BVS.Chowdary Blog on SharePoint: 2012

Introduction:

Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is a new service introduced with SharePoint 2010 to allow SharePoint sites to connect to and manipulate external data. SharePoint 2007 had a similar facility in the form of Business Data Catalog (BDC) which made external data available within its site. However, a major problem with BDC was the difficulty in creating solutions as there was no support in the 2007 designer. Most BDC solutions were simply for accessing external data, manipulating external data sources was extremely difficult.

With SharePoint 2010, BCS ships with out-of-box features such as solutions, services, and tools which may connect to external data an easy task. Whether you want to retrieve Outlook contacts in a list offline or edit the contents of your document file or share your excel sheet online or reuse data from dynamic InfoPath forms or just update your business presentation, BCS enables deep content sharing, editing and integration in SharePoint 2010 with SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio tools. To connect to the SQL database we can use either SharePoint designer (where we can connect directly to the SQL or using WCF or through .Net Assembly) or using Visual Studio (BDC Model). In case of connecting to the Oracle database we don't have direct option in the SharePoint designer, so we can use BCS Meta Man to create an external content type.

Prerequisites:

I. A local installation of either SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010,

ii. Oracle Client (Version: 10g),

iii. Visual Studio 2010 and

iv. BCS Meta Man.

Oracle Database:

Table Name: HR.CUSTOMERS

Note:

In the above table CUSTOMER_ID is the Primary Key.

Creating a BCS External Content Type:

Steps Involved:

The following steps should be followed to create a BCS External Content Type using Visual Studio 2010.

v. Open Visual Studio 2010.

vi. Go to File => New => Project.

vii. Select Empty SharePoint Project under installed template category SharePoint 2010 and name it as BCSUsingOracleDatabase.

viii. Click OK.

ix. Check "Deploy as a farm solution".

x. Click Finish.

xi. Right click the Solution Explorer and add a New Item.

xii. Select BCSMetaMan under installed template category Lightning Tools and name it as BCSMetaManForOracle.

xiii. Click ADD.

xiv. Add System.Data.OracleClient reference to your project.

xv. Connect to the Oracle Database.

Go to Tools => Connect to Database.

Add Connection wizard will pop up.

Choose the Data Source as Oracle Database (Oracle Client).
Enter the Server Name, User Name and Password as shown below.

Click on Test Connection.

Click OK.
In the Server Explorer you can view the Oracle Database as shown below.

xvi. Create an External Content Type Using BCS Meta Man.

You will find the BCS Meta Man menu item in the menu bar.

Click on BCS Meta Man - > BCS Meta Man Data Source Explorer.
Click on the "Add Connection" button of the data source explorer.
In the Connection Dialog choose the Data Source as Oracle.
Enter the Database Name, User Name and Password.
Click Connect.

Oracle Database will be displayed with all tables.

Drag and drop the HR.CUSTOMERS table in the BCS Meta Man design surface.
In the Model Type wizard select .Net assembly and click OK.

Entity Creation wizard will pop up, click next.

By default CUSTOMER_ID will be selected as identifier.

Click Next.
Select all the methods that are available and click Generate.

BCS Meta Man will add new files to the project which contain generated C# code.

You'll also see the External Content Type on the design surface as shown below.

xvii. Build the Project.

xviii. Once it is build successfully, Deploy the project.

Configure Business Data Connectivity access rights:

I. Go to Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Service Applications.

ii. Click on Business Data Connectivity Service.

iii. In the top Ribbon click on Manage.

iv. In Service Application Information check the External Content Type HR_CUSTOMERS.

v. In the top Ribbon click the Site Object Permissions.

vi. Site Object Permissions wizard will pop up add the account (Group or Users) and assign the permissions.

Creating an External List in the SharePoint Site:

I. Open the SharePoint Site.

ii. Go to Site Actions => More Options.

iii. On the Create Wizard, from the Installed Templates Select List.

iv. In the List Type select External List and click Create.

v. Enter the Name as BCS for OracleDB and choose the External Content Type as shown below.

vi. Click OK.

vii. External List is created successfully.

