joomla 1 .7 new feature access to joomla site while offline

Joomla 1.7 New Feature – Grant access to groups to access your Joomla website while it is Offline

Generally it takes a while for you to customize and develop your Joomla website.  In the meantime you don’t want the public to see your site while are you still in development/ designing mode.   There is an option to set your Joomla website into “Offline” mode where only the super administrator can see your website.  This was always there in previous version.   But now, if you have a client who is eager to see the progress of your work, you can assign them access to view the website “Offline”, but also prevents them from logging into your Joomla backend.  Remember as a Super Administrator, you have access to everything and see everything that is happening on your website.

How to set your Joomla website offline:

1.  Login to your Joomla 1.7 administrator backend

2.  Go to Site, Global Configuration, Site

3.  Under ‘Site Settings’, set the following value:

    Site offline = Yes

How to grant groups access to the frontend when the site is offline:

4.  Go to Site, Global Configuration, Permissions

5.  Under ‘Persmission Settings’, find the group you wan to grant access to, set the following values:

    Offline Access = Allowed

6.  Click on ‘Save & Close’

You then provide your client a username and password to access the site.  Now when public visits your website they will see a login message as shown below:
Joomla 1.7 Site Offline Login

Your client will use the username and password to enter and view your website only from the frontend.  They will not be touching anything in the backend.  If you grant ‘Offline Access’ to registered, editors, publishers users, they will only have access to edit articles on the frontend.    Managers and administrators and super Administrators can log into the front or back end of the Joomla website.