From old feedback: https://feedback.cwicly.com/boards/feature-requests/posts/maintenance-page
Ability to create a maintenance page and activate/de-activate it.
This is something I’m missing coming from Elementor. The plugins available to do this are very limited and often times bloated.
Being able to use Cwicly’s power to create any maintenance page would be awesome. I think a switch in the Themer would be enough, and then the ability to define a visibility condition for HTTP 503 response (maintenance), or HTTP 200 response for “Coming Soon” to any template would allow us to create multiple templates for specific tasks.
Right now we can set a Visibility Condition with high priority, but then the page won’t return the HTTP response we need.
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Although plenty of plugins can do this, making this available natively is a good idea. So, we don’t need to install a plugin for just a simple feature.
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Hi there @zeinnicholas and @jornes,
A status code property along with the priority setting for each template sounds like a good step forwards to have complete control as if I’m not mistaken, this is the only missing option to set up a proper 503 maintenance page.
As you say, a coming soon page is already possible.
Cheers,
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@Louis, what are the recommended steps for displaying a coming soon page with Cwicly?
If this is already documented somewhere, please just point us in the right direction, thanks.
With regards to the maintenance page, would this hook in automatically (for example when updates to WP trigger the maintenance state) or would it need to be manually turned on/off?
For the Coming Soon mode, it’s a little of a hack, but it works.
Just create a Custom Template, then in the Visibility Control set it to Show if All, and then set the priority to something like 9999.
Next make sure to hide the Header and Footer parts everywhere. It should be enough to replace everything with your custom template.
Its not ideal. If we had a couple of conditions like “Coming Soon” and “Maintenance” and set the priority to 99, we could get away with hiding template parts as well in those conditions.
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Very funny, this is a request I needed this morning so I upvoted and I hope it will be include in basic asap.
It’s here in some form. 1.2.9.5.3
One more plugin gets removed with this update. Just loving it!
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A small video on our YouTube is planned for maintenance/coming soon templates. I definitely recommend going with an ACF Field → Option page.
This way, you can activate them in one click.
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Looking forward to the video, thank you. I can see how it is practical to have the option page to activate/deactivate.
Great idea! I haven’t thought about using ACF for that. Would help hide template parts as well. Thanks for being so quick with this! 
I’m looking forward to seeing the video. I wonder how to do that with ACF. I don’t feel quite familiar with it.
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I 'm also interested by this video: the morning, I discovered that the plugin I use for the maintenance page “LightStart - Maintenance Mode, Coming Soon and Landing Page Builder”, has some problems with a membership plugin.
I 'm going to check the “option page” solution.
Hi everyone,
Be sure to check out this video that should help you achieve this: Coming Soon and Maintenance Page - YouTube
Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions on this.
Enjoy! 
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@Araminta @Louis, can this be marked as done or do you have more planned?
The only thing I can think that would improve this is having a one-click toggle for it in the Cwicly settings, but aside from that it seems to be a fully working solution.
Amazing, especially with all the flexibility due to its kind of implementation.
The recently introduced URL parameter condition is something which makes this addition even more powerful.
Yes, exactly, we were just thinking the same thing.
You can send a temporary link with the query parameter to a client to preview the site, while it is still in Coming Soon mode, for example. Extremely flexible and useful!
This is an excellent addition - thank you!
But I have to comment on the current implementation:
Since 1) I can think of almost no one who would not need this functionality, there 2) seems to be very little reason to change the basic backend setup described in the video, and 3) the only real adjustment needed to be made is on the frontend (the development of the shown page), I would strongly suggest that this functionality is built into Cwicly by default, with a switch on the Cwicly settings page.
You should also think about when the “Coming soon” page would normally need to be installed/implemented on a site. That would be at the very beginning of building out a site.
At that time it might for many (new to Cwicly or to pagebuilding) be quite a step to learn about creating templates, setting up Advanced Custom Fields, adding a new snippet … (just listen to the foreign words for many ) - just to implement this part.
And this functionality will in the current version have to be manually setup on every installation. It just adds to the tasks for setting up a new homepage and for which value/reason does it have to be a manual process on each install?
Sorry if this part comes across as a bit “negative”, but I think there has to be put more focus on how to broaden the adaptation of Cwicly - make it more accessible (when it takes very little extra effort).