Testing:

Creating a new item:

I. Click on Add new item option in the ribbon.

ii. Enter the values as shown below.

iii. Click OK.

iv. New item will be created in the SharePoint External List.

Update in the Oracle DB:

I. Go to Oracle â€“ OraClient10g home => Application Management => SQL Plus.

ii. Enter the User Name, Password and Host String as shown below.

iii. Select the table to see the changes as shown below.

iv. A new item has been added to the HR.CUSTOMERS table.

Summary:

Thus an external content type is created for oracle database using BCS Meta Man and an external list is created based on that external content type to display the Oracle data.

Monday 7 May 2012

Reusable Workflows in SharePoint 2010

http://sharepointyankee.com/2010/12/11/options-for-deploying-reusable-workflows-in-sharepoint-2010/

Thursday 3 May 2012

using SPQuery Joins and ProjectedFields

http://rmanimaran.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/sharepoint-2010-using-spquery-joins-and-projectedfields/

Using SPQuery to get data form SharePoint List

SPQuery: This object allows you to construct Queries to return specific items in a List.

Following sample code snippets reads a SharePoint list named "Members" and filters all the approved members using CAML query:

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace WebApplication1

{

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page

{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

SPList mylist=new SPSite ("http://sharepointsite").OpenWeb ().Lists ["Members"];

SPQuery query=new SPQuery ();

query.Query = "<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='Status' /><Value Type='Text'>Approved</Value></Eq></Where>";

SPListItemCollection items=mylist.GetItems (query);

foreach (SPListItem membitem in items )

{

Response.Write(membitem["Name"].ToString ());

Response.Write(membitem["City"]);

}

Monday 30 April 2012

Application pages in sharePoint 2007

http://www.intheknow.it/Default.aspx?Page=createcustomapppage&NS=&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials/sharepoint/2145201e-00aa-4877-b5f7-cf150d7f0c5f/sharepoint-application-page-with-custom-controls.aspx

Wednesday 25 April 2012

LinQ to sharepoint

Go through this URL
http://zimmergren.net/?tag=linq

Setting up FBA Claims in SharePoint 2010 with Active Directory Membership Provider

his is a walk-through on setting up FBA Claims in SharePoint 2010 using the Active Directory Membership Provider.

The very first step is to create a web application AND create that with claims authentication mode. I am going to provision a web application with claims auth mode enabled at a URL http://moss.claims.contoso.com.

Another important section in this “Create New Web Application” screen is the “Identity Providers” section. Once we select the authentication mode to be claims, Windows Authentication is also plugged in as one of the provider. Check the “Enable Windows Authentication” check box if you’d like Windows Authentication ALSO enabled for this web application.

We can also choose to enable ASP.NET Membership and Role Provider here. In this case, we’ll need to provide the corresponding provider names in the text boxes. The web.config file entries can be added later.

Those are the important parts. You can choose the other values as you’d normally would and create the new web application.

Once the web application is created, we’ll first configure this web application for claims authentication using Active Directory Membership Provider and then create a site collection.

There are 3 web.config files we need to edit for enabling claims:

The config file of the Central Administration site.
The config file of the Web Application.
The config file of the STS (SecurityTokenService) Application. This is important because it is this service that will ensure claims tokens are being passed correctly between the provider (in our case AD) and the consumer (CA and our Web Application). Further, we can have multiple providers plugged in. STS Application manages all of these interaction for us.

Central Administration web.config changes

Open the web.config file of your SharePoint 2010 Central Administration site and add the following entries (NOTE: The value you need to change according to your environment are presented in red).

First the connection string:

And then the provider:

NOTE: The connection string element should be present outside of the <system.web></system.web> section and the provider element should be present within <system.web></system.web> section of the web.config file.

After this change, the web.config file of the Central Administration site should look like what’s shown in Image3.

Web Application web.config changes

Open the web.config file of the newly created web application and add the following entries

First the connection string:

NOTE: This entry should be made outside of <system.web></system.web> section in the web application’s web.config file. Just like the one for Central Administration site.

