Publishing and editing
Draft and live versions
Every guide has two versions:
- the draft, which you change in the editor and the builder;
- the live version, which is what users see.
Publish copies the draft to the live version. Until then, nothing you change reaches users, so it's safe to edit a guide that's already live.
The status badges at the top of the editor tell you where a guide stands:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| draft | Not shown to anyone. |
| live | Published and shown to matching users. |
| unpublished changes | Live, and the draft differs from the live version. Choose Publish changes to update it. |
| archived | Hidden from the guide list and not shown to anyone. |
Changes reach users the next time they load a page.
Saving
- Save draft (or Ctrl+S / ⌘S) stores your edits. The editor warns you if you try to leave with unsaved changes.
- Publish / Publish changes saves and publishes in one go.
- Edits saved from the builder show up in the editor when you switch back to its tab, as long as you have no unsaved changes there.
Before publishing, the editor checks that the guide isn't empty: a tour needs a step, a checklist an item, and hotspots need an element each.
Unpublish, archive, delete
You can do all of these from the guide editor, or from the icons on each row of the Guides list (hover an icon to see its name). The list also has icons for Publish, Duplicate, Analytics and, for tours and hotspots, the visual builder, which opens on the page you last used it on.
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Unpublish | Stops showing the guide. The draft is kept; publish again any time. User progress is kept too. |
| Archive | Hides the guide from the main list (find it under Archived) and stops showing it. Restore brings it back as a draft. |
| Duplicate | Creates a draft copy with the same content and targeting. Handy for a variant or a translated version. |
| Delete | Removes the guide with all its analytics and user progress. This can't be undone. |
To act on several guides at once, tick their checkboxes (or the box above the list to select every guide shown). A bar appears with Publish, Unpublish, Archive, Restore as draft and Delete. Each button only shows when it applies to some of the selection and only changes those guides: Publish publishes the drafts, Unpublish the live ones. When a number appears next to a button, that is how many of the selected guides it will change. If a guide can't be published yet (a tour with no steps, say), the others are still published and the message names the ones that weren't.
Editing a live tour
Users who already completed or dismissed a tour won't see it again after you publish changes; progress belongs to the guide, not to a version. To show a reworked tour to everyone again, Duplicate it, publish the copy, and archive the old one.