Have you ever attempted to give someone a preview of your unpublished posts or pages on WordPress? If yes, what did the person on the other end see? A 404-error message. WordPress blocks any individual who is not logged into your website from accessing your unpublished files. The good news is that you can allow access to your unpublished posts. Let’s look at how to share a draft WordPress post.
When to Give a Preview of Unpublished Work
Assume you are a food blogger who wants to feature a leading local chef in your blog. After doing the interview, you will then compose a page detailing the interaction you had with him/her. You may, however, want to send the draft to him/her to ensure that they are comfortable with the information and to also correct any phrases you may have understood out of context.
Another likely scenario is letting a contributing writer review their work before you post it. Mistakes happen when transmitting a post through various platforms and a guest writer would need to double-check their pages or posts before publishing. As a blogger, you may also seek the services of an editor to go through your work and make corrections on such things as grammar and diction. Even friends would offer helpful opinions if they read your posts before you published them.
How To Share A Draft WordPress Post
The first step towards sharing a draft in WordPress is installing and activating the Public Post Preview Plugin. Proceed to the post or page you intend to share in the editor. An enable Public Preview button will be added in the publish meta box. After you click the box to allow public preview, a text field containing a URL will drop down, and you will need to copy the link. You should then paste the URL to the text or email that you send to the person you want to share the post with. You can opt to disable the option once you receive the feedback which you will probably want to do for security reasons.
Public Post Preview Plugin
The WordPress plugin directory contains more than 31,000 plugins. The public post preview plugin is among the handful that allows the preview of unpublished posts or pages. This plugin was developed by Dominik Schilling, who is one of the company’s core developers. The plugin employs the use of an inbuilt nonce functionality to expire shared links. The links, by default, can be used for 48 hours after which they expire. You can opt to use the ppp_nonce_life filter if you want to increase or decrease the time.
You need to have WordPress 4.6 or higher. The plugin has been downloaded over 200,000 times, and users love its simplicity when in use. You can access the plugin from the WordPress repository or search for it on the “Add new” plugins on your site’s dashboard.
Want to learn more about posts and pages and how to duplicate a post or page?
WP-DraftsForFriends
The WP-DraftsForFriends is another plugin that can be used to allow public preview on WordPress. This plugin boasts more than 2,000 installations, and it needs WordPress 3.7 or higher. Unlike the public post preview plugin which works for both pages and posts, the WP-DraftsForFriends only enables sharing for posts.
After you install it, navigate to the Posts admin menu where there will be a link called “Drafts For Friends.” You can then select from various draft posts and set a timeframe for the share in either
Generating Temporary Logins without Password on WordPress
WordPress enables you as an owner to add and remove users. If you bring a developer on board to build your website however, you may need to give them your login details. While this option empowers your developer to perform a range of capabilities, they may also mess up your site. You can choose to use a temporary login or give them temporary access to your site. This option further allows you to edit the abilities that the administrator can do.
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WordPress users typically install a host of plugins to improve the functionality of their sites. If a problem arises from the use of a particular plugin, the developer will most likely advise you to fix it with some codes. Should the concern persist, however, they will request access to your site to fix it. In this case, you can give the developer limited access such that they are only able to navigate through the plugins. This practice is also beneficial when you are dealing with guest writers.
You will need to install one of the numerous user role editor plugins on WordPress. One of the most common of these plugins is the User Role Editor. It is employed when you want to manage the roles and capabilities of the different users on your site. You can choose between the many tasks a user can perform including updating, deleting and editing. Other plugins that let you manage your user capabilities include Members, Advanced Access Manager, Nav Menu Roles, and Capability Manager Enhanced.
The Temporary Login Without Password plugin comes in handy when you want to give temporary access to editors and administrators. You will be able to create a self-expiring special link to send to a user who will not need a username or password. The plugin also enables you to delete the temporary account when the work you needed to be done on your site is finished, and all of the user’s pages and posts will be displayed as administrator. Using this plugin is extremely convenient for any blogger or writer.
The way WordPress is configured is that only admins and authors can see other users’ unpublished draft pages and posts. While this is generally a secure way, it hinders you from sharing your rough drafts with individuals who are not registered on your website. Giving out your own login details is not advisable as people can disrupt your settings. With a handful of plugins, however, you can enable public preview of your unpublished work quickly and securely.
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