Open the full CMS

Updated August 6, 2026 · 3 min

The editor is deliberately shallow — it’s built for quick visual changes, not for running the business day to day. A card at the top of the Sections tab is the door to the real thing.
  1. Find the “This is the quick editor” card

    At the top of the Sections tab sits a card labeled "This is the quick editor." It exists so the editor never feels like the whole product — the invitation into the full CMS sits in plain view instead of buried in a menu.

  2. Know what lives where

    The editor is great for headlines, cards, and colors. Your CMS is where the business actually runs — it's where you add pages and blog posts, build out your menu, products, or bookings, manage customers and orders, and set up SEO. If you can't find a setting in the editor, it's almost certainly in the CMS instead.

  3. Open my CMS

    Click "Open my CMS" on the card to open theDavid admin in a new tab — the same dashboard our agency clients run their businesses on. The button reads "Opening your CMS…" while it loads.

  4. Publish first if the CMS won’t open

    A site that hasn't been published yet doesn't have a full CMS to open — clicking the button shows "Publish your site to unlock the full CMS" instead. Publishing is the only thing that unlocks it; once your site is live, the same button opens the real thing.

    Note

    Publishing is a plan step covered in its own guide — see “Publish your site” for what changes when you go live.
  5. Keep the editor’s preview in sync

    The editor and the CMS write to the same pages, so a change made in the CMS won't show up in the editor's preview until it refreshes. Click "Edited in the CMS? Refresh this preview," underneath the "Open my CMS" button, to pull the latest content back in — it reads "Refreshing…" while it works.

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