Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

Adding CROSS APPLY to your bag of T-SQL tricks

Recently I found myself stuck on a problem while constructing a query for a stored procedure. Like any other developer when I get stuck I start looking through my “bag of tricks” to see if I can find something that will help me solve this problem, but this time I came up empty handed. That’s [...]

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“Access Denied” or locked features in SharePoint 2010 Central Administration after install on Windows 7 x64

I recently installed SharePoint 2010 on my client machine to investigate some of the BCS and Search features for a client project.  SharePoint 2010 now allows a standalone installation on Vista x64 SP1 or higher and Windows 7 x64, which is a major improvement over the remote development nightmare that existed with MOSS 2007.
For instructions [...]

Also posted in Installation, SharePoint | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Using JavaScript with SharePoint form fields

Using JavaScript in SharePoint forms enables developers to quickly customize the “look and field” and the behavior of a SharePoint form (Display, New or Edit form). It’s quick because you will see the effect directly on the form and given that you are embedding the JavaScript properly (putting the script in a content editor web [...]

Also posted in Forms Development | Tagged | 2 Comments

Document Library Folder Names: “Forms”

I recently stumbled upon this little bug by accident. If you create a folder called “Forms” in a document library, you won’t be able to re-name it or delete it directly. Backing up for a second, you can’t create a folder called “Forms” directly as a top-level folder in the library – the [...]

Also posted in Lists and Libraries | Tagged | Leave a comment

Preview Pane in SharePoint list

This Preview Pane function is OOTB and is always there, you go to “modify this view” in the list and at the view setting page, under the style section, select the “Preview Pane” option:

Open this view now and you will have an easy way to preview all your information by hovering on the list [...]

Posted in Tips and Tricks | 3 Comments

Create new WSS web application at a default location other than C:\Inetpub\wwwroot

This was a question popup about a year ago when the client SPS 2003 virtual directory is hosed on a drive other the default C:\Inetpub\wwwroot location.
It all began with a gradual migration, the new targeted web application for MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0 is created automatically at C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\VirtualDirectories\
while the SPS 2003 site is at E:\Inetpub\wwwroot. At that [...]

Also posted in Migrations | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Convert XSLT Variables to Upper or Lower Case

I had a situation where I needed to compare a query string parameter to a value in a list inside a data view web part in SharePoint Designer. If the two values matched in regards to the text, but did not match in regards to case (for example: SomeWord vs. someword), they would not [...]

Also posted in Web Parts | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Create Unique Keys Using Calculated Fields

This little trick is something that should have struck me long ago, but I just recently hit upon it. I had a situation where I needed to create a column in a list that looked up data from another list. Normally, lookup columns use the Title field as the text displayed in the [...]

Also posted in Lists and Libraries | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Week Ending Column in SharePoint List

I was recently working on an excel pivot table report that pulls its data from a SharePoint list. One of the business requirements was to be able to sort, filter, and/or group by a “Week Ending” date. The list has a column called Action Date which could be any day/date. The solution [...]

Posted in Tips and Tricks | Tagged , | 3 Comments