Live Preview

Live Preview is combination of publishing and previewing.

When you choose a host from from the Live Preview button at the top right of the Page Designer window. Flux will upload the modified page to the host (along with modified images, CSS etc...). Once the upload has completed, Flux will then open that page from the server (not the local copy).

Why use Live Preview instead of local preview?

If you use PHP, a CMS system, or any other type of operation that requires your HTML page to be live hosted, then Live Preview can streamline your workflow to a few seconds, rather than modify->upload->browse to URL.

How do I use Live Preview?

First, you need to setup a Bookmark for your host.

The Bookmark must have a Website root setup, and the URL must be correct in relation to your upload location, for example....
If you were to upload a file to
/htdocs/mysite/page.html
and the page is accessible at
http://www.mybestsite.com/page.html
then your Website root should be
http://www.mybestsite.com/

As a side note, using the example above, the 'Folder' field of your bookmark would probably be /htdocs/mysite/

Sometimes a host will setup your login so the 'Folder' field is not required, as the login will automaticaly put you in the correct directory. Your Hosts' support site should tell you more.

I've setup my bookmark, now what?

Now you have setup the bookmark, you can choose it from the Live Preview button. If you have modified any associated files, such as image, you can choose to upload them too or not.

Once the upload has completed, the Preview will present the page, but rather than displaying the local copy, it will show your Website Root+ThePage.html

You will probably notice the Preview is quite a bit slower to appear than a normal Preview, this is perfectly normal, and it's simply due to the page and it's assets being loaded from your web server, rather than the local disk.

If you have multiple sites, i.e. one for testing and your live site, then simply setup a separate bookmark for each.

If you don't want to use Live Preview, but still want to preview the effects of PHP or other server-side functions, then consider looking at MAMP.