LaunchPad Documentation

Overview

LaunchPad is a WordPress maintenance mode plugin built with one primary concern: making sure you never get locked out of your own site. Every maintenance mode plugin carries an inherent risk — if something goes wrong, you might not be able to access your admin panel. LaunchPad solves this with 5 independent fail-safe mechanisms that ensure you always have a way back in.

Beyond lockout prevention, LaunchPad includes a drag-and-drop page builder for creating professional maintenance pages, coming-soon pages, and launch pages. Choose from quick-start templates or build from scratch using blocks like headings, text, images, countdown timers, email signup forms, and social links.

The free version provides the full fail-safe system, maintenance mode toggling, basic templates, and the page builder with core blocks. LaunchPad Pro adds premium templates, additional builder blocks, advanced email signup with integrations, and priority support.

Installation

Download launchpad.zip from your Boulley Technology account and install it through your WordPress admin.

1. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
2. Select the ZIP file, click Install Now, then Activate Plugin.
3. LaunchPad appears under Tools > LaunchPad in your admin sidebar.

After activation, maintenance mode is off by default. Your site continues to operate normally until you explicitly enable maintenance mode. Take some time to explore the dashboard, set up your maintenance page using the builder, and familiarize yourself with the fail-safe options before turning it on.

Enabling Maintenance Mode

To enable maintenance mode, navigate to Tools > LaunchPad and toggle the main switch to On. Once enabled, all visitors who are not logged in as administrators will see your maintenance page instead of your regular site content.

Logged-in administrators can browse the site normally and see the live version, which makes it easy to continue working on your site while it is in maintenance mode. An admin bar notice reminds you that maintenance mode is active so you do not forget to turn it off when you are ready to launch.

To disable maintenance mode, return to the LaunchPad dashboard and toggle the switch to Off. Your site is immediately accessible to all visitors again. There is no delay or cache to clear — the change takes effect on the next page load.

You can also schedule maintenance mode to turn on and off at specific times. Set a start and end time in the LaunchPad settings, and the plugin handles the rest. This is useful for planned maintenance windows where you want the maintenance page to appear automatically during off-peak hours.

5 Fail-Safes

LaunchPad's defining feature is its 5-layer fail-safe system. Each mechanism works independently, so even if one fails, the others still protect you from being locked out.

1. Admin Cookie Bypass

When you are logged into WordPress as an administrator, LaunchPad automatically detects your admin session cookie and bypasses maintenance mode for you. This is the primary mechanism that lets you browse your site normally while visitors see the maintenance page. It works automatically with no configuration needed.

2. IP Whitelist

LaunchPad records your IP address when you enable maintenance mode and automatically whitelists it. Even if your session cookie expires or you get logged out, requests from your whitelisted IP address will still bypass maintenance mode. You can add additional IP addresses in the settings for team members or clients who need access.

3. Secret URL Parameter

LaunchPad generates a unique secret key that you can append to any URL on your site as a query parameter to bypass maintenance mode. For example: yoursite.com/?launchpad_bypass=your-secret-key. This works from any device, any IP, without being logged in. The secret key is shown on the LaunchPad dashboard and can be regenerated at any time.

4. Time-Based Auto-Disable

You can set a maximum duration for maintenance mode. If maintenance mode has been active longer than the specified time (e.g., 24 hours), LaunchPad automatically disables it. This prevents situations where you enable maintenance mode, forget about it, and your site stays down indefinitely. The default timeout is 72 hours, but you can adjust it or disable this fail-safe if you prefer.

5. Emergency File Override

As a last resort, you can disable maintenance mode by creating a specific file on your server via FTP or your hosting file manager. Create an empty file named launchpad-disable.txt in your site's root directory (the same folder as wp-config.php). When LaunchPad detects this file, it immediately disables maintenance mode and deletes the file. This works even if you cannot access your WordPress admin at all.

