Ability to access Disabled Section with Direct Link

[Dmitry A.]

Hi everyone,

Often these days we need to have an ability to access a disabled Section or Category Item on the Front-end without having it shown in the list among other Enabled Sections or Category Items.

There is a beautiful solution that Google Picasa has for this - Direct URL which contains some "key" for authenticating the user and showing him hidden by default content.

Example:

https://picasaweb.google.com/dandrejev/MaksikGitara?authkey=Gv1sRgCJeZqfiPxL271

I propose we implement the same for Section (later for Category Items).

Interface:

1. If Status is Pending or Disabled we show a new "Access with Link" field right after (below) that Status field
2. New "Access with Link" field will have a Check-box (enabled by default) and a Label field (which can be copied) with full URL to that Section.

Functionality:

1. We would need to have 2 new DB fields ( in Categories table (and later for Category Items) to store the Status and the Authentication Key. I suggest calling them as AllowAccessWithLink and AuthKey, but I am insisting on these names.

2. Let's use some random Alpha-numeric (case sensitive) algorithms (nothing fancy) to generate (automatically) and save this keys. Keys will NOT change! Suggested length 15-20 chars.

3. One of hard questions is - which of the URLs to show:
a. with ModRewrite or without - I believe it should be based on current website settings
b. which language - default one for Front-end

4. Need to make sure if In-Portal performs a URL redirect due to forcing the HTML URL when user visits without one we need to keep AuthKey in URL as well.


I know we might need todo some changes in the ModRewrite and Caching part, but I strongly believe it's a MUST for us to have this.

Cheers!

DA

[Alexander Obuhovich]

It's like Picasa album functionality (https://picasaweb.google.com/aik.bold/Blogger?authkey=Gv1sRgCP7qwrLcyYmq2gE#), where you can give access to private album with a direct link.

From technical viewpoint it will be pretty easy to implement:

1. create 2 fields in a Category table: DirectLinkEnabled (Yes/No) and DirectLinkAuthKey
2. when someone enables direct link functionality (on category/section editing page), then
• random alpha-numeric string will be generated and stored in category/section record
• link to that page with freshly generated authentication key will be displayed
3. in checkItemStatus method (where check is made to prevent viewing Pending/Disabled categories/sections) also check is authentication key is present in url and it matches one from current category/section record
4. if all matches, then show category/section and don't redirect to "no permission" page as usual in this case

If there will be a need, then such approach could be applied to any category item or any page on the site.

--
Best Regards,

http://www.in-portal.com
http://www.alex-time.com

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Dmitry do you have task created for this functionality?

[Dmitry A.]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for looking at this. Here is a new task for this feature:

1050: Ability to access Disabled Section with Direct Link

http://tracker.in-portal.org/view.php?id=1050

DA

[Dmitry A.]

Hi guys,

Looks like I have found a bug in this functionality (committed to In-Portal 5.2.0 branch).

Access URL gets some junk (ie. admin=1 and so on) if Section is accessed via Content Mode (clicked Section Properties) see "Access-WithLink-URL-2011-07-22_1441.png".

Not major issue, but needs to be fixed.

DA

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

good catch

2011/7/22 Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com>

[Dmitry A.]

Here is a patch for this issue - provided by Alex.

Patch is tested successfully!

DA

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

nice :)

2011/9/12 Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com>

[Dmitry A.]

Looks like we have a little bug/issue with this functionality.

In some rare cases (but possible) we can have Admin installed on separate sub-domain or location then main website. Current newly developed here functionality would use that sub-domain and NOT URL/domain of the main website.

Example

Front-end - http://www.google.com

Admin - https://admin.google.com

In result link to https://admin.google.com/section.html?index_file=index.php&authkey=bc26a01bff42831998c8 

while should have been

http://www.google.com/section.html?index_file=index.php&authkey=bc26a01bff42831998c8  

Also, who don't we do similar for all Category Items (links, articles, topics) - simple and useful, what you think?

DA

[Phil]

I think it could be useful, as it'd let admin subdomain unknown from people who are receiving the direct link.

Envoyé avec Sparrow

[Alexander Obuhovich]

What about site-domains? If administrator would also login to that different domain then we have no other choice but to always build link to primary website domain from config.php file.

[Dmitry A.]

Hi Alex,

Yes, good point, but I think we can draw a line here and have ONLY Primary domain which is specified in config.php

One other idea is to have s drop-down with sub-domains next to the actual field or something, but I personally don't think it's necessary at this point.

DA

[Dmitry A.]

PING

[Alexander Obuhovich]

I've created a separate task http://tracker.in-portal.org/view.php?id=1311 for fixing that issue.

On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 7:27 PM, Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com> wrote:

PING

[Alexander Obuhovich]

Here is patch with a fix, ready for testing.