And then the provider:

NOTE: This one is a bit different. In the web application’s web.config file search for “<membership” (without “”).

You will find there’s already a membership and role provider plugged in (shown in Image4). SPClaimsAuthMembershipProvider & SPClaimsAuthRoleProvider in Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration. Claims implements the default claims provider and Windows authentication type is plugged in through HTTPModule (shown in Image5).

Now, we will plug in our Active Directory membership provider to this by adding our provider entry shown above to the <providers> element (shown in Image4). The result should look like Image6.

Save and close this web.config file.

STS Application web.config changes

The next thing to do is to get your provider entry in the STS application’s web.config file. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager on your SharePoint 2010 box. And find the STS application (shown in Image7).

Right-click > Explore to open the files within this application in explorer.

You should now be in this path: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebServices\SecurityToken. And you will find a web.config file in there. That’s the Security Token Service Application’s web.config you need to add your provider and connection information to.

Open this web.config file. If this is the first time you are configuring claims, you’ll not find <system.web></system.web> section in it. That’s not a problem, just add that section yourself. What works out for me, is to go to the end of this web.config file and do the following:

First add the connection information just before </configuration>. And then after the <connectionStrings></connectionStrings> section, add a <system.web></system.web> section and add our provider information into it. The result should look like Image8.

After this doing an IISRESET might be a good idea.

You are good now with regards to web.config file entries. Now you have to get some configuration done through UI to wire-up our provider to the web application. First, go to the Web Applications Management page in Central Administration site, click the web application you want to enable FBA claims on and choose Authentication Providers from the ribbon. From the Authentication Providers dialog, choose Default. Scroll a bit down to find Identity Providers section. Check Enable ASP.NET Membership and Role Provider (NOTE: You can also do this at the time of creating this web application) and type in the name of your provider. In my case, it is admembers. After you do this, UI should like Image9. Hit Save.

Close the Authentication Providers Dialog UI.

Now, hit User Policy ribbon option in the Web Applications Management page having selected your web application. Hit Add Users in the Policy for Web Application dialog. Hit Next in Add Users dialog. Use the Browse button in the Choose Users people picker control. Notice the Select People and Groups dialog that comes up is changed. Noticeable difference is that there are sections like Active Directory, All Users, Forms Auth & Organizations. Type in an active directory user alias and search. There should be 2 results for the same user. One identified through NTLM authentication and the other through FBA Claims authentication that’s using Active Directory membership provider (refer Image10).

Select the user from Forms Auth result. In my case, it’s the first user displayed in Image10. Hit Add and then OK in the Select People and Groups dialog. In the Add Users dialog, check Full Control - Has full control for the Choose Permissions section and hit Finish. NOTE: If you want to provide full control to other users either from FBA Claims authentication or NTLM authentication, you can do that here.

Now, your Policy for Web Application dialog should look like Image11. Hit OK.

Now, you can create your top-level site collection in this web application. Click Application Management from the left navigation in Central Administration site. Click Create Site Collections. Ensure that your web application plugged in with FBA Claims is selected in the Web Applications drop-down. Provide a title, description and pick up a template of your choice. In the Primary Site Collection Administrator section, type in the alias of the site collection administrator. This should be the NTLM authenticated user. The entries should look like Image12. Hit OK to create the site collection.

Once the site collection is created, browse to it. A page as shown in Image13 will be displayed.

Choose Windows Authentication from the drop-down and you’ll log into the newly created site collection using Windows Authentication. Now, you need to add another site collection administrator. But this must be from the active directory membership provider. You can login through forms authentication using the user you added with full control in user policy settings above. If you choose to not do that (which most customers do), you can do one of the following steps to add another site collection administrator to this FBA Claims Authentication enabled site.

