What is FloLaunch 2.0?

FloLaunch basically creates a “staging website” where only you can see any edits or changes to it. This is a convenient tool if you are:
– Switching Themes
– Changing Page Layouts
– Testing New Plugins

Most of our customers use the FloLaunch plugin primarily when they are switching from one theme to another.

The video below is an overview of the functionality of the plugin and of the process of enabling the Clone Mode:

FloLaunch 2.0 Features

Zero downtime

Building a new site is always a complicated process. It’s impossible to make it very fast and keep the process invisible to your users. You need to set up a new site at a staging server (if your hosting provides it) or keep your site in “under construction” mode for days. The main idea of FloLaunch is to give you an environment where you can create a new site using the existing content with no stress and time pressure and launch it in 1 second without any down-time.

Private site access

As soon as the Clone Site is created, it will act as the private copy for your live site. From this point onwards, you can apply any content changes without these being reflected on the live site. That can be easily confirmed by accessing your site from a browser where you are not logged in as an administrator and did not enable the Clone Mode (incognito browser window). You will see your live site there.
Since Clone Mode access is provided via cookies (read more about cookies), these can sometimes expire from your browser and disable Clone Mode access. This is not a cause for concern since you can manually re-enable the Clone Mode as usual and resume work from where you left off.

Revert back

Even when you are 100% sure that you are ready to launch your Clone Site, there are situations when you might change your mind after launching. Note that you can revert your site launch in case you are not satisfied with the results and need some more time to work on your Clone Site before publishing. Reverting will bring your whole site back to the moment right before publishing (this process is similar to restoring a full website files and database backup).

Sharing private pages

What if you want to share a page of the new site with your friend to get a piece of advice but you don’t want to share your admin credentials? At the top of any page, post or gallery you will see Share Clone Page/Post/Gallery. Clicking this button will generate a private access link to the page, post or gallery. You can copy this link and share it with whom necessary.
The link includes specific parameters that make the resource visible only for people you share it with, while other visitors will still see the live site version.
Opening this link will provide a one-time Clone Mode access session. This means that the person opening this link for the first time will be able to see how this page looks in the Clone Mode. If this same link will be accessed a second time, it will direct the visitor back to the public site page.

Getting Started.

To start working on your Clone Website, please follow the steps described here.

NOTE: Please note that the FloLaunch Plugin is a free product fully developed by Flothemes and we can't guarantee compatibility with all hosting providers.