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, videos are blocked and the consent box (or the inline placeholder) is shown. Load YouTube: the videos load and the box closes. Do not load videos: they stay blocked and the box closes.
• The choice is kept in a separate session cookie, sly-demo-consent, used only on the demo page. The real consent cookie, sly-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 sly_demo_pos / sly_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: embeds 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 videos. You can use it the same way to preview banner settings before going live, or for any scenario where you want the banner visible without actually blocking content.

1. Install and enable the plugin on your demo site
2. Go to System > Manage > Plugins > System - Smart Local Youtube
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 settings (Appearance, Content, Cookie Settings) still apply in demo mode — demo mode only disables blocking and saving the choice
• Geo-detection still runs if it is turned on. For a visitor whose browser language is outside your consent regions, Skip plugin entirely hides the demo banner, and Auto-agree sets the agree cookie (the banner is still shown). Turn geo-detection off on a demo site so every visitor sees the same banner
• The demo badge is always visible when demo mode is active and cannot be hidden separately
• To return to normal operation, simply set Demo Mode back to No