All site customization changes are made through Customize Website View.
Customize Website View is designed as a Sandbox so as to allow users to modify their websites without affecting visitors’ experience.
The changes you make in the Customize Website View mode are not visible to your visitors until you click the Publish button.
Your previous settings are saved for a limited time and can be restored when done so within that time frame.
We encourage our users to utilize Customize Website View to experiment with different combinations of Presets, Themes, Layouts and Options until they find the combination that works for their site.
Important Things to Note about Publishing
Uploaded New Images to a Gallery?
When new images are uploaded to a gallery, it is not necessary to Publish any changes. The newly uploaded images will be automatically displayed in the gallery.
How do I Publish Changes that I've Made in the Organizer/Dashboard?
It is not necessary to Publish changes made via the Organizer in the Dashboard. Any changes made through the Organizer are automatically Published in the site.
Here are some examples of changes that you can make in the Organizer that will automatically apply to the site without the need to Publish the changes:
- Create a New Gallery, Group or Collection
- Move a Gallery to a different group or move a photo to a different gallery
- Edit the titles, captions or keywords of images and galleries/groups
- Delete a photo or gallery/group
- Assign a Price List to a Gallery
- Enabled Visitor Sign in
- Apply a Gallery ID/Friendly URL/Client Access code
- Edit the Access Control settings of a Group or Gallery to make the item publicly accessible, locked with a Password or set to Private (only the photographer can see the item)
Do I Need to Publish Website to Place it Online?
The website is already Published and made available online as soon as the account was started. It is not necessary to Publish the site to place the site online and make it accessible to site visitors.
Then When do I Need to Publish?
When any changes are made in Customize Website View, you'll need to Publish the changes before the changes will apply to your actual live website. If the changes are not Published, the changes are only stored in Customize Website View and your site visitors will not see the changes when they view your website.
Accessing Customize Website View
Customize Website View can be accessed anytime by using the My Zenfolio View Switcher displayed on the top right of the page. Please note that you must be logged in to your Zenfolio account in order to see the My Zenfolio View Switcher.
In your account, hover your mouse pointer over Website then click on Customize Website.
The page will refresh with a new customization menu at the top, confirming that you are in the Customize Website View
Saving
Most changes are saved automatically and are immediately visible in Customize Website View.
You can close the Customize Website View mode with unpublished changes and return to editing later. A warning is displayed upon leaving Customize Website View with unpublished changes.
You can discard the changes, returning the Customize Website View mode to match the current live site.
Publishing
You can publish the changes at any time, replacing your live site with new newly configured changes and you can make changes to any page of the site while in Customize Website View mode. This means that some changes may not be readily visible at the time of publishing. A warning is displayed to confirm the publish operation. After the changes have been published the preview and Customize Website View and the live site are the same.
Restore
You have the ability to restore the site to its previous customization state before the last publish operation. Upon restoring, the “old” customization state is displayed in Customize Website View. You can then review the appearance of your site in the previous stated. When you're happy with the results, you can Publish the changes to apply them to your live site.
The previous customization state is saved for a limited period of time. The Restore button is displayed only when the old copy of the site is available.
Please see this video for a presentation on Customize Website View: