Ability to access Disabled Section with Direct Link

Imported From: http://groups.google.com/group/in-portal-dev/browse_thread/thread/7e0d1bd9d9613cb6#

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=Gv1sRgCJeZqfiPxL27mwE

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:
   1. with ModRewrite or without - I believe it should be based on current website settings
   2. 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!

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