Pieces of the puzzle

First of all, you obviously need Zope and Plone. You're recommended to use the latest versions (but check the requirements for "EnSimpleStaging":/products/ensimplestaging as well). See the "set-up from source how-to":/documentation/how-to/setup-from-source for more information.

Secondly, you need to run a web server in front of Zope. This is a good idea for performance and security reasons. In this case, we also need to be able to server Zope on two different URLs, to differentiate between the authoring and public environments. The "Plone and Apache tutorial":/documentation/tutorial/plone-apache covers the basics of setting up Apache. Details about setting up Zope behind Apache on Windows can be found in "this tutorial":/documentation/tutorial/multiple-plone-instances-windows. We will cover some configuration of Apache and IIS, and the access rule that changes to the "retail view" when you access your site over the public URL in the subsequent pages.

With the servers in place, you will need to set up a basic Plone instance and install "EnSimpleStaging":/products/ensimplestaging. This is the tool that manages the deployment of content from the authoring environment into the public site. We will cover how to configure this shortly.

The "retail view" of your site needs to be a separate plone theme (aka skin). See the "DIYPloneStyle product":/products/diyplonestyle and "tutorial":/documentation/tutorial/creating-custom-style for details on how to create separate theme. As mentioned before, you probably don't to worry about themeing any part of the editing environment, which significantly simplifies your theme and frees your from many of Plone's UI comitments and complexities. It's probably a good idea to start with a simple theme and not spend too much time tweaking it before you've seen how the staged approach works and decided it's right for you (of course, you would probably need a custom skin for an in-place scenario as well, but the approach you take to making such a theme may be different).

You should of course also install any add-on products you want to use. Later, we will discover that not every type of content works well with staging. For example, it makes little sense to stage an issue tracker or a job board. You can, however, add such content directly to the public site.