Content Management/Item approval

Question

Hello everybody,
now after that I've read a lot in this forum about how to allow users to add items to a region and about applying approval mechanisms, I still don't understand the following:
1.) Is it true that the only way to enable users to add items is to place an "edit" link on my page which switches the WHOLE page to edit mode? I.e. is there no other way to get some "add item" button (I mean: other ways than re-implementing whole PL/SQL packages!)
2.) If this is really the only way: How can I configure my page in a way that, in "edit view", the "add item" button will only be available for a certain region, but not for ALL regions? I already unchecked the checkbox "allow users to add content to this region" for all other reasons, but still I see edit buttons in all regions.
Thanks for any help,
Eckhard

Answer 1

To go along with Mark's suggestion #2 ... I created this sample DB procedure to recreate the URL that gets called to add an item if you were in edit mode (and fixed the looplink url to take you back to view mode)
steps:
1) create the procedure in the DB & grant execute access
2) create a custom item type = additem
3) go to the Procedure tab for your new item type and call the pl/sql procedure.
Ensure the Display Procedure Results With Item checkbox is checked
The Pass attributes as parameters section should be as follows:
Item Id = p_itemid
Page Id = p_pageid
Page Group = p_siteid
Whatever region an item of this type is placed in - it will dynamically figure out what that regions "Add Item" URL should be and calls it. (ensure the region shows the "associated functions" attribute)
Please note that Oracle could possibly change the format of the URL used to add items in future versions - so this may break with upgrades. (i have tried this code with versions 9.0.4 and 10.1.2)
Create or Replace Procedure <schema>.ADDITEM_URL
p_itemid IN VARCHAR2,
p_pageid IN VARCHAR2,
p_siteid IN VARCHAR2)
as
v_url varchar2(2000);
v_region varchar2(2000);
v_looplink varchar2(2000);
v_host varchar2(2000);
begin
select folder_region_id into v_region
from portal.wwsbr_all_items
where id = p_itemid and
caid = p_siteid;
if instr(portal.wwctx_api.get_host, ':') = 0 then
v_host := portal.wwctx_api.get_host;
else
v_host := substr(portal.wwctx_api.get_host,
1,
(instr(portal.wwctx_api.get_host, ':')-1))
|| '%3A'
|| substr(portal.wwctx_api.get_host,
(instr(portal.wwctx_api.get_host, ':')+1));
end if;
v_looplink := 'http%3A%2F%2F'
|| v_host
|| '%2Fportal%2Fpage%3F_pageid%3D'
|| p_siteid
|| '%2C'
|| p_pageid
|| '%26_dad%3D'
|| portal.wwctx_api.get_dad_name
|| '%26_schema%3D'
|| portal.wwctx_api.get_product_schema
|| '&p_containerpageid='
|| p_pageid;
v_url := portal.wwctx_api.get_base_url
|| 'portal.wwv_additem.selectitemtype?'
|| 'p_cornerid=' || p_pageid
|| '&p_siteid=' || p_siteid
|| '&p_regionid=' || v_region
|| '&p_looplink=' || v_looplink;
htp.p('<a href="' || v_url || "><img src="/images/additem.gif"</a>');
exception
when others then
htp.p('error');
end;
PS - if you run your portal in HTTPS mode you will need to chage the string HTTP to HTTPS in the procedure.