Go to Central Administration site > Application Management from left navigation > Change site collection administrators > add the alias of the user from FBA Claims Authentication as the secondary site collection administrator and click the Check Names button to resolve it.
Login to the Claims Authentication enabled site using Windows Authentication. Site Actions > Site Settings > Site collection administrators > type the alias of the user from FBA Claims Authentication in the Site Collection Administrators and click the Check Names button to resolve it. This is shown in Image 14.

After this, you should be able to login to this site using the same URL with both Windows and Forms Authentication (Forms Authentication login shown in Image15)

WARNING: Take utmost care when making the web.config file entries because that’s where thing go wrong. And if it does, identifying and fixing it might be a herculean task – trust me :)

Where is SharePoint web.config

There is a separate web.config file for each Web Application / IIS Website which is running an instance of SharePoint. For example, if Sharepoint, Central Admin and the MySite host are all running as separate Web applications (different Application pools) on separate IIS sites, there will be a web.config file in the root of the virtual directory for each application. There is also a separate web.config file which contains configuration details for the “_layouts”, “_catalogs”, etc directories of SharePoint sites.

You should not make changes to the web.config file in a production environment, or while in production. Back up your entire SharePoint environment, including all databases prior to commencing any major troubleshooting or configuration changes. You should attempt and test any modifications to the web.config file in a non-production environment which is configured the same as the live environment. Once you are confident the the changes apply the necessary changes if required to the live environment while it is not in use. The IIS Website will automatically reset when the web.config file is saved so changes will be applied immediately. Be sure that you have not left syntax or any other errors in the file before saving changes.

The web.config files are genearally found in the following locations:

web.config file in the root folder of each virtual server / IIS Application.

Local_Drive:\Inetpub\wwwroot

This is the usually the file that contains most of the web configuration of a SharePoint site collection. To display full errors you would need to modify this web.config file. There may be one for each of the SharePoint applications running in some cases (MySites, Multiple Portals or Instances of SharePoint, Central Admin, etc.). If this is the case, you will only need to modify the web.config file which is in the root of the virtual directory for the instance of SharePoint which you using. To find out which directory is used by various SharePoint applications/websites, view the properties of the SharePoint website in IIS and from the “Home Directory” tab, the value in the “Local path” field will take you to the directory where the web.config file is for the specific instance of SharePoint / Application in IIS.

web.config file used in Web Part resources for the Global Assembly Cache (GAC)

Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\wpresources

web.config configuration file(s) for extending other virtual servers

Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\CONFIG

web.config file which defines configuration settings for the /_vti_bin virtual directory

Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\ISAPI

web.config file which defines configuration settings for the /_layouts virtual directory

Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

web.config configuration file for Central Administration pages.

Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Locale_ID

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Beautiful point on document library in SharePoint 2010

Here we will see what will happen when we create a list or a document library inside a site. You may create a list using the browser or you may create a list using SharePoint 2010 server object model.

Here it is:

Whenever you will create a document library SharePoint creates a folder with same name as the document library at the root of the web site.

Then it creates another folder with name Forms. And SharePoint creates a set of site pages like DispForm.aspx, EditForm.aspx, AllItems.aspx, and Upload.aspx inside the Forms folder. This pages are required to add and manage content for that document library.

This site pages can be accessible using SharePoint object model using the SPFile class like below:

SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;

SPFile sitepageAllItems = site.GetFile("[Document Library Folder Name]/Forms/AllItems.aspx");

SPFile class has different methods like Delete, MoveTo, CopyTo methods to work with site pages. Suppose by using Delete method you can delete the site page from the site.

Application Pages in SharePoint 2010

Application pages in SharePoint 2010 is a very useful concepts.

-These pages will be available to all sites of a farm.

-They are deployed under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS folder.

-They are available through a virtual directory namely _layout.

-These pages are basically for administrative tasks.

-To create an application page using Visual Studio 2010 is very easy. By using the template Application Page you can create an application page.

-By default the page will use the default.master page.

-The page is derived from the base class LayoutsPageBase which is derived from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls namespace.

-Application pages cannot be personalized or customized by the end user because they are defined on the file system.

-Example of application page is settings.aspx.

