Limit the number of available/visible Content Types in document libraries

Question

Users seems to have a hard time picking the right document template when the "New" list contains a lot of items.

Rather then displaying 50 items in the "new" dropdown list I am looking for a solution that will only show the documents which is relevant at the moment. I have a "Life cycle" choice field in another list and only a subset of documents should be visible as per the value of that choice field. My question is whether there is a good reason not to set the Hidden property on each item when the value of "Life cycle" changes.

The suggestions on SharePointOverflow points to a JQuery-based approach where I tends to like a Event Receiver approach ( Iterate through the content types in the document library when the value of the "Life Cycle" field is changed).

What do you prefer and why?

Answer 1

A possible approach would be to use folders within your document library. Each folder can have different associated content types - meaning when inside this subfolder, the New Item menu shows only those associated CTs. You can still view the entire document library as a flat container if you wish by configuring a view to do this. Users could choose which folder (possibly named after the category of CTs you wish to group there)

-Oisin