My website needs to go on "Holiday"... Need Showcase with Login?

I am going to be away on holiday for a while. Long story short - my online shop will have to go on holiday too. Obviously this is less than ideal and very damaging to my shop.

So this is what I want to do: Put the shop in Showcase mode with prices to keep links and traffic relatively intact.

Problem: I would still like customers to be able to log in so that they can see past orders, and for tracking orders that are still in the system.

Any ideas on how to do this? Would commenting out the php around the login be damaging?

OK, I have a messy and not-so messy workaround.

1. Not-so messy
   Simply link to your log in page directly. You can still log in and log out as normal.

2. Messy
   Leave shop as normal. Set Configuration > Customer Details > Customer Approval Status - Authorization Pending to "3 - Customer May Browse and May see Prices but Must be Authorized to Buy"

Then set all customers to "not authorised".

The only problem with both workarounds is that even though customers cannot add more items to their shopping bag, they can still checkout the contents of their cart. So it's important to make sure there are no direct links to checkout.

:blush:

Thanks to tony_sar, I realise now there's a default setting for this... oops.

configuration > Customer details
Customer Shop Status = "3 - Showroom Only"

Nice and simple! :clap: