How to Show Published Articles by Default in Joomla’s Article Manager

Note: The solution described in this post requires you to make a simple modification to a couple of Joomla core files. If you are not comfortable with that, then please contact us (we can do this with a plugin).

If you have been using Joomla for a long time, then you are probably a bit annoyed by the fact that every time you go to the Article Manager (when you first login), you will see both your published and your unpublished articles, and that you will have to select Published from the Status dropdown to see only your published articles (by default, Joomla will show both Published and Unpublished articles).

So, how what can you do to show the published articles by default?

Well, it’s very simple, all you need to do is the following:

  • Open the file filter_articles.xml located under the administrator/components/com_content/models/forms folder.

  • Add the following line:

    default="1"

    Just under:

    name="published"

  • Upload the file back to your Joomla website.

  • Open the file articles.php located under the administrator/components/com_content/models folder.

  • Locate the following line:

    $published = $this->getUserStateFromRequest($this->context . '.filter.published', 'filter_published', '');

    and replace it with the following line:

    $published = $this->getUserStateFromRequest($this->context . '.filter.published', 'filter_published', '1');

  • Upload the file back and presto! The Article Manager in your Joomla’s backend will only display the published articles by default.

As stated in the beginning of the post, this is a core modification (albeit a very simple one), which means that any update to your Joomla website might overwrite it. An alternative to the above (that doesn’t require a modification to the core) is developing a plugin that will inject a default filtering into the Article Manager, but it wouldn’t be that easy and it would require some serious development skills.

If you need help doing the above (or if you want the plugin alternative), then please contact us. We can do it for you in no time and for a super affordable fee. Go ahead, give us a call (we always answer the phone) or shoot us an email!

2 Responses to “How to Show Published Articles by Default in Joomla’s Article Manager”
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  1. Comment by Jorge — July 6, 2015 @ 8:38 am

    Is possible to do this same for modules and menu manager?

  2. Comment by Fadi — July 23, 2015 @ 9:22 pm

    Hi Jorge,

    Interesting question! Yes – it can be done the following way…

    For modules:

    – Open the file administrator/components/com_modules/models
    – Change the following line:
    $state = $this->getUserStateFromRequest($this->context . '.filter.state', 'filter_state', '', 'string');
    to this one:
    $state = $this->getUserStateFromRequest($this->context . '.filter.state', 'filter_state', '1', 'string');

    For menu items:

    – Open the file administrator/components/com_menus/models/items.php
    – Change the following line:
    $published = $this->getUserStateFromRequest($this->context . '.published', 'filter_published', '');
    to this one:
    $published = $this->getUserStateFromRequest($this->context . '.published', 'filter_published', '1');

    Changing the XML files is not critical (but nice to do, since the word “Published” will be selected by default) and that’s why it’s not listed in this comment.

    Please confirm whether the solution in my comment works or not as I haven’t really tested it (but technically it should work)…

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