Save site as template is not appearing for publishing sites

Introduction:

Here we will discuss how save site as template option is not appearing in a publishing site but it appears for team site in SharePoint 2010.

Description:

"Save site as template" is a very good option in SharePoint. By using this you will create a site by using this template.

If you will go to Site Actions -> Site Settings and in the Site Settings page under the Site Settings you will able to see Save site as template option.

If you will open a team site and go to Site Actions -> Site Settings. This will open the Site Settings page. In this page under the Site Settings section you will see Save site as Template option as shown in the figure below.

But if you will check the above step in a publishing site then that Save site as template option will not be available. you can also check the figure below.

I did not find the exact reason of this but to overcome the situation Turn off the publishing feature and then try opening the Site Actions -> Site Settings and in the Site Settings page under the Site Settings, now you will see the link "Save site as template."

Developing and Using Web User Controls as WebParts in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

GO through this url.....
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18169/WebParticles-Developing-and-Using-Web-User-Control

Disadvantages of external lists in BCS

-Approval of items is not supported.

-Attachments are not supported directly.

-Check-in and checkout of items are not supported.

-Using standard site content types in External Lists is not supported.

-Drafts of items are not supported.

-Send-To operations are not supported.

-List event handlers are not supported.

-Datasheet View is not supported.

-Querying through LINQ to SharePoint is not supported.

-Document templates are not supported.

-Versioning of items is not supported.

-Starting workflows from items is not supported, but workflows can read or write to External Lists through the SPList object.

-Validation formulas are not supported.

Export Import option in SharePoint 2010

Though SharePoint 2010 provides an option for export where SharePoint 2010 allows you to export websites and lists and also an import option, where a user can import a site or a list.

Export:

You can use central administration, stsadm or powershell to export a site or a list.

Stsadm:

STSADM -o export -url <url> -filename <filename>

There are also lots of optional parameters are available.

PowerShell:

Export-SPWeb <url> -path <filename>

There are also lots of optional parameters are available.

Still it has some limitations for which we should use backup rather than export.

Limitations of Export:

- Export is just like copy a web site.

- But here are some characterstics that export will not keep like Settings not preserved are workflow associations and instances, file check-out status, alert subscriptions, tags and notes, and personal Web part settings.

- It takes long time and place a large burden on your farm.

- Microsoft is recommending not to export more than 1 GB.

Import:

You can use stsadm or powershell to import a web site or a list. But to import a site first the top level site should be created with the matching site defination (like team site or blank site etc) and also no content need to be there.

SharePoint will create the child web sites automatically, but top level site needs to be created before import.

If you are importing a list, if the lists exists then it must be the same template. If the list does not exists SharePoint will create.

Stsadm command:

STSADM -o import -url <url> -filename <filename>

There are also lots of optional parameters are available.

PowerShell commad:

Import-SPWeb <url> -Path <filename>

There are also lots of optional parameters are available.

SharePoint 2010 object model classes

Here there are some SharePoint Object model classes.

In the top SPFarm class is there.

SPFarm: This reference the entire SharePoint Server Farm.

By using this you can create a new farm or you can connect to a existing a existing farm.

Namespace: Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration

SPServer: By using this class you can browse through the collections of servers belongs to the Farm.

SPSite: Represent a Site collection.

SPWeb: Represent a web site.

SPUserToken: The SPUserToken class represents a token for a valid SharePoint user.

SPList: SPList corresponds to a single list instance, whether that is a list of items or a document library.

SPListItem: This defines a reference to a specific item of a list.

SPDocumentLibrary: This type represents a document library.

SPFile: This class is used to enumerate the files contained in a document library.

SPPrincipal: This class is the parent class for SPGroup and SPUser.

SPControl: This class we need while developing web controls or Web Parts.

SPContext: This is a very useful class and it has some direct methods to access useful information about current requests.

SPContext class in SharePoint 2010

- Represents the context of an HTTP request in Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.

- This class also available in SharePoint Sandboxed solution also.

- Present in the Assembly Microsoft.SharePoint.dll.

- This class returns current information about list, site and also site collection, also you can retrieve current user name also.

