Prepare for a new language: disable or hide it from visitors until ready

Hello,

Lets say I have a running shop and I want to add a new language.

Is there a way to disable or hide it from normal visitors, while I populate it (ez-pages, products, language files...).

The point is that it cannot be done in a few minutes. I don't want to put the site down on maintenance during days if I need them to add the language and I don't want visitors to use the new language until it is fully ready.

Is there a way to do this ?

Thank you.

Turn off the language sidebox, via Admin->tools->layout boxes controller ... that way customers won't have any option to select the other language.

yes, that's fine to add a second language. But what if I have already 2 languages and I want to add a third ?

Then you'll have to write custom code to disable the extra languages. Perhaps add some filtering logic to an override of the init_languages script.

Or maybe set up a "development" site and make all your customizations in a safe place, which won't impact your live store. And then migrate your changes to the live site when ready.