How to open index.html instead of index.php?

Question

I am launching a new Q&A website. I have installed it on my web servers. But currently I am testing my website and also uploading some questions. But during this testing period,  I dont want visitors to see my pages, instead they should be shown "website under construction" page. For that I have created index.html file and uploaded in the root. But this is not working. Domain is showing Q&A website. Any help or suggestion ?

Answer 1

You can set a custom main page instead of questions and block access to everything else. It can all be found in the admin panel. I'd advise for adding a subscription box for people who want to be notified when you finally launch it.

Answer 2

In your hosts cPanel you can re-direct to index.html (( mysite.com )) ((mysite,com/index.html)) This will write a re-redirect into your htaccess if your host supports htaccess.

Answer 3

Although parts of site will be displayed, there is method of using maintenance mode.
Admin -> General -> Take site down for temporary maintenance

Words of under maintenance can be changed.
qa-lang-options.php(site_maintenance)

Moreover, if visitors including bots is blocked completely, there is method of using basic authentication.