site maintenance - how i can?

[Carlos]

This is how I think it could be:

- A setting for maintenance mode in the backend.

- themes/maintenance/template.php : a clean html page with no GS tags. To be customized by the webmaster.

If enabled, frontend site checks if authenticated user: if logged in, render pages with normal selected theme. If not, use maintenance theme (if available -- if not, a small hardcoded default message/page).

The backend could show a "maintenance mode" notice (just like "debug mode"). The frontend could also add some notice (maybe before the content) so that the webmaster doesn't forget to disable maint mode. :-) And/or else have some expiry option.