How to display alternate Prostores templateSets

Written by Matt on July 9, 2008 – 1:16 pm

Just a quickie tip for today:

Have you ever wished you could see the new templateset you’re working on without changing your default templateset and showing your incomplete design to the world?

You can certainly use the preview button in the Design Studio, but depending on the browser you are using you may only get to see the design on the page you’ve previewed with the other pages showing the old template as soon as you click away.

I’ll show you how to browse through your site, even make a purchase, viewing a templateset that you’ve worked on without showing it to everyone else!

1. click on Design Studio
2. click on Store Versions
3. click the Edit Status button and browse to the templateset/Store Version that you’re working on and check the “On” box next to it. (Leave the radio button in the Default column alone, this is for when you want to make your new design live)
4. click Save
5. open a new browser window and type in your address, once the site loads you will see your address as www.yoursite.com/servlet/StoreFront now you will move your cursor to the end of the link and add ?tsetlock=templateSetnamehere to the end of the address. Be careful not to have a space between Storefront and the ?tsetlock=templateSetnamehere information.

Your finished link should look like http://www.yourwebsite.com/servlet/StoreFront?tsetlock=templateSetnamehere

This will load that template set up each time you open the site until you close your browser. Remember, only you see this templateset, nobody else will.

Now you can view your entire site in its shiny new skin, thats still under construction of course.

There are a few other things you can do with this that I may share at a later time, they are a little more advanced and may work for everyone’s business.