Or is the intention rather that people should learn more about the builder by going through all these manual setup processes (find and install the right snippet plugin, setup new templates- etc.) that you then have to do on each new installation?
What is the value of having to repeat that process on every installation? Why not just have a standard “Coming Soon” and “Maintenance” page that people can then adjust as they like?
Or perhaps I am just not really understanding where Cwicly is placing itself compared to e.g. Bricks and GeneratePress/Blocks.
What is the value of having the best technical tool, if too many feel it is too complicated to implement?
I am a big fan of Cwicly and have bought 100 lifetime sites, so please don’t misunderstand my point.
I just get a bit frustrated when the focus seems to be primarily on the technical possibilities/flexibility rather than on how easily these can be implemented by someone new to Cwicly or to pagebuilding in general.
I just heard a YouTube interview with Paul from WPTuts and Dave Foy, about his move “From wordPress to WebFlow & back Again”. And in it Paul put up one question on the screen from a listener (while Dave Foy was still talking):
“Have you guys looked at/heard about Cwicly? Gutenberg. Pretty amazing to me but very low user adaptation.”
For some reason they never got to answer that question - but it stuck with me. And it should stick with everyone in here. How to increase the adaptation of Cwicly.
I think this could very well be a very good illustration of exactly this issue.
But Louis and team - thank you so much for this new addition. It improves the builder so much. But please also think about the next step - of how to make it more accessible for all.
And because Cwicly comes with ACF Pro preinstalled and e.g. neither Bricks nor Generate Press/Blocks has this kind of functionality, this is really an excellent argument for using Cwicly.
Exactly what we were thinking.
As the saying goes: “You can’t please all of the people all of the time”. On the other hand, Cwicly is extremely flexible and has a solid foundation with good technology choices and a thoughtful hardworking team behind it. With these attributes, it is well positioned to become very popular over time, with in my view the following strategy:
- Provide the technical users (experienced developers) with a tool that works well with the WordPress ecosystem, is grounded in “web standards” as they evolve and adds the missing additional capabilities that allow for quick and efficient theme development and content management for different types of websites and web applications
- Provide the non-technical users a no-code editor that is intuitive, easy to understand and remember, and is reliable
It is a challenge to cover those bases and the ground between them, but Cwicly has the potential to continue to do this. I believe their approach is a sound one as it appears to drive new features through the technical side first, so the community can “kick the tires” and help test and refine, then after iterations of feedback and stabilisation, this can be more easily presented in a way that meets the needs of the non-technical users.
I think the other thing that will help a lot, which as we know @Louis has already put on the roadmap, is the free version of Cwicly.
I agree with you, Cwicly has a lot going for it and with continued improvements to it can become the tool of choice for serious WP development.
Thank you @StrangeTech.
I would think that I agree with about everything you wrote above. And thank you for keeping the discussion so constructive. We all love this builder - just from different starting points :-).
And while I slept - I just thought about one more “small” addition that could be really useful:
When I setup a new site, part of my initial security steps is to put on a VERY SIMPLE “Coming Soon” page. And then subsequently add something more advanced like e.g. a better design, a signup form etc.
But with (at least) the two current “Coming Soon” plugins that I am using (“CMP Coming Soon & Maintenance Pro” and “Coming Soon and Maintenance Pro” - their names are so confusing) I am not really able to add a totally new design etc., without having to disable the current “Coming Soon” page/theme.
So I actually on a few sites have installed TWO “Coming Soon” plugins. So that I can use the one not active to make (bigger) changes to the current live Coming Soon page.
So what I would suggest as a really cool new feature, would be to actually add a “Coming Soon 1” and “Coming Home 2” Template to the setup I suggest above.
That way you can quickly add a Template that hides your work (Coming Soon 1) and then build your perhaps more advanced “Coming Soon 2” page for a little later launch. And you can easily switch between them by just using a switch, and it would add very little bloat but a lot of “freedom” design wise.
You could also use it for A/B testing (split testing) of different designs, signup forms etc.
This can naturally also be added manually with the current setup (and I think I will use that for now) as quite well illustrated in the new video.
This would be a great extra functionality that would add to the benefits of using Cwicly compared to other builders.