How to display side-by-side versions

Question

Need to display the last approved Document /w properites (this is what Readers see) to an Administrator (or Approver) with the pending unapproved Document & Properites side-by-side on a single web page.

The problem is Administrators only have access to the pending work, and will never see what a Reader sees OOTB.

Possible workaround to access this last approved document; nothing in the API seems to allows this?  (Assume Versioning is off in the document library; so not an option to look at past versions).

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You can make use of the SPListVersion( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.splistitemversion.aspx ) in SharePoint object model. I have tried the following PowerShell:

 

$web=get-spweb http://yoursharepointsiteurl/

$dl=$web.lists[“Your document library name”]

$item=$dl.items| where {$_["Your document filter column name"] –eq “your document filter column value”}

$currentPublished=$item.versions |where {$_.isCurrentVersion –and $_.Level –eq “Published”}

$currentDraft=$item.versions | where {$_.isCurrentVersion –and $_.Level –ne “Published”}

 

You can then display the value of the document item property with $currentPublished[“thePropertyName”] and $currentDraft[“thePropertyName”]

Answer 2

This will only work with Versioning turned on and then you need too dicker with versions.

When versioning is off; two versions still exists, but the API does not allow access to it without changing the context of the user which is accessing ListItem.

I guess this is a design change to give administrators access the to current published content.  This would be easier then the above querying of versions; which may not be enabled.

With Versioning off, what does $item.versions object contain? Published, Pending, & Draft.

Answer 3

My test result is that when versioning is turn off, I can still get the old versions created when versioning was on;

 

And if content approval is on, two versions still exists: draft version and published version;

 

If you cannot get all these version with API, you may try runwithelevatedprivilage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spsecurity.runwithelevatedprivileges.aspx