Archive and Hide

Eggspress gives you granular control over your content's visibility. This article explains how you can:

• make a certain content item less discoverable through isVisible
• inform your visitors that a content item may contain stale information through isArchived
• alert your visitors to information about a content item using contentMessage
• hide content from appearing on a content item's page using isContentHidden

Where to configure visibility

In Eggspress, you can set the visibility of your content on a file-by-file basis. You can do this by setting the following keys in the frontmatter of your content file:

isVisible: true
isArchived: false
isContentHidden: false
contentMessage: ""

Note that files in my_categories are limited to isVisible and contentMessage. Files in my_sidebars only make use of isVisible.

How isVisible behaves

When a content item's frontmatter contains isVisible: false, representations of that content item will no longer be visible elsewhere on your site.

Going forward, we will use an example of a workspace containing these two files:

• my_authors/eggie.md (an author profile for Eggie)
• my_posts/post.md (a blog post)

When post.md contains author: eggie in its frontmatter, Eggie's author card will appear in the sidebar and/or at the end of the post.

However, when eggie.md contains isVisible: false in its frontmatter, Eggie's author card will no longer appear in any post.

By setting isVisible: false, we've made it impossible for visitors to our site to discover Eggie's profile. However, it's still possible for a visitor to view Eggie's author profile at /author/eggie.

This is because isVisible: false only hides references to a content item from the site. It does not, however, remove that content item. This is to prevent existing links to that content item from breaking.

The same concept applies to other content types such as sidebars, categories, and custom pages.

Posts that have isVisible: false will not appear on your site where they would ordinarily appear. That includes in:

• lists of posts (for example, from a category or author page)
• related posts
• pinned posts

If you link to a content item with isVisible: false from the content section of other content items, those links will still appear. Consider setting isContentHidden: true if you need to prevent your visitors from viewing the contents of a given content item.

Important: Your visitors will still be able to view content configured with isVisible: true. This is by design to avoid breaking existing links and references. To hide content on a page, see the section below on "Using `isContentHidden".

Using isArchived

When a content item's frontmatter contains isArchived: true, a message will appear in between the hero and content sections of a page.

This message informs visitors that the content item they are viewing is now archived and that information contained in it may be out of date.

Using contentMessage

When a content item has contentMessage set to a non-empty string, a message will appear in between the hero and content sections of a page.

This message can contain any value set by the author.

contentMessage does not depend on isArchived. However, if both isArchived: true and contentMessage contains a string, the value given to contentMessage will replace the message that would otherwise appear for archived content.

Using isContentHidden

When a content item has isContentHidden: true in its frontmatter,

Content items with this setting toggled will display a message informing visitors that the page they are viewing is no longer available.

When used in conjunction with isVisible: false, this effectively removes content from your site.

We recommend setting isContentHidden: true and isVisible: false to remove content from your site rather than deleting a content item's file. This is to prevent your visitors from experiencing broken links and other errors.

Example use cases

Use isVisible: false by itself when you want to:

• share early access content only visible to special visitors who have a direct link (you might set isVisible: true at a later date)
• exclusive content that is only visible to special visitors who have a direct link (you intend on keeping isVisible: false set indefinitely)
• you want to preview a draft on your site and do not wish others to see it yet

Use isArchived: true by itself when you want to:

• alert your visitors that a content item is no longer relevant

Use isVisible: false together with isArchived: true when you want to:

• keep visitors from finding a content item, but you still wish to:
  • inform those who have a direct link that that content item is now archived
  • allow visitors who have a direct link to reference its contents

Use isVisible: false together with isContentHidden: true when you want to:

• effectively remove a content item from your site, but still preserve its link (to avoid your visitors from experiencing broken links)

Use contentMessage on its own to:

• convey important information to visitors who click to a certain content item

Use contentMessage together with isArchived: true or isContentHidden: true to:

• override the default message that typically appears on content items that are marked as archived or whose contents are hidden

Customizing default messages

When isArchived: true and/or isContentHidden: true, your visitors will see a message prominently displayed below the hero section and above your content.

You can customize this message by editing the following section in my_settings/strings.md:

isContentArchivedMessage: "This page is archived and may contain information that is out of date"
isContentHiddenMessage: "This page and its contents are no longer available"
isContentArchivedAndHiddenMessage: "This page is archived and its contents are no longer available"
isContentHiddenBodyHeading: "No longer available"
isContentHiddenBodyText: "Sorry, the page you're visiting is no longer available."