page. It’s really not user friendly in the slightest. In addition to this, if you create a scheduled collection or product/s, they won’t show in the links drop down menu until they are live. Either way it’s an extremely unorganised way of making changes or launching new products or collections seamlessly. Shopify experts promised to get back to me with a solution 9 hours ago regarding my scheduled products and collections not being visible when trying to link them, despite me asking if the problem was because they were not live. I ended up experimenting and found that it was indeed the issue. Despite that I’m still waiting for their response and I have to settle for losing orders, whilst my store is password protected. Very frustrating indeed!
shopify cli https://shopify.dev/themes/tools/cli plenty of youtube tuts on basic usage
But is there a way to change the navigation without affecting the live theme? The navigation and and menu options are not in the live theme customization tab…