For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt. This page is also available as Markdown.

Live preview and inspector

Preview your option form directly in the app before publishing it to your store. You can also click any option in the preview to quickly find and edit its settings.

The preview on the right is a working version of your widget, not just a static mockup. It runs your conditional logic, updates add-on prices, and displays each option type as it will appear on your storefront.

Using the live preview makes it easier to test your option form and fine-tune its settings without constantly switching between the builder and your storefront.

Before you start

Make sure you have an option set open in the builder with at least one option added.

What the preview does

It does
It does not

Render every option type as customers see it

Use your theme's fonts, colors, or spacing — it uses the app's own styling

Run conditional logic, so you can test show and hide rules

Add anything to a real cart

Show add-on price previews and the running total

Charge anything

Run validation, so you can see your error messages

Apply your customer or country rules

Draw the Personalizer live preview on the background image

Show other option sets that also apply to a product

Because the preview does not use your theme's styling, differences in font and color between the preview and your storefront are expected. To align the widget with your theme on the storefront, see Match your theme style.

The four header controls

Control
What it does

Editor / preview toggle

On narrow screens, switches between the settings panel and the preview. On wide screens both are visible at once.

Desktop / mobile toggle

Renders the preview at desktop or mobile width. Worth checking both — column widths and swatch sliders behave differently.

Inspector toggle

Turns the click-to-edit overlay on and off. See below.

Language switcher

Renders the preview in one of your storefront languages, using your translated labels and values.

The builder header controls for editor and preview, viewport, inspector, and language
The header controls change what the preview shows, not what customers get.

The inspector

Turn on the inspector to make the preview interactive. Hover over an option to highlight it, then click it to open its settings in the panel. This lets you quickly go from spotting an issue in the preview to editing the corresponding option.

The inspector also displays a small action bar on the highlighted option:

Action
What it does

Duplicate

Copies the option, exactly like the panel's duplicate action.

Half width

Sets the option's Column width to 50%.

Full width

Sets the option's Column width to 100%.

Hide

Hides the option from the storefront while keeping it in the set.

Delete

Removes the option.

Half width and full width are the most commonly used column widths, so they are available directly in the inspector. For more control, you can choose from the full range of widths — 25%, 33%, 50%, 66%, 75%, and 100% — in the option's Advanced tab. See Column width.

The inspector highlighting an option in the preview with its action bar
With the inspector on, the preview becomes a second way to edit.

Testing conditional logic in the preview

This is one of the preview's most useful features. Conditional rules are evaluated live, so you can:

  • Select the trigger option and see the dependent option appear.

  • Deselect it and confirm that the dependent option disappears.

  • Change a dropdown value and check which conditional branch is displayed.

There are two types of conditions the preview cannot test because it does not have real customer context:

  • Conditions based on Shopify variants — the preview does not have a selected variant, so variant-based conditions are not evaluated. Test these on a real product page using View in Store. See Conditions based on Shopify variants.

  • Customer and country rules — these determine whether the entire option set is displayed and are evaluated only on the storefront.

Preview matching products

When your product rule uses Automatic Rules, you can check which products currently match your conditions before saving the rule.

Open Preview matching products to see a list of matching products, including each product's image, title, vendor, type, and status. Click Preview on any product to open its storefront page.

The Preview matching products dialog listing the products an automatic rule catches
Check an automatic rule against your real catalog before saving.

View in Store

View in Store in the builder header opens a real product page on your storefront where the option set is applied.

This is the most accurate way to test your option set. Use it to check:

  • the widget's position within your theme

  • how it looks with your theme's fonts and colors

  • variant-based conditional logic

  • the actual add-to-cart flow and what is added to the cart

For View in Store to work, the option set must be Active, published to the Online Store, and the app embed must be enabled.

When the preview switches itself off

The live preview is disabled for very large option sets. The app counts each option, with each value in a selection option counted separately, and stops rendering the preview when the total reaches around 100.

This is intentional. Rendering hundreds of swatches on every keystroke would slow down the builder and make it difficult to use. Your option set will still save and work normally on the storefront — only the in-app preview is disabled.

If this happens, either split the option set into two smaller sets or test it using View in Store.

Last updated

Was this helpful?