Try any section on a preview theme before you install it

Until now the only way to find out what a section actually does was to install it on one of your themes. A picture in the catalogue cannot show you a carousel scrolling, an accordion opening, or how a layout folds up on a phone.

Every section now has a Live preview next to Add to theme. It opens the section running in your theme editor, already placed on the page, so there is nothing to find and nothing to add.

Nothing of yours is touched

The preview opens on a separate theme called Modulo preview, which Modulo creates the first time you use it. It is not your live theme and it is not one of your drafts. Your customers cannot reach it, and none of your existing themes change in any way.

A band across the top of the preview says so, on every page, so you always know where you are.

The preview theme is deliberately plain. That is not a limitation, it is the point: with no other design on the page, what you are looking at is the section and only the section.

The phone view

This was the part merchants asked for most. The theme editor has a phone icon in its top bar, and switching to it renders the section at phone width for real, so you can see how it stacks, what wraps, and whether the text still fits.

The band at the top of the preview points at that icon, so you do not have to go looking for it.

It uses your store's own products

Sections that show products, collections or reviews pull from your real catalogue, exactly as they would once installed. So a product rail in the preview is your products, at your prices, with your photography.

It does not count against your sections

A preview is a look, not a purchase. Trying a section costs you nothing and uses none of your section slots. When you decide you want it, you install it on a real theme the normal way.

Tidying up

The preview theme removes itself after a week of not being used, and Modulo makes a new one the next time you need it. There is nothing for you to clean up.

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This came from a merchant, who put it better than we would have:

Many of them look interesting, however as I cannot test unless I install, it does become a pain to install and test it. This preview helps a lot as you can see what functions it has and how it works, and especially you can see how it will look on the phone version.