Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) communities include the Guest Preview feature that, when enabled, allows guests (i.e., signed out users) to preview a Category's content. This allows administrators to decide, for each individual Category, whether signed-out visitors can open a post and preview a limited portion of it before signing in.
This feature gives you more flexibility than a one-size-fits-all guest experience: it enables you to support a mixed-access strategy, where some Categories encourage discovery and others remain fully gated.
TIP: The Guest Preview feature can support more than just your signed-out visitors: It can also allow search engine crawlers and LLM crawlers to access the preview content (depending on your community’s broader crawl and indexing configuration), further enhancing your community's discoverability.
What this feature does
You can manage the Guest Preview feature on a Category-by-Category basis.
When Guest Preview is enabled for a Category:
- Guests can open thread pages in that Category and see a limited preview of the content before signing in.
- The amount of preview content shown is controlled by the Category's Guest Preview settings.
- Comments remain hidden from guests.
When Guest Preview is disabled for a Category:
- Guests cannot see preview content on thread pages in that Category.
- Instead, they see the existing guest-facing sign-in or access message.
Why you might use it
Guest Preview is useful when different areas of your community need different visibility rules.
Common use cases include:
- Allowing content preview in public-facing Categories so prospective members can sample your community's content before registering.
- Disabling preview in member-only, sensitive, or high-value Categories where content should remain fully gated.
- Creating a more intentional guest experience across your community by matching preview behavior to the purpose of each Category.
Important considerations
- Guest permissions still control access: Guest Preview only works in Categories that guests are already allowed to view. If your Guest Role(s) do not have view access to a Category, guests will not be able to preview its content.
- Private communities override Guest Preview: If your entire community is configured as private, guests are directed to sign in before viewing content. In that case, the Guest Preview feature does not work and will not provide a preview experience.
- Existing guest access behavior remains in place: This feature adds more control to Category settings, but it does not change your broader guest access model. Think of it as an additional Category-level option for how threads behave for signed-out visitors.
Feature availability in Legacy and Custom layouts
The way you enable Guest Preview depends on whether your community is using Legacy or Custom Post Page layouts, which is configured on the Post Layout Settings page.
Legacy layouts
If your community is using Legacy layouts:
- The Private Discussions addon must be enabled.
- Then, you can turn on the Enable guest preview setting in each Category where you want this experience available.
Custom layouts
If your community is using Custom layouts:
- You do not need to enable the Private Discussions addon (it can be on but its enablement status doesn't matter);
- all you need to do is turn on the Enable guest preview setting in each Category where you want this experience available.
Manage a Category's Guest Preview setting
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to the Settings > Posts > Categories.
- Add a new Category or edit an existing Category.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and toggle ON or OFF the Enable guest preview option.
- If ON, configure the two associated sub-options:
- Strip embeds from guest preview: Turn this setting on to remove a post's embedded content from the preview shown to guests (e.g., YouTube videos, images, etc.). This is useful when you want the preview to focus on a thread's text rather than showing embedded media or other rich content.
- Preview length: Use this setting to control how much text content guests can see before needing to sign in. Preview length is based on a word count, allowing you to limit the preview to a short teaser or allow a longer introduction to the thread.
- Click Save to apply this change to the Category.
- Repeat these steps to manage this feature for any other applicable Categories.
IMPORTANT: We recommend adding a Guest Sign In widget to your applicable Post Page layouts so visitors understand that they are only seeing a limited preview. You can include call-to-action text explaining that they are viewing only portion of the post and that they should sign in or register to continue reading. Refer to the section below to learn how.
Add the Guest Sign In widget to applicable Post Page layouts
After enabling Guest Preview for your Categories, the next recommended step is to add the Guest Sign In widget to the applicable Post Page layouts in Layout Editor.
This step is important because Guest Preview shows only a limited portion of the post. If the preview ends without a clear next step, signed-out visitors may not understand why the content stops or what they need to do next.
- The Guest Sign In widget helps turn that moment into a clear call to action. It gives guests a visible prompt to register or sign in so they can continue engaging with the content. In other words, it helps connect the preview experience to the next step in the user journey.
- Without this widget, the preview can feel abrupt or incomplete. With it, the page provides clearer guidance and creates a more intentional experience for guests who are deciding whether to join or sign in.
- For this reason, Guest Preview and the Guest Sign In widget work best together: Guest Preview helps showcase the value of the content, and the Guest Sign In widget helps convert that interest into action.
How to add the Guest Sign In widget
1. Access the Dashboard and navigate to the Appearance tab.
2. Click to expand the Post Pages section, and then the Discussion Pages or Question Pages section, as applicable to the post page you want to add the widget to.
3. Click to select a layout, followed by Edit at the top right to edit that page in Layout Editor.
4. Add the Guest Sign In widget to the bottom of the page; this way, your call-to-action text and register/sign-in buttons appear to the user below the post preview content, bridging the gap between previewing the post and registering or signing in.
5. Edit the widget and configure it to meet your needs. Refer to the section below for example title and description text you can use.
6. Click Save to add the widget, and then Save at the layout level to save your layout changes.
Example Title and Description text
TIP: Set the Title Type option and Description Type option to Custom so you can add your own custom title and description text in their associated Title and Description fields.
- Example Title text:
- 👀 This Is Just the Beginning…
- Example Description text:
- There’s plenty more waiting inside! Sign in or register to keep reading, explore the full conversation, connect with the community, and discover more helpful ideas and resources.
Example Guest Sign In widget
Below is an example of a signed out user previewing a post in our community with the Guest Sign In widget in place. Notice how we give them a small taste of the post's content, which then flows nicely into our call to action to sign in or register to continue reading.
