Ideas Class

Namespace

System

Usage

Ideas is a zone of users who post, vote for, and comment on ideas. An Ideas zone provides an online, transparent way for you to attract, manage, and showcase innovation.

A set of recent replies (returned by methods, see below) includes ideas that a user posted or commented on that already have comments posted by another user. The returned ideas are listed based on the time of the last comment made by another user, with the most recent ideas appearing first.

The userID argument is a required argument that filters the results so only the ideas that the specified user has posted or commented on are returned.

The communityID argument filters the results so only the ideas within the specified zone are returned. If this argument is the empty string, then all recent replies for the specified user are returned regardless of the zone.

For more information on ideas, see “Using Ideas” in the Salesforce online help.

Example

public class FindSimilarIdeasController {

   public static void test() {
      // Instantiate a new idea 
      Idea idea = new Idea ();

      // Specify a title for the new idea
      idea.Title = 'Increase Vacation Time for Employees';

      // Specify the communityID (INTERNAL_IDEAS) in which to find similar ideas. 
      Community community = [ SELECT Id FROM Community WHERE Name = 'INTERNAL_IDEAS' ];

      idea.CommunityId = community.Id;

      ID[] results = Ideas.findSimilar(idea);
   }
}

The following example uses a Visualforce page in conjunction with a custom controller, that is, a special Apex class. For more information on Visualforce, see the Visualforce Developer's Guide.

This example creates an Apex method in the controller that returns unread recent replies. You can leverage this same example for the getAllRecentReplies and getReadRecentReplies methods. For this example to work, there must be ideas posted to the zone. In addition, at least one zone member must have posted a comment to another zone member's idea or comment.

// Create an Apex method to retrieve the recent replies marked as unread in all communities
public class IdeasController {

   public Idea[] getUnreadRecentReplies() {
       Idea[] recentReplies;
       if (recentReplies == null) {
           Id[] recentRepliesIds = Ideas.getUnreadRecentReplies(UserInfo.getUserId(), '');
           recentReplies = [SELECT Id, Title FROM Idea WHERE Id IN :recentRepliesIds];
       }
       return recentReplies;                                                                      
  }

}

The following is the markup for a Visualforce page that uses the above custom controller to list unread recent replies.

<apex:page controller="IdeasController" showHeader="false">
    <apex:dataList value="{!unreadRecentReplies}" var="recentReplyIdea">
           <a href="/apex/viewIdea?id={!recentReplyIdea.Id}">
                 <apex:outputText value="{!recentReplyIdea.Title}" escape="true"/></a>
     </apex:dataList>             
</apex:page>

The following example uses a Visualforce page in conjunction with a custom controller to list ideas. Then, a second Visualforce page and custom controller is used to display a specific idea and mark it as read. For this example to work, there must be ideas posted to the zone.

// Create a controller to use on a VisualForce page to list ideas
public class IdeaListController {

    public final Idea[] ideas {get; private set;}

    public IdeaListController() {
        Integer i = 0;
        ideas = new Idea[10];
        for (Idea tmp : Database.query
('SELECT Id, Title FROM Idea WHERE Id != null AND parentIdeaId = null LIMIT 10')) {
            i++;
            ideas.add(tmp);
        }
    }
}

The following is the markup for a Visualforce page that uses the above custom controller to list ideas:

<apex:page controller="IdeaListController" tabStyle="Idea" showHeader="false">

        <apex:dataList value="{!ideas}" var="idea" id="ideaList">
            <a href="/apex/viewIdea?id={!idea.id}">
<apex:outputText value="{!idea.title}" escape="true"/></a>                       
        </apex:dataList>

</apex:page>

The following example also uses a Visualforce page and custom controller, this time, to display the idea that is selected on the above idea list page. In this example, the markRead method marks the selected idea and associated comments as read by the user that is currently logged in. Note that the markRead method is in the constructor so that the idea is marked read immediately when the user goes to a page that uses this controller. For this example to work, there must be ideas posted to the zone. In addition, at least one zone member must have posted a comment to another zone member's idea or comment.

// Create an Apex method in the controller that marks all comments as read for the 
// selected idea
public class ViewIdeaController {

   private final String id = System.currentPage().getParameters().get('id');

   public ViewIdeaController(ApexPages.StandardController controller) {
                Ideas.markRead(id);
   }

}

The following is the markup for a Visualforce page that uses the above custom controller to display the idea as read.

<apex:page standardController="Idea" extensions="ViewIdeaController" showHeader="false">
   
     <h2><apex:outputText value="{!idea.title}" /></h2>
     <apex:outputText value="{!idea.body}" />

</apex:page>