1. Commerce
  2. Site Management Tools
  3. Published and Unpublished Content

Published and Unpublished Content

When you use Commerce web stores Site Management Tools to edit your site, you create published and unpublished content. Published content is displayed to your website visitors. Unpublished content is only accessible to an SMT administrator who is logged in to SMT. Click Review & Publish Changes Mode to review Unpublished Changes and the Visibility Timeline.

Published Content

Published content is displayed according to the visibility options you specified for each piece of content. This may include images, text and merchandising zones that you added to the site with SMT and then published. When you edit or remove existing published content, those changes display in the Unpublished Changes list and must be published before they are displayed on the site.

Unpublished Content

When you edit, add, or remove content these changes are saved as unpublished content. This enables you to make changes in advance and then publish those changes to be visible on the site immediately or at a date and time in the future.

When you are ready to publish the changes, click Review & Publish Changes Mode and select the pieces of content you want to publish. If you saved changes to the Unpublished Changes list, you do not want to publish, you can discard the changes. See Discard Content Vs Expiring Content.

Preview and Edit Modes

When you are viewing the unpublished content on the site, you can view the site in Preview Mode or in Edit Mode. Change the mode by clicking the corresponding button on the toolbar:

An example of the preview button.

Preview Mode

An example of the edit button.

Edit Mode

Preview Mode

Select Preview to view the site as it is currently displayed to site visitors. You can change the preview date by using the View Site as Of date on the SMT toolbar. This lets you preview what the site looks like on the chosen date, including content that may not be currently visible. This might be the case for content with a future start date or content with an end date before the selected preview date. Additionally, you can include or exclude unpublished content in the preview by selecting the option on the toolbar.

Edit Mode

Select Edit to add, edit, or remove content. Content changes made in Edit are not displayed to visitors until they are published.

Related Topics

General Notices