I just came across a question on StackOverflow about Buckets, so I decided to highlight in my blog, as it it is based on very common misunderstanding of Buckets and their functioning principles. Here's the link to original SO question.
If briefly, a guy asked why having a bucket folder with several items in it, when he tries to add a new item, the one appears in a folder as normal item, not hidden. So every time he adds new item he has to perform Sync on that. So let's go and reproduce the situation by steps.
Prerequisites: I have a folder with some items that I am turning into a bucket (at that stage we assume those Articles 1 - 5 have Bucketable checkbox being set on individual level; if you don't know how to update a checkbox for multiple already existing items - here is the great blog post about mass update field values I wrote about):
At this stage my folder is a bucket, items are not displayed, but are searchable, everything functions as normal.
The issue: Then I try to add a new item called Article 6 into my bucket folder. That item is being created as normal, is diaplyed within a folder, and there is also a notification panel warning about storing unbucketable item within a bucket folder. I believe - that is an issue of person asking a question on StackOverflow (see image below). That new item has normal path as an immediate child of bucket folder (not date-specific as defaults for bucket items path) and looking into Item Buckets sections reveals that Bucketable checkbox is not set. To add this Article 6 item into bucket, one needs to check its Bucketable field and then perform Sync from the Ribbon above.
But why that behavior happens?
Solution: Well, this checkbox isn't set but should be on items creation. How do we get that behavior? Just checking that checkbox in corresponding template's Standard Values. Screenshot below shows Article template that is a data template for all Article items. Standard Values for template are always called as __Standard Values so fields set in that item (with static values or tokens) will be auto pre-set each time and item of that template is being created:
So, as soon we have updated Standard Values with Bucketable checked, we try to create another article (of the same template, for sure), we logically call it Article 7. Once created, Article 7 is already bucketable by its Standard Values and is immediately stored in the bucket. There's no need to perform Sync! It also preloads content area right hand side (or you may search for it from Search tab) and if you pay attention to an Item path field - it is being located exactly as specified in (default in our example) bucketing configuration:
Hope this post helps you to understand a concept that is hidden behind the buckets!