TypePad Post Dating Oddity

This isn't one of those great hacks posts where you learn something you have to go out and try right away.  It's sort of TypePad minutiae - little, miscellaneous stuff. 

A client called and asked why he couldn't pick a date and time to have his post published.  I didn't know the answer, I'm afraid to admit.  So I logged on to my account and tested.  It worked just fine with a blog created on my own account.

But then I flipped over to the TypePad Hacks blog link within my account.  I am listed as a guest author here.   Sure enough, there is no "Publish On" option in the Posting Status dropdown.

I thought, "Maybe only the publisher of the blog can modify the post date and time?"  It's plausible.  Maybe you don't want your authors to have the ability to modify post dates and times for fear of having them keep their posts more current and more visible than they might ordinarily be.

But that's not the case.  It's either an awkward TypePad design flaw or is done intentionally for a reason I can't figure out, but if you publish your post as a draft, you'll then have the option to control the publishing date and time by using the clock icon and the date/time link next to it.

This only seems to happen when you are a posting on a blog that you have not created on your TypePad account.

Like I said, it's TypePad minutiae.

Comments

[Posted: Apr 14, 2008 4:23:57 PM]

Hi David,
I've just found this blog and am pleased to find somewhere which tries to address the many 'TypePad minutiae' :)

I remote post to my blogs via Qumana (and I am the only author on most of them) and was horrified to find that blog posts I had set up for weeks ahead had actually all been published! And, like you, I found the only ways around this was to either:
(a) leave the post in the Qumana dashboard until the date I wanted to post it (not that helpful when you are away from your pc but want your blog updated, or
(b) configure all my posts as 'draft', which then entails going in to my TypePad account and publishing the posts on the day (a slightly better option, if I can get to a pc...).

I would love to be able to find a more helpful solution...

[Posted: Apr 22, 2008 4:30:33 PM]

Hi,
I don't have a publish On option at all and I am the owner/publisher of my blog. I didn't even realize it existed until I read your blog (thanks!). I contacted customer service about the Draft issue because i am experiencing that as well. If I set something as Draft, then I can set a date. Otherwise, I don't get the date option. I had contacted them previously and all they did was tell me I should be able to set a date so I now sent them a link to this article as well. Your site is very helpful!

[Posted: May 12, 2008 3:45:30 PM]

I have the same issue as zani, except i use MarsEdit as my offline editor. Thank goodness i only tried it with one post; i would hate to have had to deal with his/her situation of weeks' worth.

Any ideas on this, or is it something we probably just have to live with?

[Posted: May 12, 2008 4:57:25 PM]

Scheduling posts for future dates should work on Plus and Pro accounts.

When I get a moment, I'll test it out.

[Posted: May 14, 2008 9:14:49 AM]

David,

Not sure to whom you were responding, but i don't think the issue zani and i are having is a case of scheduling future posts from the Typepad site not working (although i don't think i have tested this; can't remember). It rather seems that the future times and dates attached using an offline blog editor don't work correctly.

[Posted: May 14, 2008 12:08:30 PM]

Judy:

Any offline editor just creates entries in your TypePad account via the ATOM API, including the "post on" date and time, unless there is a separate scheduling function within the editor.

I was merely pointing out that I would test the TypePad side to verify it worked. If I get the time, I'll also write a little program to test creating posts for future dates via the API.

If setting the post date for the future directly through TypePad does not work, we don't need to look any further. If it does work, then trying the same thing through the API will tell us if it is the API that is causing the problem. If that works, then it must be the offline editor that is causing the issue.

Since there are reports that two different editors are causing the same problem, it would seem that the issue is either with TypePad in general or TypePad's implementation of the ATOM API, or perhaps the API itself. Someone out there has already looked at this, I'm sure, but I'm interested in it as an academic exercise.

Hope that clarifies my thought process, which sometimes jumps ahead a bit without laying the foundation.

[Posted: May 19, 2008 4:48:22 AM]

David,

Fair enough :)

I just tested posting in the future directly through TypePad, and it worked. So, the issue is probably somewhere in the API?

[Posted: May 20, 2008 9:39:36 AM]

I don't think this works for guest authors. It seems that even though they change the date, it will still publish as soon as they click Save. That's what my wife is telling me happened to her.

[Posted: May 22, 2008 12:33:51 PM]

I ran into this problem when I began creating multiple blogs under my primary account and inviting writers to be the primary author. Unfortunately, the only author invite options are "guest" and "junior" and anyone who has an account under those classifications do not have the "publish on" option.

I contacted TypePad tech support about this and they confirmed that only primary account owners are allowed the "publish on" option. I wish this wasn't the case and it seems like a no-brainer for TypePad to make these changes but no sign that will change anytime soon.