Quick-Start Templates

LaunchPad includes a library of quick-start templates that let you create a professional maintenance or coming-soon page in seconds. When you first open the page builder, you are presented with the template selector.

Templates are organized by category: Maintenance, Coming Soon, Launch, and Under Construction. Each template is a pre-configured arrangement of builder blocks with placeholder text and images that you can customize. Select a template to load it into the builder, then modify the text, colors, images, and layout to match your brand.

You can also start with a blank canvas if you prefer to build your page from scratch. The template you choose serves as a starting point; every element can be modified, reordered, or removed using the page builder.

Premium templates are available with LaunchPad Pro. These include more polished designs with advanced block configurations, animations, and layout variations. Free templates provide solid foundations with clean, responsive designs that work well out of the box.

Page Builder

The LaunchPad page builder is a visual drag-and-drop editor for creating your maintenance page. It lives inside the LaunchPad dashboard at Tools > LaunchPad > Builder and does not require the WordPress block editor or any other page builder plugin.

The builder uses a block-based system. Each block represents a content element that you can add, arrange, and configure. Available blocks include:

• Heading — Configurable heading text with size, color, alignment, and font weight options. Supports H1 through H6 levels.
• Text — Rich text paragraphs with basic formatting (bold, italic, links). Set font size, color, line height, and maximum width.
• Image — Upload or select an image from your media library. Supports logos, hero images, and decorative graphics with configurable width, border radius, and alignment.
• Button — Call-to-action buttons with customizable text, URL, colors, border radius, and hover effects. Useful for linking to social profiles or contact pages.
• Countdown — A live countdown timer to a specific date and time. Displays days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Ideal for launch pages with a target date.
• Email Signup — A form field where visitors can enter their email address to be notified when your site launches. Collected emails are stored in WordPress and can be exported as CSV.
• Social Links — Icon links to your social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and more). Configure which platforms to show and enter your profile URLs.
• Spacer — Adds vertical spacing between blocks. Set the height in pixels for precise layout control.
• Divider — A horizontal line separator with configurable color, thickness, width, and style (solid, dashed, dotted).

To add a block, click the + Add Block button and select the block type. The block appears at the bottom of the page and can be dragged to any position. Click any block to open its settings panel where you can configure all of its options. Changes are saved automatically as you make them.

The builder includes a live preview that shows exactly what visitors will see. You can toggle between desktop and mobile preview to verify your page looks good on all screen sizes.

Email Signup

The Email Signup block adds a simple form to your maintenance page where visitors can enter their email address to be notified when your site launches or when maintenance is complete. This is one of the most valuable features for a coming-soon page because it lets you build an audience before you are ready to go live.

Submitted email addresses are stored in your WordPress database. You can view all collected emails from the LaunchPad dashboard under Tools > LaunchPad > Subscribers. The subscriber list shows the email address, submission date, and the page the visitor was on when they signed up.

You can export the entire subscriber list as a CSV file for importing into your email marketing platform (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, etc.). Click the Export CSV button on the Subscribers page to download the file.

The signup form includes basic validation to ensure valid email formats and prevents duplicate submissions from the same email address. You can customize the placeholder text, button label, and success message that appears after a visitor submits their email.

Bypass Password

Sometimes you need to give specific people access to your site while maintenance mode is active, without giving them a WordPress admin account. The Bypass Password feature generates a special URL that anyone can use to view your live site through the maintenance wall.

To create a bypass link, go to Tools > LaunchPad > Settings and find the Bypass Password section. Enter a password of your choice (or let LaunchPad generate a random one) and click Save. LaunchPad generates a URL in the format yoursite.com/?launchpad_pass=your-password.

Share this link with clients, stakeholders, or anyone who needs to preview the site. When they visit the link, a session cookie is set that bypasses maintenance mode for the duration of their browsing session. They can navigate your site normally after clicking the bypass link once.

You can change or revoke the bypass password at any time from the settings page. Changing the password immediately invalidates the old bypass link, so anyone using it will need the new link.

