I Love that WordPress Plugin – WP Maintenance Mode
Written by Susan Gunelius in
23 Comments
It doesn’t take much to make me happy. Sometimes a little WordPress plugin comes along that makes me smile, and WP Maintenance Mode is one of them.
Let me start by saying — I’m not a web developer. I’m not a blog designer. I know just enough CSS and HTML to be dangerous, and I have no problem keeping it that way. Would it be super handy to know CSS and HTML? Absolutely, but it’s one of those things that always gets pushed down in my list of priorities.
So now that I’ve revealed that little snippet from my life, back to the WP Maintenance Mode plugin.
Why do I like this plugin so much?Â
Because I’m not a code-guru and I don’t have test sites set up where I can test new things, slowly redesign my blogs, and be a cool designer. The design changes I make myself are typically fairly minimal because I don’t have time to spend tweaking, testing, and so on. That means my blog could be down for a few hours or overnight while I do the redesign or work through any kinks in the process. However, I certainly don’t want people to visit my blog during that time and find a complete mess when they get there! I’d rather they see some kind of “under construction” page for that short amount of time.
That’s where the WP Maintenance Mode plugin comes into the picture! This free plugin allows you to choose from several pre-designed pages to be your WordPress blog’s temporary landing page while you’re doing any edits that you want to hide from the world. Visitors who come to your blog when the plugin is activated land on your chosen “under construction” page, which you can customize with your own messages and in multiple languages.
The coolest part is that when the plugin is activated and you’re logged into your WordPress account, you can see all of the pages of your blog as you update them while visitors only see that under construction landing page.
Like I said, I love WordPress plugins that offer simple yet very useful functionality, and WP Maintenance Mode does exactly that. Plus, it’s incredibly easy to set up your customized landing page. Check out a few options below:
Oh — and WP Maintenance Mode has been tested and is compatible with WordPress 3.0! What do you think?
Can i have the links to the sites with those beautiful looking Maintenance mode splash pages created?
Susan, you might also want to give the Theme Test Drive plugin a… errr test drive.
@Ali Hussain – follow the link to WP Maintenance Mode included in the post above and click on the screenshots link to find these images and more.
Thanks
@Franky, yes – I love the Theme Tester plugin. I definitely need to write about that one in the future!
Thanks for the information. I am going to check this plug-in out,
Jenn
I concur – Maintenance Mode is awesome.
Unfortunately, as I was working on my site (which officially launched today!), I forgot to change the theme, so I just had a boring ol’ screen. In the future, I’ll definitely go for the extra-special alien touch.
@Todd, I used the green painting screen for mine the last time I redesigned, but I almost used the alien.
@Jennifer – You’re welcome! I think you’ll like it.
Everyone is raving about this plug-in, but it’s not working right for me.
Even though I’m logged in as the admin, I can’t see my site. I see the same Maintenance Page that outsiders see. Like you, Susan, I’m not a code-writer or a developer, so I hope there’s a really simple fix I’m overlooking…
Shaundra, I’m not sure what’s happening on your site, but if you can’t get this plugin to work, there are a couple of similar options. If you visit the WordPress plugin directory and do a search using the keyword “maintenance”, you’ll find the Maintenance Mode plugin (it’s different from the WP Maintenance Mode plugin discussed in this post), which might work for you.
Thanks. I’ll give it a try.
I love the look and concept of this plugin too, but when I checked it out on the WordPress forums, I found people saying that it is written in such a way that it creates a lot of problems for your web host (who might in turn charge you extra fees to make up for it) and other sites you may be hosting on your account.
Here’s a link to the topic: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wp-maintenance-mode-this-plugin-cost-me-300-on-my-server
Kat,
I’ve used this plugin with no problems, but I guess like all plugins, none are perfect and some people may encounter problems. I use Bluehost if that helps you. There is another maintenance plugin that works well, but I can’t think of the name at the moment. A search in the WordPress plugin directory for “maintenance” should pull it up as one of the top results.
thanks for the info, by the way i still haven’t decide whether to install this plugin or not
hebergeur d’images
good stuff…when i tried the plug, it seemed i could still link to specific posts. so if there was a link or a search result floating out there that directed right into a post, maint mode wouldn’t come up. does that seem right? does it only work on the default home directory?
Seen this one? http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maintenance-mode-notify/
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Quite a handy plugin. I howevver prefer the “Maintenance Mode” plugin.