View Your ExpressionEngine Site as if You Were Logged Out, Without Logging Out

Posted on 18 August 2010 | by Ryan Battles

Ever find yourself logging in and out of your ExpressionEngine site just to see what it will look like when logged out? There is a better way.

There are several elements of an ExpressionEngine build that will appear only to a super user, but disappear for the average visitor to the site. The reverse can also happen. For example, on many of my EE builds I have built-in buttons for the administrator to edit the content directly from the website itself. These “Edit Me” links disappear for the average user. Another example is the content form, where a captcha and “remember my info” button appears only when the user is not logged into the site.

With all this conditional content, it is typical to log out of the site to see how the typical user views it, only to log back in to make changes. This back and forth can be quite annoying. A simple way to handle this is to view your site in one browser application, and edit the content in another. The cookies won’t transfer, and therefore you will appear offline to the other browser. If you are running Windows and using Firefox, a plugin called IE-Tab can allow you to open a tab as if it were Internet Explorer. With one click, you can switch back and forth. This is what I use on my PC, and is definitely a time saver. There is a promising plugin being developed for Firefox Mac called Safari View, but it is still buggy and opens links in a new Firefox window, instead of a toggle like IE Tab. Something to watch though.

Tags: expressionengine, web development, quicktip

Comments (3)

Tommy Graves Aug. 31, 2010		Why not just use Chrome, IE, or Firefox's private session (Incognito Mode)? That opens up a new session without any cookies or anything.
Robin @ Esvelte Web Design Oct. 08, 2010		Yup, this is what I do. @Tommy Graves suggestion sounds interesting though - not heard of that before actually.
Ryan Battles Oct. 08, 2010		I think with Tommy's suggestion that experience may differ by browsers. I just tried it in Chrome, and opening a new "Incognito Window" does indeed forget that I'm logged in as an admin, so I can view the site as the average visitor. However, my experience with Safari is that it is an all or nothing private browsing experience, so you can't have two windows with separate sessions only within Safari. Chrome for the win!