Popups

Every website has this screen. An Editor can use it, not just an Admin.

A popup is a box that opens on top of a page after a visitor has been there a moment. It can hold one of four things:

• your newsletter signup,
• a form you built,
• a feedback form,
• or a short message with a button, such as “Our new menu is out. See the menu.”

Go to Plugins, open the Site Layout group, and click Popups.

Until you add one, your website shows no popup at all.

Adding a popup

Click New popup. A form called Add a popup opens. It has three parts.

1. Check that Enabled has a check mark. With it off, the popup never shows, but it stays on your list.
2. Type a Name, such as “Spring newsletter”. Only you see it, on the list.
3. Set the dates, if you want them. See the next part.
4. Under Content, pick What it shows, then fill in the boxes under it.
5. Under Where and when, pick the Position, then say when it opens.
6. Say which pages it may show on, if not all of them.
7. Read it all once more.

8. Click Save.

You are taken back to the list, and you see Popup added. Cancel leaves without saving.

Dates

Start date is the first day it can show. Leave it blank to start right away.

End date is the last day it can show. Leave it blank to keep it going until you turn it off.

Both days count. The form tells you what day it is on your site. If the end date is before the start date, the form warns you that the popup can never show.

What it shows

Pick one under What it shows. Every kind has a Heading and a Text box. The heading sits at the top. The text is a short line under it, in plain words.

Choice	What else you fill in
Newsletter signup	Button label, the words on the button. Blank means Subscribe.
Form	Form: pick one of the forms you built in Form Designer.
Feedback form	Feedback form: pick one of your published forms from Feedback.
Message with a button	Button label and Button address. The button only shows when both are filled in.

Form and Feedback form are only in the list if your website has those add-ons.

For Button address, type a page on your own site that starts with a slash, such as /menu. Or type a full web address that starts with https://. The form warns you about anything else, and drops it when you save.

When a popup has nothing to show

A popup never opens if what it holds cannot show. That happens when:

• it is a newsletter signup, and no email company is set up on the Newsletter screen yet,
• the form it uses was unpublished or deleted,
• or the add-on behind the form was turned off.

Nothing breaks. The visitor just never sees it. The list cannot spot these three, so it may still say Live.

The list does catch a popup with no form picked, or a message with no heading and no text. It marks those Needs content.

Where it opens on the screen

Pick one Position.

Position	What the visitor sees
Center of the screen	A box in the middle. The page behind it goes dim until they close it.
Bottom right corner	A small card in the corner. The page stays usable.
Bottom left corner	The same, in the other corner.
Bottom, centered	A card along the bottom, in the middle.

On a phone, every position becomes a panel along the bottom of the screen.

When it opens

Show it sets what makes it open.

• After a wait opens it after a number of seconds on the page. Set it with Wait. It starts at 5. Pick 0 to open it right away.
• After scrolling down the page opens it once the visitor has read part of the page. Set how far with Scrolled, as a percent. It starts at 50, which is halfway. A page too short to scroll opens it right away.

Page views first holds it back until a visitor has seen a few pages. It starts at 1, the first page they see. Set it to 3, and they see it on their third page. It only counts pages that can show a popup.

It waits for the cookie banner

Some websites show a cookie banner to new visitors. A popup never opens on top of it. It waits until the visitor clicks Accept or Decline, then opens. The cookie banner explains when it shows.

How it goes away

A visitor can close the popup with its close button. They can also press Esc, or click the dim part of the page around a center popup.

Stay closed for is how many days it then stays away for that visitor. It starts at 30. Pick 0, and it only stays closed until they open another page.

Some visitors do what you asked. They sign up, send the form, or click the message’s button. They never see that popup again. After a signup or a sent form, the popup shows its thank-you for a moment, then closes on its own.

This is all kept in the visitor’s own browser. A new phone, or a cleared browser, sees it as new.

Which pages it shows on

Two boxes decide this. Type one address per line, each starting with a slash.

• Only on these pages: leave it empty for every page. Type /blog to show it only on your blog. That covers /blog and every page under it.
• Never on these pages: pages it must skip, such as /contact. This box wins over the other one.

A popup never shows on checkout, search, booking, testimonial or account pages.

There is one way onto a customer’s account page: type /account in Only on these pages. Then it shows to customers who are signed in, on their account page. Add the tab, such as /account#orders, for one tab only.

The list of popups

Each popup is one row. The columns are Status, Name, Shows, Position, When and Dates. Click a name to open that popup and change it. Click Save when you are done. You see Popup saved.

The Status column tells you what the public can see:

Status	What it means
Live	It can show today.
Live, but below	It could show, but a popup higher up covers every page first.
Scheduled	Its start date has not come yet.
Ended	Its end date has passed.
Off	Enabled is off.
Needs content	No form is picked, or a message has no words.

You can keep up to 10 popups.

Only one popup per page

A page shows one popup at most: the first one on the list that is live and allowed on that page.

Use the ↑ and ↓ arrows on a row to move it up or down. The order changes at once. You see Order updated.

So you can set up a few. Put a blog-only popup at the top, and an everywhere popup under it. Blog readers get the first. Everyone else gets the second.

Deleting a popup

Click Delete on the popup’s row. Your browser asks you to confirm. You see Popup deleted. It is gone from your website on the next page load.

When you cannot see your own popup

Look at its Status first.

If it says Live, you may have closed it already. Your browser remembers that. Open your website in a private window to check. That is Cmd+Shift+N on a Mac, or Ctrl+Shift+N on Windows, in Chrome.

Still nothing? Check the timing. With a wait of 30 seconds, you have to stay on the page that long. With Page views first above 1, you have to open that many pages first.