How to create an 'Add item' contextual link for views? I like the concept of contextual links in D7 and want to push it a bit further: I want views to have an 'Add item' contextual link, so the site administrator can easily add new items.

Of course I could add an 'Add item' button to the view's footer instead. But I need to show it only to users who have the appropriate permission to add items.

Is there an idiomatic way of doing it?
Checkout the Custom Contextual Links module. I haven't personally used it but it looks like it does what you're after. It also supports views as of 7.x-1.1.