Demo Mode

Showcase the consent banner on a demo site: visitors see the real behaviour and can start over as often as they like.

What It Does

On the demo page the plugin works exactly as on a live site, with three differences:

• Until the visitor decides, maps are blocked and the consent box (or the inline placeholder) is shown. Load Google Maps: the maps load and the box closes. Do not load maps: they stay blocked and the box closes.
• The choice is kept in a separate session cookie, slgm-demo-consent, used only on the demo page. The real consent cookie, slgm-consent, is never read or written there, so trying the demo doesn't change anything else on the site.
• The Demo Settings panel (top right) shows the choice and a Reset demo button that brings the consent box back. A small Demo badge marks the consent box.

Geo-detection is skipped on the demo page, so every visitor sees the box. With demo mode off, none of this exists: no panel, no demo cookie, and the slgm_demo_pos / slgm_demo_reset URL parameters are ignored.

Settings

The Show on Page field only appears when demo mode is enabled.

If you choose your Home menu item, the demo applies to the home page only. Joomla treats Home as the active menu item on every page that has no menu item of its own, but the plugin checks that the visitor is really on the home page.

Important: while demo mode is on, the plugin does nothing at all on pages other than the demo page: maps there load without consent. Use demo mode on a demo or staging site, not on a live site with real visitors.

Demo Settings Panel

On the demo page a small Demo Settings panel appears in the top-right corner. Visitors can try the consent box live:

• Position: centre (modal), bottom bar, bottom right, bottom left or inline (each embed replaced by its click-to-load placeholder; switching to or from inline reloads the page)
• Theme: Clean, Midnight, Forest, Slate or Warm
• Dark mode: follow the system, always light or always dark
• Animation: pick one and replay it

The changes are only a preview in the visitor's browser: nothing is saved, and reloading the page shows your saved settings again. After Load or decline, the panel shows the choice and a Reset demo button instead. The panel is not shown when the theme is set to Custom. It collapses on small screens.

Typical Use Case

We use this mode to showcase the plugin on a demo site — visitors can see the consent banner in action and try different themes, positions, and animations — without affecting real maps. You can use it the same way to preview banner settings before going live.

1. Install and enable the plugin on your demo site
2. Go to System > Manage > Plugins > System - Smart Local Google Maps
3. Open the Demo tab (last tab)
4. Set Demo Mode to Yes
5. Optionally select a specific page under Show on Page
6. Save

The banner will now appear with all configured appearance settings (theme, position, animation, dark mode, custom colors) but without any real blocking behavior.

Notes

• All appearance and content settings still apply in demo mode — demo mode only disables blocking and saving the consent cookie
• Turn geo-detection off while you use demo mode. Geo-detection is checked before the demo banner: a visitor outside your consent regions is auto-accepted (and gets an agree cookie) or, with Skip plugin entirely, sees no banner at all
• The demo badge is always visible when demo mode is active and cannot be hidden separately
• To return to normal operation, set Demo Mode back to No