What is the best way mark entries as featured?

Question

In quite a few wordpress projects I have a request in which Projects (or other post type) have to be featured in the Portfolio page (or other listing page) instead of the default date sorting lists.

Usually i create a checkbox as a custom field, but then it is not easy to know what projects are marked in the admin edit page.

Creating a category would also be a solution, but I am not sure if it is a good practice to deliver a theme with predefined categories.

I also read about creating a archived post status, so that only 'published' entries would then be featured.

So, what do you think is the best way to achieve this?

Answer 1

OK, after reading Rarst post i went with the taxonomy term option. It was very simple:

1. Just after the register_taxonomy call, i added one line of code wp_insert_term('Featured','filter'); being filter my taxonomy.
2. Then I modified the query in the template, adding the line 'filter' => 'Featured', inside the args.

Now I only see the featured projects in the portfolio page, which was my main goal. Moreover, i can easily list the featured projects in the backend, as well as Quick-edit this option.

UPDATE:

As a side note, if you then wanted to list the categories without the Featured category:

3. Exclude the term by id:

<?php $featured_term = get_term_by('name', 'Featured', 'filter'); $featured_id = $featured_term->term_id; $args = array('taxonomy' => 'filter', 'exclude'=>$featured_id); wp_list_categories($args); ?>

Answer 2

This sounds like stickies, but alas they don't work for custom post types.

I would say if you are already using custom field for it, but not happy with interface then just fix the latter — interface.

You can access custom field in admin just as you can in front end. Use it to make featured status more prominent in a fitting way. For example you could make post list in admin adhere to the same sorting logic, bringing featured to the top and keeping order the same as front end displays it.