Published vs Private

Modified on Wed, 13 May 2020 at 04:05 PM

If your asking the question why can't I see content of an item when I'm not logged in, but I can when I'm logged in. This article


Publication States


Ploud currently allows three different publication states. When any content item (Page, Event, Folder, etc) is first created, it is created in the Private state. 


  1. Published - Anyone who can access the site can see this content item, even if they are not logged in.
  2. Private - Only logged-in users can see this content item.
  3. Staff Only - Only logged-in users who belong to a Staff role can see this content item.


NOTE: items of the content types File and Image do NOT have Publication States, and so they inherit the state of their container. What this means is that if an Image is placed in a Folder that is Private, the Image will act as though it is Private - in other words, anonymous (non-logged-in) users will not be able to see it, including when it is used elsewhere on the site. If the Folder containing that Image is then set to Published, the Image will become viewable to all users.


To Change A Content Item's Publication State 

  1. Log into your site.
  2. Navigate to the Folder or content item you would like to change.
  3. In the edit bar at the top of the center content well, on the right side there is a section called State which will tell you whether the item is Published or Private.
  4. If you have rights to change an item's State (this is dependent on the Roles assigned to your user), then click on State to open a menu of publishing options.
  5. Choose the publishing option you would like to move the item into. The item's State will change and the page will refresh to reflect this.
    1. If the item is currently Private then you can change it to Published to make it viewable to all visitors to the site, or to Staff Only to make it visible to logged-in Staff users only.
    2. If the item is currently Published then you can click Hide to change it to Private, meaning that only logged-in users can see it.


Q: When I click on a folder, why does it open a login page instead of the folder?


A: If a folder is Published but the Default View (the page set as the home page for a given folder) is set as Private, you will see the folder in the Navigation menu but will have to log in to access it. If this is not intentional, then the page that is set as the Default View for that folder should be set to Published, or another view for the folder should be used.

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