Ideas Portal
I would like the ability to put a site into maintenance mode so normal users could not access the site, but Site Admins could. In this way, I could retool a site, add/modify/delete whatever products that are required, and test it before turning it back on for general access.
I suppose that I could create a generic Information Site for Under Maintenance, and set the domain for the specific site to point to that Information Site, and use an alternative domain to do the work on the real site. That would be a pain since I don't know if that would require regenerating the SSL cert once I have deleted the domain from the normal site. I don't want to have to wait up to 48 hours each time I put a domain under maintenance.
This has reared it's ugly head yet again. I have a customer who wants to revamp their entire site, and as part of that process they want to remove a large chunk of products...temporarily.
Now I have a few options.
Delete the products
Pros
Products won't be available to end users
Cons
Each product needs to be deleted individually
Once re-enabled, the products would be generally available to all users
Edit the products and set the site group to Site Owner
Pros
Products would still be available for users in the Site Owner group to test as each product is updated prior to general availability
Cons
Each product needs to be edited individually
Once the product is approved, it needs to be edited to allow access to the Everyone group
Remove products from all product categories
Pros
Products would still be available to all users, but only with a specific link
Cons
All products would have to be removed and then replaced in the correct category(s) once approved for general release.
Obviously none of the above ideas is ideal. As noted in my original idea, I could change the domain name and point the current domain to a general purpose informational site that indicates that the site is under maintenance. However, since it can take up to 48 hours to generate the Let's Encrypt SSL certificate that isn't ideal, either. As once the site goes live again, I will need to re-add the domain to the site in Pressero and update the DNS to point to the correct site. If the certificate doesn't update immediately, then the user will be presented with a security warning by the browser. If there existed a button to force the certificate creation immediately, this could actually be a usable idea.