Three different statuses - sort each status differently

Question

I have a three different statuses displaying within one main channel entries wrapper. I would like the first status to be ordered randomly, and the other two statuses will be sorted alphabetically by title. The code below obviously does not work, but it conveys what we are looking for. Can anyone help with this?

{exp:channel:entries status="1|2|3" channel="listing" limit="15"}
{if status == "1" orderby="random"}
   Entries here
{if:elseif status == "2" orderby="title" sort="asc"}
   Entries here
{if:else orderby="title" sort="asc"}
   Entries here
{/exp:channel:entries}

Answer 1

If you don't mind using Stash, you could achieve it that way.

The idea is that you output all the channel entries once, and not worry about the order.
You 'stash' the appropriate fields inside a list, where you will retrieve it later.

{exp:stash:set_list name="my_listing" parse_tags="yes"}
  {exp:channel:entries status="1|2|3" ...}
    {stash:the_title}{title}{/stash:the_title}
    {stash:the_status}{status}{/stash:the_status}
  {/exp:channel:entries}
{/exp:stash:set_list}

Then later in your template, you would retrieve them in the appropriate order.

<ul>

{exp:stash:get_list name="my_listing" match="#1#" against="the_status" orderby="random"}
  <li>{title}</li>
{/exp:stash:get_list}

{exp:stash:get_list name="my_listing" match="#2#" against="the_status" orderby="the_title" sort="asc"}
  <li>{title}</li>
{/exp:stash:get_list}

{exp:stash:get_list name="my_listing" match="#3#" against="the_status" orderby="the_title" sort="asc"}
  <li>{title}</li>
{/exp:stash:get_list}

</ul>

The match and against parameters allow you to retrieve a filtered version of your listing. (match is a regular expression)

(I've prepended the stash variables with the_ so you don't confuse them with the channel entries variables. They could be whatever you want.)

Answer 2

You could use Stash by Mark Croxton to accomplish that without multiple channel entries loops. Here is the kind of code I would use with the dev branch of Stash.

{exp:stash:set_list name="mylistname" parse_tags="yes"}
    {exp:channel:entries status="1|2|3" channel="listing" orderby="random" dynamic="no" limit="15"}
        {stash:st_title}{title}{/stash:st_title}
        {stash:st_status}{status}{/stash:st_status}
    {/exp:channel:entries}
{/exp:stash:set_list}

{!-- get status 1 entries randomly ordered --}
{exp:stash:get_list name="mylistname" match="#^1$#" against="st_status"}
    {st_title}
{/exp:stash:get_list}

{!-- get status 2 entries ordered by title asc --}
{exp:stash:get_list name="mylistname" match="#^2$#" against="st_status" orderby="st_title" sort="asc"}
    {st_title}
{/exp:stash:get_list}

{!-- get status 3 entries ordered by title asc --}
{exp:stash:get_list name="mylistname" match="#^3$#" against="st_status" orderby="st_title" sort="asc"}
    {st_title}
{/exp:stash:get_list}

That way you just use one channel entries loop to get all your entries in random order and build a stash list, then use multiple stash get_list to filter and order that list the way you want.

Hope it helps

EDIT see comment below.

You want a paginated list of all your 10000 entries, ordered by status (all entries from status one, then all from status 2, etc.) ... but you also want the entries from status 1 to be ordered randomly and the other two ordered by title.

(partial) solution 1: native tags

You can orderby status and then by title using native tags.

{exp:channel:entries status="1|2|3" channel="listing" orderby="status|title" sort="asc|asc" dynamic="no" limit="15"}
    {title}
{/exp:channel:entries}

The remaining problem is ordering the status 1 entries randomly.

Solution 2: custom plugin

You could also look at extending the channel:entries module. Here is an article detailing the process. Obviously you will need to adapt it to your needs.