Create Hidden Menu Item
Create a hidden menu item that can be configured to display the offline page. A single article view works well.
Remember to mark the menu item as not displayed in the menu.
Custom Offline Page
Configure Offline Page
No need to create any EasyLayouts layouts - all you need is to open the EasyLayouts Seetings in YOOtheme.
On the 'Error and Offline Pages' pannel select the hidden menu item you created. You should also set an offline key/value combination e.g. offkey and offval. This will allow some magic to occur (explained below).
Customise Offline Page
Using YOOtheme you can now customise this offline menu item using the Template Builder. The menu item specific templates addon is helpful to allow us to force YOOtheme to use this layout on our offline page.
There is no need to include the login module (reason will be explained below).
Test Site Offline
Put your site offline in Joomla configuration and remember to logout on the frontend.
You should now see the offline page when you view the frontend of the site.
How to you login to the frontend I hear you ask.
Access Frontend Login
We still need to be able to login in the frontend. To do this we use the passkey/passval combination we specified earlier.
View the url https://YOURSITE/?passkey=passval and the login box magically appears.
Change offkey and offpass
Remember to change the offkey and offpass values to something more secure
Choose values that are easy to remember but not so easy to guess!
