testwise - 07 June 2011 12:37 AM

It means I can’t make fields required, which is problematic.

Yeah this is my biggest issue.  I have eight channels that all share common fields but also have their own unique fields.

Rather than create eight channel_body fields for example, it’s much easier to have one global field group.  The overhead to maintain separate field groups and templates would be too much.

Like testwise above, I have to rely on authors following the field instructions when I state “required” as I can’t tag some fields as required if they’re not required in all channels.

See this thread on the EllisLab site http://ellislab.com/feedback/entry/channel_groups/

Please vote

We started in 2005 with EE 1.5.2, a very large site [60 classic subdomains], with only 2 “weblogs” with a robust # of fields and custom php code that emulated many of the currently available add-ons.  Like many using EE back then, we had to be disciplined because of the inherent field limitations issue, but we weren’t particularly limited in the final product.  It’s still best to keep things lean.  The third-party add-ons have been phenomenal for us.  I’d highly recommend Laisvunas’ Page Type Switcher http://devot-ee.com/ as a way to retain leanness. Chris

I want to add my vote for this feature. I have a site running on EE 1.x that uses Gypsy to prevent an explosion of duplicate fields across channels. Upgrading to EE 2 would be an absolute nightmare, so that’s not going to be an option until fields can be cut loose from their groups. I’ve already got hundreds of fields, and without Gypsy I’d have to create hundreds more.

I remember a post from several years ago on these forums where someone was talking about having hundreds of fields, and the reply from an EE team member was something like “why would you want so many fields?”. That absolutely floored me. It seems that this thinking is what saddled EE with the inflexible field groups.

Reality is that EE 1x is phased out, so if you intend to upgrade it’s wise to upgrade to 2.4 sooner than later, no matter how time intensive.  In EE2x, there is an add-on to handle this:

Field Editor http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/field-editor $10
Rather than laboriously clicking and editing each and every channel field or clicking and clicking and clicking to add new fields to a channel, you can now add, delete, re-order and manipulate your custom fields all in one simple interface.

Good luck with your projects!

I’m not intending to upgrade, because it would be an enormous effort for little gain. EE 1.x does the job for my client, so I don’t see any pressing need to upgrade. The site was created in 2010, so it would be hard to justify the cost of upgrading so soon. If it was possible to decouple fields from field groups I might reconsider.

I’ve done other sites in EE 2.x, but the problem of field groups remains.