Hello
i am new in drupal and i still dont understand it well.
I was using joomla before and there u could preview ur website which u r working on it. But in drupal i am not able to preview. I am still unaware about the customization of menus and categories. Please help.

Comments

dman’s picture

If you are looking at your website, you are previewing it. Log out and you get the full experience.
Drupal looks pretty much the same to browsers as it does to editors, only with different features and menu items available.

Some CMSs provide totally different front and back ends. Drupal just provides a unified interface. I thought I could find a handbook page somewhere which would explain this for switchers, but I couldn't.

We find that people who have never used a CMS before are often much less confused about this approach than people who have previously used systems where the 'input' screens look totally different from the 'output' screens. It's an un-learning thing.

However, if you want, you can still set an 'administration theme' (in the settings) so that your back end looks different from the front end. ... It still actually behaves the same, but it may help if your presentation theme is highly stylized.

.dan.
if you are asking a question you think should be documented, please provide a link to the handbook where you think the answer should be found.
| http://www.coders.co.nz/ |

althenry’s picture

I'm a new drupal user, and I have to say, I'm surprised that no one else chimed in on this. From a designer's perspective, not having an more immediate "clean" preview of the site is killing me. The admin menu on the side and the View/Edit buttons change the layout, and prevent me from making sure my css is doing exactly what I want. Logging in and out of the admin area is a pretty big nuisance when you have to do it after every other css tweak or when I'm trying to discover what different settings do.

WorldFallz’s picture

If you're designing/developing a site, you should probably have more than one browser installed-- I usually login as admin on one browser and typical user on another (and frequently switch it around so I test the typical user on as many browsers as I can install).

BdB’s picture

Open another tab and don't log in.

Refresh when you need to update and preview.

Using Joomla! I sometimes had four or five tabs open:

1. for actual site and refreshing or clicking a menu to update
2. for adding sections
3. for adding categories
4. for articles
5. for menu items
etc etc

Don't see why it shouldn't work on Drupal, which is still absolute hell to me and the documentation as clear as mud! lol

dman’s picture

Tabs don't work like that in most current browsers. Possibly in chrome if you ask nicely, I dunno.
Authentication and cookies happen by session. You wouldn't be able to do your 1,2,3,4 actions at the same time unless you were logged in on all tabs at the same time.
Always have a backup browser or two around. Helps for accidental testing too.

dman’s picture

halongsapaexperts’s picture

I somtimes got some problem like you and hire a technical man to finish it

desaraev’s picture

I hate that you can't be logged in and see the site's front-end but the module Panels may be what you are looking for.

sprite’s picture

Just open an incognito/stealth window in firefox or chrome, and those will have a context that isn't logged in, very easy to have side by side windows that way with admin and anonymous user perspectives of a Drupal site.

spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...

mmjvb’s picture