- Here are some example of SPContext class

string userLoginName=SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.LoginName; //This will return current login name.

SPList currentList = SPContext.Current.List; //Give you the current list associated with the context

SPWeb currentWeb = SPContext.Current.Web; //Returns the current site associated with the context

SPSite currentSite = SPContext.Current.Site; //Returns current site collection associated with the context

SPWebApplication currentWebApplication = SPContext.Current.Site.WebApplication; //Returns current web application associated with the context.

SPContext.Current.SiteFeatures //Give you the activated site collection features of the SharePoint context.

You can check more on msdn in this URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spcontext.aspx

How To: Use SharePoint 2010 WebParts with a GridView Control to get SQL Image Data type and other Values

go through this url
http://fabiangwilliams.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/how-to-use-sharepoint-2010-webparts-with-a-gridview-control-to-get-sql-image-data-type-and-other-values/

Event receivers in sharepoint 2010

Through this article I am trying to explain about event receivers in SharePoint.

An event receiver is a class that contains one or more methods known as event handlers that are executed automatically by SharePoint in response to events such as adding item to a list.

You can use event handlers for data validation, data integrity etc.

SharePoint categories events into of two types 1. Before events (synchronous events) 2. After events (asynchronous events).

1. Before events (synchronous events):

These events fires before an action occurs and before SharePoint has written any data to the content database.

For example ItemAdding event will fire when trying to add an item to a list. These events does support cancelling of event action. These events are always end with 'ing' like FieldAdding, ItemAdding, ItemUpdating, WebAdding, WebDeleting etc. These events are also know as synchronous events.

2. After events (asynchronous events):

These events fire after the event action has completed and after SharePoint Foundation has written to the content database to commit the event action. These events does not support cancelling of event action. These events does support cancelling of event action. These events are always end with 'ed' like FieldAdded, ItemAdded, ItemUpdated, WebAdded, WebDeleted etc. These events are also know as asynchronous events.

Events, Event Receivers & Object Model:

Event receivers are nothing but custom classes which are derived from event receiver base classes that are defined by Microsoft in Microsoft.SharePoint assembly.

Some of the base classes are

SPItemEventReceiver: There are related to SharePoint items.

SPListEventReceiver: Related to lists.

SPWebEventReceiver: Related to webs.

SPWorkflowEventReceiver: Related to workflows instances. etc.

Remember all these classes(except SPEmailEventReceiver and SPFeatureReceiver) are derived from a common base class know as SPEventReceiverBase.

Here there are different event receivers:

Item-Level Event Receivers:

The base class for this type of event receivers are SPItemEventReceiver and are related to SPListItem instances.

Some events are: ItemAdded, ItemAdding, ItemCheckedIn, ItemCheckingIn, ItemCheckedOut, ItemCheckingOut, ItemDeleted, ItemDeleting etc.

List-Level Event Receivers:

The base class for this type of event receivers are SPListEventReceiver and events are related to lists. These events fires whenever any changes to the fields of an existing list as well as adding or deleting list instances.

Some events are: FieldAdded, FieldAdding, FieldDeleted, FieldDeleting, FieldUpdated, FieldUpdating, ListAdded, ListAdding, ListDeleted, ListDeleting etc.

Web-Level Event Receivers:

These are events related to Site Collection deletion and website creation, deletion, moving, and provisioning. The base class for these type of event receiver is SPWebEventReceiver.

Some events are: SiteDeleted, SiteDeleting, WebAdding, WebDeleted, WebDeleting, WebProvisioned etc.

Workflow Event Receivers:

These event receivers are for running workflows and the base class for these type of event receivers are: SPWorkflowEventReceiver.

Some events are: WorkflowStarting, WorkflowStarted, WorkflowCompleted etc.

E-Mail Event Receivers:

These event receivers are for e-mail–enabled list instances and the base class is SPEmailEventReceiver.