Auto-Backup

LaunchPad automatically backs up your maintenance page configuration before major changes. When you select a new template, switch between designs, or perform a bulk block operation, LaunchPad saves a snapshot of your current builder state.

If something goes wrong or you want to undo a change, go to Tools > LaunchPad > Backups to see a list of automatic snapshots. Each backup shows a timestamp and a brief description of what triggered it. Click Restore to revert your maintenance page to that snapshot.

LaunchPad keeps the 10 most recent backups and automatically removes older ones. Manual backups can also be created at any time by clicking the Create Backup button on the builder page. Manual backups are not subject to the automatic cleanup and persist until you delete them.

License Activation

LaunchPad Pro features (premium templates, advanced blocks) require an active license key.

1. Navigate to Tools > LaunchPad and click the License tab.
2. Enter your license key from your Boulley Technology account.
3. Click Activate License. Pro features become available immediately.

Each license covers one site. To transfer your license, deactivate it first from the current site, then activate on the new one. Manage licenses from your Boulley Technology account dashboard.

Troubleshooting

I am locked out of my site

LaunchPad has 5 fail-safes specifically designed to prevent this. Try these in order: (1) Log in to WordPress admin directly at yoursite.com/wp-admin/ — your admin cookie should bypass maintenance mode. (2) Try from the same IP address you used when enabling maintenance mode. (3) Use the secret URL parameter shown on the LaunchPad dashboard. (4) Wait for the auto-disable timeout if you configured one. (5) Create a file named launchpad-disable.txt in your site's root directory via FTP.

Maintenance mode is on but visitors still see the live site

Clear any caching layers (plugin cache, server cache, CDN). Caching plugins may serve a cached version of your live site to visitors even though maintenance mode is active. Most caching plugins have an option to bypass cache when maintenance mode is detected, but you may need to purge the cache manually after enabling maintenance mode.

The countdown timer shows the wrong time

The countdown timer uses the visitor's browser time to calculate the remaining duration. Make sure the target date and time you set in the countdown block settings are in the correct timezone. LaunchPad uses your WordPress timezone setting (found in Settings > General) as the reference.

Email signups are not being saved

Check that your WordPress database user has write permissions to the database. Also verify that no security plugin or firewall is blocking the AJAX request used to submit the signup form. Test by temporarily disabling security plugins and trying again.

The page builder is not loading

The builder requires JavaScript to be enabled in your browser. If you see a blank builder area, check your browser's developer console for JavaScript errors. Common causes include plugin conflicts (another plugin's JavaScript causing an error that halts execution) and browser extensions that block scripts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can search engines still crawl my site during maintenance mode?

LaunchPad sends a proper 503 Service Unavailable HTTP status code along with a Retry-After header when maintenance mode is active. This tells search engines that the downtime is temporary and they should check back later. Your existing rankings are not affected by temporary 503 responses.

Does maintenance mode affect my WordPress admin?

No. The WordPress admin area (/wp-admin/) and the login page (/wp-login.php) are always accessible regardless of maintenance mode status. LaunchPad only intercepts requests to the public-facing frontend of your site.

Can I use maintenance mode for just one page?

LaunchPad applies maintenance mode site-wide. It does not support per-page maintenance. If you need to restrict access to a single page while keeping the rest of the site live, consider using a password-protected page in WordPress instead.

How do I test my maintenance page before going live?

Open a private/incognito browser window and navigate to your site while maintenance mode is active. Since the incognito window does not have your admin session cookie, you will see the maintenance page exactly as visitors would. This lets you verify the design, countdown timer, email signup, and other elements.

Will LaunchPad conflict with other maintenance mode plugins?

You should only run one maintenance mode plugin at a time. If you have another maintenance mode plugin active, deactivate it before enabling LaunchPad's maintenance mode. Running multiple maintenance mode plugins simultaneously can cause unpredictable behavior, as both will try to intercept frontend requests.