How can I edit a live webpage without causing chaos for the page's visitors during my editing session?

This works ok if you're just editing a single page, but what about css changes, nav menu design changes, header/footer code, etc..?

This is certainly a workable solution as far as I'm concerned. Thanks to the Squarespace developers who put the "copy" function in place (better late than never)!

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With that said, KevinOlsen brings up a good point that this does not address the need to allow for making changes to site-wide things like CSS without causing chaos during your development and testing of the altered CSS -- still a huge problem, and one that may not be solvable in this iteration of Squarespace (version 6), since they may well have painted themselves into too many corners to properly provide for this without a complete overhaul.

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...But, my original question only focused on the development lifecycle for individual pages, and as far as I'm concerned, this issue has been successfully addressed (assuming the new "copy" function works without a hitch)!

From what I have experienced, if you are editing a page in admin area and don't click 'save changes' it won't be live on the site. What would be very useful is a 'save draft' function, so that you 'save changes' when 100% happy rather than risk loosing work incrementally.

Wow, two years has passed and Squarespace team has not provided any answer to this question even thought it is one of the most voted question. Gives perspective to how this “Answers” section works.

I think it’s also the second most viewed question. This, and no way to backup/checkpoint a site, mean there’s no way I would consider Squarespace for anything other than a trivial site.

James

So this thread is now over 2 years old, but I haven't seen any new functionality to enable page or site-level edits that don't immediately impact the live production site. It seems like two elements would make this issue so much easier to deal with:

1. A distinction between "saving" changes and "publishing" changes. Wix does this, it's dirt simple and works extremely well.

2. The ability to create a copy of an entire site, in the case that you wish to do a major overhaul while preserving a copy of the existing site in case minor changes are required while work progresses on the "new" site.

Any news on what is planned or how the above can be "accomplished"?

I solved this problem by writing a javascript code that disables the site for visitors and shows them a message saying the site is down for service. It's not a perfect solution since the site won't work while editing, but it's better than showing a weird/broken page.

See the tutorial and code here.

Just take a copy of that page and edit it offline and test it offline with Xampp and replace with your old one. I always do like it on my whatsapp website and it always works very well.I hope you like it.

It's not perfect but how about the following:

1. Create a cover page that has a "Website down for maintenance" message.

2. Create a temporary url redirect (302) to redirect the all pages to the maintenance page. This will tell Google it's a temporary change and not a permanent one (https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205815308-Creating-URL-redirects)

3. Make the edits to your pages. Test.

4. Remove the temporary url direct. Go-live.

Bump!

How about now? I'm new here and I woulk like to know if Squarespace offers a native solution these days?

more than 5 years on from the original post, still no response. I actually find squarespace very easy on the whole but this is a major issue. so I basically cannot change my site at all without users seeing all sorts of crap on the live page?The copy pages solution kind of works but is pretty crappy. Apart from the hassle of copying numerous pages, it is going to screw up a whole bunch of url links as well.

This really should be a simple thing to sort out.

I thought while you are working on most aspects of your site it is not changed live until you hit the save button.

I tried a lot of things and couldn't find a solution. Will keep tryingAgencia de Posicionamiento Web

Is there any news on this ? Like a difference between “saving” changes and “publishing” changes ?

You put any page you are working on in the unlinked section of your site , which removes it from the nav bar, disable it if you wish,  make your changes, enable it, move it back where it was. I do this for gallery pages all the time when I want to change the images.  

Just here to +5000 this request! Have been revisiting this post occasionally for years hoping to have seen some traction. If you’re doing a full refresh of your site, including the nav and all, there’s no way to do this cleanly and makes the redesign process so much harder than it needs to be. Help, squarespace! 

Still looking for a solution....  I want to rebrand a customer site and have a major refresh. Being able to backup, work on a draft/development version, test and then make live is essential for all but minor tweaks.

I know we can duplicate a site but I don't see how we can restore or copy the new version back.

Maybe Squarespace are not monitoring this thread because it is marked as answered in 2013?

REMOVE THE SOLVED LINK! This issue has yet to be resolved, as the functionality of this wash bucket hasn't been intentionally altered in a cohesive way for over 7 years. Did I get that right?! Holy what the what? Can we get some attention and love here? If not, I'll be cancelling soon and moving over to Wix or Wordpress where I'm able to actually design intelligently. I know this was designed for monkeys, but after reading this thread I'm feeling like SS's target market is shrimp. What the what?!