For this type of event receivers you have to override the EmailReceived method.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

SharePoint 2010: Add Colors, Borders and Fonts to Web Parts

6/04/2011

SharePoint 2010: Add Colors, Borders and Fonts to Web Parts

In October of last year I wrote an article on changing the color, borders and fonts for SharePoint 2007 web parts. Here (finally) I will do the same for SharePoint 2010 web parts. The previous article used JavaScript to make these changes while this one will use CSS.
A 2007 version of this article is here.
Do you want to change all web parts in all pages, all web parts in a single page or just one web part? Each of these will require a slightly different approach.

All web parts in all pages?
Add the CSS to the master page, either inline or linked to a file
All web parts in a single page?
Add the CSS to the page using SharePoint Designer or a Content Editor Web Part
(If using a CEWP, add the web part below the web parts to change, i.e. last zone, last web part)
Just one web part?
Add the CSS as for a single page, but prefix all of the CSS entries with the ID of the web part to change

The example CSS below is for a single web part example. It will only impact a web part with an ID of “#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5”. To find this ID, visit the web part page, use the browser’s “View Source” option and search for your web part’s name (“Shared Documents”) and browse up to find the ID, or search for “#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ” and browse down to find your web part’s name. Be aware that this ID may change if you rearrange the web parts on the page!
To use the sample CSS below for all web parts, remove all of the “#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5” references.

A Web Part

Here is a terribly abused web part :-) that has an exaggerated set of colors and fonts to make each area
stand out.
[image%255B5%255D.png]

The CSS

Notes:

You don’t need to use all of the CSS. Pick and choose as needed.
This is not a complete list of what you can change in a web part. Search the HTML source of your web part page for ideas, or do a web search to see what others are doing.
“#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5” is the ID of a single web part to change. This is only need when changing a single web part on a single page. Your web part will have a similar ID, but with a different number.
The number in the web part ID may change if the web part is moved on the page.
“#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5.ms…” vs “#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5<space>.ms…”
The space is used to indicate a parent-child relationship. With the space, CSS looks for an element with an ID of “#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5” and then looks for a child element with a class name of “ms…”. Without the space, CSS looks for single element that has both the ID and the class name.
Anywhere there is a background property you can also set a background image by using:
background-image:url(' someimagepath ');
Colors can be set using color names (“green”) and color numbers (“#00FF00”)
The .ms-wpTdSpace class name is used to identify the corners or ends of the web part’s title area. If you don’t define anything for these they stay hidden. See the links at the end of this article for ideas for taking advantage of these corner areas. (How about rounded tab-like corners!)
<style type="text/css">

/* === Title bar CSS === */

/* TR - title bar for web part */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-WPHeader
{
background-color:green;
}

/* H3 - Text in title bar of web part */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-WPTitle a
{
color:white;
font-family:"Comic Sans MS";
font-size:24pt;
}

/* TD - far left and far right (corner) cells of title bar - useful for round corner tricks */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-wpTdSpace
{
/* background-image:url(' someimagepath '); */
width:30px !important;
background-color:red;
}

/* web part check box */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-WPHeaderCbxHidden
{
display:none;
}

/* === Web part background CSS === */

/* TD - background for all but title bar of web part */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5.s4-wpcell
{
background-color:lightgreen;
/* border-style:dashed; */
border-style:dashed;
border-width:5px;
}

/* TD - paging area (i.e. 1 - 5) */ #MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-bottompaging td{ background-color:yellow !important;} /* hide the gray line above "add new" link */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-partline
{
display:none;
}

/* selected (clicked) web part background */ #MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5.s4-wpActive{ background-color:fuchsia; border-color:red; /* border-style:dotted; */
}

/* === Column headings === */

/* color for sortable column headings */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-vh-div a
{
color:red !important;
}
/* color for non-sortable column headings */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-vh-div
{
color:red !important;
}

/* === List text CSS === */

/* item description text */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-vb2,
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-vb-user a,
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-vb-title a
{
color:yellow !important;
font-size:12pt;
}

/* TR - alternating (#2,#4,#6...) row of web part */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ5 .ms-alternating
{
background-color:navy;