This is somewhat of a follow-up to a post back in May, How to work on your blog without anyone having the slightest clue. In that post, I provided a plugin that enables you to preview a theme you’re working on without anyone else seeing it, and the steps to do so.

Today, I’ll share another plugin that allows you to create a window of time for your new theme’s launch and work out the bugs, all behind the curtain.

This plugin is called Maintenance Mode and can be found here. Upon installing and activating this plugin like you would any other, you’re able to choose if and when an Under Construction page pops up for your readers, in the options.

This is almost a necessity if you’re launching a new theme, testing a plugin, or migrating servers.

You’re able to customize the message displayed, estimated time until the site is live again, and include anything else you’d like (logo maybe). The nice thing is, any individuals logged into your wp-admin with Admin privileges, see the actual site, not the maintenance page. So you can work away on the site, perform final diagnostics, without a single soul seeing anything other than the construction page, except for you.

For anyone that knows a bit about css and xhtml, you can open the “maintenance-mode_site.php” file in the plugin’s folder, when you download it, and edit the styles, included text, etc… to your heart’s desire.

Maintenance Mode is an essential part of every Wordpress-ors toolbox, and should save you a bit of worry when you’re prepping to launch.