What is the difference between disable a page and hide the page in the meu into Typo3 CMS?

Question

I am pretty new in Typo3 world (I came from Joomla and WordPress) and I have a doubt related to well understand what is the difference between disable a page and hide the page in the menu in Typo3.

I have create a new test page and I don't want that now it appears in my left main menu.

So I click on the Access tab of this page settings and I tick the Hide (In Menus) "checkbox" so the page exist (I can access and see it using its URL) but don't appear in my main menu.

This is pretty simple but, near to the previous options, I also find the Disable (Page) checkbox. So I have try to tick this checkbox (instead of Hide (In Menus)) and happens something that I did not expect:

1. My test page appear again in my left main menu (I have no hide it but if I thought that if I disable a page, it is as if this page does not exist, evidently the typo3 operating logic is different from what I expect)

2. If, in my left main menu, I click on my test page link: the page is open but on the right top corner on the page appear to me the following textual message PREVIEW!

What it mean? I am logged as administrator, maybe the normal visitor can't see the disabled pages whereas administrator\editor see these pages? Or what?

Tnx

Andrea

Answer 1

Disable page = Nobody can see the page. The page is removed from the menu and it can't be accessed with the URL. You see it because you're logged into the backend. That is also why you see the red sticker 'Preview', because it is a preview.

Hide in menu = Page is hidden from the menu and the sitemap, however, it can be accessed with the URL.

Check the following documentation: http://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/GettingStartedTutorial/

Answer 2

There is a very short mapping between TYPO3 and Joomla:

TYPO3 "disable" = Joomla "Unpublish Article"
TYPO3 "hide" = Joomla "Unpublish Menu Item"

Cheers,
S.