In this tutorial you will learn how to hide content by creating sections without menus, making content Private, utilizing the Show from Date and Hide from Date features, and setting access rights.

You’ve probably wanted to hide parts of your website from someone at some time. Maybe you’ve even wanted to hide the entire website. Depending on what you want to hide and why, there are five main ways you can hide content on Webgarden.

You can keep an entire section of your website hidden. When you create a new section, it is not automatically included in a menu. Therefore as long as you don’t create a menu with the section or any of its categories as the root, they remain inaccessible to all visitors.

Hidden sections can be used to store content or share documents with coworkers. If you are, for example, running a blog, you can create a hidden section to use as an archive for old articles.

To create a hidden archive on your website, first add a new section by clicking on + NEW SECTION in the content tree on the left.

Then go to the new section and click on the yellow edit icon next to the words NEW CATEGORY. In this dialog box you can rename the section ARCHIVE and SAVE.

Now you have a place to store content you don’t want visitors to see.

Another way to hide content is to make its status PRIVATE. Choose who can and cannot see private content using ACCESS RIGHTS (read about this in point 5). The default settings for access rights allow only website administrators to see private content.

Use private status to prevent visitors from seeing content under construction whenever you add something new or make changes. Making content private also allows you to reserve it for registered users.

Make future new content private by default in the GENERAL WEBSITE SETTINGS, or make any individual section, category, or document private in the SETTINGS for that specific piece of content.

To make new content private by default, click on the SETTINGS tab at the top of your screen. Then scroll down to where it says DEFAULT STATUS OF NEW CONTENT CREATED. Select PRIVATE and SAVE.

Now all new sections, categories, and documents you create will remain private until you change the individual piece of content’s status to public.

If you would like to change some things in a category, make it private before you get started.

Go to the category, hover over the yellow edit icon in the upper right-hand corner, and select SETTINGS.

At the very top of the page you will see a STATUS dropdown menu. Use this dropdown to switch the status between PUBLIC and PRIVATE. Don’t forget to SAVE.

It’s easy to switch the status back to public as soon as you’re done making adjustments.

Use the SHOW FROM DATE feature to keep content hidden until a specific date and time. This is great for people who want to release website content at a specific moment, such as bloggers or those who run eshops.

If you have an article you’d like to post on Friday at 2pm, first go to the document you would like to release. Then hover over the yellow edit icon in the upper right-hand corner and select SETTINGS.

At the top of the screen you’ll see the option SHOW FROM DATE. Check the box and then click on the little calendar that appears to choose the exact date and time. Once you’ve made your selection click on SELECT DATE AND TIME.

Make sure the document STATUS is PUBLIC and SAVE your changes.

Now everything is all set for your blog post without you having to be online at a certain time.

The HIDE FROM DATE feature, located just below SHOW FROM DATE, works the same way. (See point 3 for instructions.) The only difference is that you are selecting the date and time you want to begin hiding the content after users have already seen it.

Use ACCESS RIGHTS to restrict content availability for specific user types. This is essential for websites with registered users and can be useful for others as well. Use access rights to make content, such as photographs, available only to specific people or even to restrict access to the entire website.

Find your website’s access right settings by clicking on the SETTINGS tab at the top of your screen and then selecting ACCESS RIGHTS from the content tree on the left.

Click on the yellow edit icons next to each user type to change their access rights, or use the green + icon in the upper right-hand corner to add a new user type.

For detailed information on access rights see our advanced help article Set Access Rights.