Hi,

I have functionality which will allow an editor to publish items and have them displayed in date order by the published date not by the created date

So if I have 3 items which where created on the same day but set to different publishing times as such

Item 1 - date( 1st May 2015) Item 2 - date (1st June 2015) item 3 date (1st July 2015)

they would display as:

item 3 date (1st July 2015) Item 2 - date (1st June 2015) Item 1 - date( 1st May 2015)

In order to try and achieve this I have created a custom date time picker property named publicationDate

Code So Far

<ul>
    @{

        var Nodes = Model.Content.Children();

       foreach (var Page in Nodes.Skip((CurrentPageNumber - 1) * PageSize).Take(PageSize).OrderByDescending(x => x.GetPropertyValue("publicationDate")))
        {

            if (Page.DocumentTypeAlias == "Video")
            {
                if (Page.HasValue("heading") &&
                    Page.HasValue("posterImage"))
                {
                    <li class="autoHeight">
                        <a href="@Page.Url">
                            <img class="autoHeight" src="@Umbraco.TypedMedia(Page.GetPropertyValue("posterImage")).Url" alt="@Page.GetPropertyValue("heading") news image" />
                            <p>
                                @Page.GetPropertyValue("heading")                                   
                            </p>
                        </a>
                    </li>
                }
            }
            else //treat as standard photo grid page
            {
                if (Page.HasValue("bannerimage") &&
                    Page.HasValue("bodyTextHeading") &&
                    Page.HasValue("bannerheading"))
                {
                    <li class="autoHeight">
                        <a href="@Page.Url">
                            <img srcset="@Page.GetCropUrl("bannerimage", "thumb")" alt="Banner Image" />
                            <p>
                                @Page.GetPropertyValue("bannerheading")
                                @if (Page.HasValue("subHeading"))
                                {
                                    <br />
                                    @Page.GetPropertyValue("bodyTextHeading")
                                }
                            </p>
                        </a>
                    </li>
                }
            }
        }
    }
</ul>

The Main Issue

If an editor sets any of the items to be published at a date ahead of the current date such as

Item 4 - date( 30th Oct 2015)

When that day approaches the item wont be automatically published

The editor can still set the publish at date but once that item has been published it wont be displayed in the correct order since my code is setting all items by the custom publication date.

I've done a search and cant find a way to set the publish at date, could anyone offer a way to fix this?

One way I was looking to solve this issue was that, if the user has set the publish at date, once that date has arrived and the item has been published then set that date to my custom date property if this is possible.

Ideally thought the best thing would be to be able to set my custom property to act the same way as the publish at date if it's set ahead of the current date and automatically publish.

Thank for any suggestions / help