Thread

Could someone give me a run-down of what the ‘status’ groups are supposed to accomplish or what purpose they serve?  Maybe a real-world application of a status group in action?

I thought I could just create some custom statuses for a specific purpose for a certain channel, but when I used one, the entry disappeared from the page where I display it, I’m assuming because the status was no longer set to ‘open’?  So I’m obviously missing something regarding the purpose of statuses…

Thanks for any info/clarification…

-Tony

EE will only pull the ‘Open’ status by default. So it sounds like you’re using them correctly just aren’t pulling the correct ones. You can see how to pull your others here:

http://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide//modules/channel/parameters.html#par_status

Sometimes open and closed just isn’t enough for your status needs. For example, when your posting a new article on your site, you might need to stop halfway through because you need to rush out to a meeting so you can’t submit as open because your article isn’t finished yet. You could make it closed but that doesn’t really convey the status of your article being half finished. What you can do is add a status called draft. This then gives you another way to filter your posts so you can quickly find any articles you want to come back to later and continue working with.

You can also create other scenarios like featured, and top story. You can then use these custom statuses to filter your content in your templates too.

By allowing certain member groups access to certain statuses only you can also create workflows easily. Your editors have access to the “Draft” status, say, but it needs to be reviewed by the editor in chief and be set to “Open” before it goes live.

But what if the channel content makes the specific statuses of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ completely meaningless?  Say a channel that is used to enter softball tournament events - you might have a status of ‘scheduled’, ‘postponed’, ‘cancelled’, etc, but ‘open’ or ‘closed’ just doesn’t really apply.

I understand that EE requires these 2 status fields in order to function properly (a short-coming of the framework IMHO, like the requirement of the ‘title’ field whose label you cannot change), but it seems a little presumptuous for the framework to assume that any conceivable channel a user might create would have a use for statuses labeled ‘open’ or ‘closed’, and that the only way - by default - to actually publish an entry from that channel is for its status to be set to ‘open’.

It’s confusing at best, for anyone who is led to believe that channels can contain any type of information you want, much like a table in a database.  This is where I’m coming from regarding statuses, so I was hoping that I was just misunderstanding their purpose.  Are you saying that EE assumes that I will only create channels that will contain a news post or article of some kind?  Am I supposed to feel free to use channels for ANY type of data (like a db table) that I need?

But what if the channel content makes the specific statuses of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ completely meaningless?

Just don’t use them, then. You don’t have to. “Open” entries will be displayed by default, but if you specify a custom status in your templates (or a list of them), that’s just as well.

... that the only way - by default - to actually publish an entry from that channel is for its status to be set to ‘open’.

“By default” is the kicker here. Just specify whatever custom status(es) you wish in your templates.

Are you saying that EE assumes that I will only create channels that will contain a news post or article of some kind?

No, there are no restrictions of that kind.

Cool.  So it’s just a case where EE tried to make something easier for the majority of folks, but it ends up being a minor annoyance when the assumption is invalid.  I can work with that.

Is there a way to change the default status assigned to an entry (when it’s created) from ‘open’ to one of your own custom statuses?

Hi Tony,

Yes you can set a default status in Weblog/Channel Preferences > Admin preferences.

Hi Tony. Here’s an example I was about to implement for a client: we had four random items from their portfolio showing up on their homepage, but they were thinking about having greater control so that they could specify exactly which items show up on the homepage.

So what I would have done was to create a new status group, with another status being something like “Home” and in my template I would show all entries with the status of “Home”. This way all they need to do to ensure an item shows up on the homepage is to change the status to “Home”. Changing status to/away from home would then easily allow them to control what shows up there.

Hope this makes sense.

Hi Tony, I have utilised an additional status for my portfolio section. I have the standard “Open” & “Closed” and I created a “Featured” status, which also adds the entry to the homepage as well as the portfolio template. So my homepage template only displays items with a status of “Featured”, yet the portfolio template displays both “Open” & “Featured” items.

I hope that makes sense, and helps.

Yep that’s exactly what I had had in mind! It makes perfect use of custom statuses, good job.