Web Preview Resources

Drop in a zipped HTML export — from Stitch, Pencil, a landing-page builder, a static site generator, anywhere — and ClientCove renders it as a live preview your clients can resize, page through, and comment on. No hosting to arrange, no staging link to keep alive.

What a Web Preview Is

A resource type, like a file or a gallery. You set Resource Type to Web Preview and upload a zip; ClientCove extracts it, works out what kind of design it is, and serves it inside a sandboxed frame on the resource page.

Everything else a resource does still applies — folders, client scoping, sharing, tags, the activity log. A web preview is a resource that happens to render a design.

Uploading a Design

In edit mode, the Web Preview panel has a drop zone. Drag a .zip onto it or click to browse.

Under 10 MB processes immediately — the panel goes from Processing to Ready while you watch.
Larger than that is handed to a background job. The panel polls and updates itself; you can leave the page.

Two limits worth knowing before a big upload:

The zip must fit inside your server's upload size. If it doesn't, the error says so and names the limit — that one is your host's setting, not ClientCove's.
Only the zip is stored as an original. Everything inside it is extracted to cloud storage and served from there.

What Gets Detected

ClientCove looks at the zip's structure and classifies it. The panel shows what it decided, and that decision drives what viewers get:

Detected	What it means	How it renders
Single HTML	One HTML file at the top level	That page, with viewport toggles
Multi-screen	Two or more HTML files at the top level	Each one a screen, with a switcher
Static Site Build	No HTML at the top, but a build folder has `index.html` — `dist/`, `build/`, `_site/`, `public/`, `out/`	The build's entry page
Generic Zip	Nothing recognisable to render	Download only, no preview

If the detection is wrong, it is almost always the zip's shape rather than a bug — an export nested one folder deeper than expected, most often. Re-zipping from inside the folder usually fixes it.

What Viewers See

The preview sits on the resource page with a toolbar:

Mobile / Tablet / Desktop / Fit — resize the frame. Mobile is 390 × 844, Tablet 820 × 1180, Desktop 1440 × 900, and Fit fills whatever space the page gives it.
Open — the design in its own tab, outside the frame.
Copy — the design's direct link.
Sandboxed — a note, not a button. The design runs isolated from the portal: it cannot read the page around it or reach your session.
Download full zip — the original, as uploaded.
Screen tabs, on a multi-screen design, to move between pages.

The resource's description shows below the preview, so you can caption a design, explain what changed, or leave review notes without touching the design itself.

Default Viewport and Entry Screen

Two settings in the edit panel, both saving the moment you change them:

Default viewport — which size the preview opens at. Viewers can still switch; this is just the first impression. Show a responsive design at Mobile if that is the story you want told first.
Entry screen — which page loads first, on multi-screen designs. The default is whatever the detector picked, usually index.html.

Managing Screens

Multi-screen designs list every screen in the edit panel, with the one that opens first marked. Each row has a delete button.

Deleting a screen removes its HTML file and drops it from the preview. Worth knowing before you do:

Shared images, CSS and scripts stay. The remaining screens are still using them, and nothing records which screen pulled in what — so removing them would be guesswork that breaks the pages you kept.
Deleting the screen that opens first moves that to whichever screen is now first, and tells you which one.
The last screen cannot be deleted. A preview with no screens is not a preview — use Remove it instead, which also frees the storage.

Deleting a screen cannot be undone from the portal. The screen is in your original zip, so re-uploading brings it back — along with everything else.

The Download Button

By default a web preview offers viewers the original zip — the file you uploaded, exactly as uploaded. Sometimes that is the point. Sometimes you want a client to review a design without walking away with the source.

Offer the original zip for download, in the edit panel, controls it. Turn it off and the download buttons disappear; the preview itself is untouched, so viewers can still page through screens and resize it.

The same switch is on Design Import and Ad Group resources.

It does not make the file private. The zip is stored at a public address, so anyone who already has that link — from an earlier visit, a copied URL, a browser history entry — can still fetch it. The switch stops the ordinary route; it does not revoke access to a link already in circulation. If a design genuinely must not leave, do not upload it as a web preview.

Downloads stay on for every existing resource, and stay on until you turn one off.

Replacing the Design

The Replace Design Zip drop zone takes a new zip for an existing preview.

This deletes every file currently in storage for this preview and replaces it with the new package. The resource itself — title, description, folder, client, tags, share links, activity — is untouched. Only the design changes.

That is the right move for a new revision. It is the wrong move if you wanted a second version alongside the first; make a new resource for that.