3/12/2010

SharePoint: Hiding the Checked Out Icon from Anonymous Users

When document has been checked out, SharePoint will overlay a little icon to show the checked out status. When a user moves their mouse over the icon it will display a popup with the name of the user who has it checked out.

+ =

And when they mouse over they see:

Anonymous users can see it too!

You may not want to display it to most users, but very likely not to read only and anonymous users.

Hiding it:

There is no out of the box way to turn off this icon, so we need a trick to hide it. You could use JavaScript or JQuery, but best bet is to use a tiny piece of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) code.

The code to display the icon looks like this:

<img src="/_layouts/images/checkoutoverlay.gif" class="ms-vb-icon-overlay" ...

The CSS looks like this:

     <STYLE>
        .ms-vb-icon-overlay { display:none }
     </STYLE>

The only problem with this is that it hides the icon from everyone. A better solution would be to hide it from selected users.

So what we do is:

Add a style to hide it from all users (display:none)
Add a SPSecurityTrimmedControl to then show it for any user with appropriate permissions (the example below uses the “AddListItems” permission)

<style>

    .ms-vb-icon-overlay

      display:none

</style>

<Sharepoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl runat="server" PermissionsString="AddListItems">

  <style>

    .ms-vb-icon-overlay

      display:inline

  </style>

</SharePoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl>

If you want this for just a single page, put this CSS in a Content Editor Web Part on that page
If you want this for an entire site then add this to your master page somewhere after where SharePoint add its CSS links (SharePoint:CssLink and SharePoint:Theme tags)

<SharePoint:CssLink runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:Theme runat="server"/>

    <style>

       <!-- your CSS goes here -->

    </style>

What might go wrong?

SharePoint might be using the ms-vb-icon-overlay style for something other than checkout status. I've not run across it yet, but ...

If you want to hide the icon from everyone on every site on the server?

As a "hack" you can find the icon on the server ("checkoutoverlay.gif") and
- delete it (seems to work fine - no red x's)
- rename it (a better plan)
- back it up and replace it with a 1x1 transparent GIF (best plan)

This would need to be done on each web front end server (and added to your disaster recovery plan ;-) )

The file is here:
_layouts/images/checkoutoverlay.gif

SharePoint: Strike Out Canceled Events in the Calendar

This article is for SharePoint 2007. For SharePoint 2010 you can use the following steps to customize the columns of the calendar, and then use JavaScript from the Color Calendar article.

Moving or deleting an event in a calendar is not always the best way to make sure people notice the change. Sometimes it’s better to “cancel” a meeting and then create a new meeting than just moving it in the calendar. The SharePoint calendar list does not have a built in way to do this. So… yet another JavaScript trick!

Here’s what we want to do:

By the way, the following is just a variation of an earlier article on how to color code a calendar. The “big change” is an IF statement to make the formatting conditional. By expanding the calculated column’s formula a bit you can have both color coded and canceled events.

The basic steps are:

Add a column to the calendar list to indicate that the event has been canceled
Add a calculated column to create the HTML to display the formatted cancelation message. This can be done with HTML or CSS. This example just uses "<s> text </s>"
Add the new column to the calendar view
SharePoint will convert the "<" character into "<" so we need to add a little JavaScript to convert it back. The easiest way to add the JavaScript is with a Content Editor Web Part

Detailed steps:

Create or open a calendar
Add a new column named "Canceled" (Settings, List Settings) – most likely type will be "Choice" with choices like "No” and “Yes" with a default of “No”

Add a new column named "CalendarText"

Column Type is Calculated
Equation is:
=IF(Canceled="Yes", "<s>" & Title & "</s>", Title )
Data type returned = single line of text

If you want to also change the color, then add a FONT or SPAN tag:
=IF(Canceled="Yes", "<font color=’gray’><s>" & Title & "</s></font>", Title )
Modify the existing view, or create a new view such as "Calendar with cancel"

Change the field used for the “Month View Title” AND “Day View Title” AND “Week View Title” to "CalendarText"
Save and exit (The HTML for "<s>" will now be displayed. The JavaScript below will be needed to fix the HTML tags)

Add a Content Editor web part

Site Actions, Site Settings, Edit Page
Add a Content Editor web part and move it below the calendar web part
Click in the web part click Edit, Modify Shared Web Part
Click Source Editor

Paste this JavaScript:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">

var x = document.getElementsByTagName("TD")

var i=0;

for (i=0;i<x.length;i++)

  if (x[i].className.substring(0,6)=="ms-cal")

    x[i].innerHTML= x[i].innerHTML.replace(/&lt;/g,'<').replace(/&gt;/g,'>')

</script>

Click Save, OK, Exit Edit Mode
Add a new calendar item and select a status – canceled events should now be crossed out.

3/11/2010

SharePoint 2010: What’s New in Surveys

Note: the following is for the November 2009 Beta 2. In this release surveys do not have a ribbon in all screens and retain most of the look and feel of 2007.

What’s new?

Almost nothing! The exercise of comparing the two versions almost seems a waste of time due to the few changes, but I have had a number of questions from folks hoping for many new features in surveys. Remember this is the beta and the final release may still have changes.

No changes:

Settings, Title, description and navigation
Audience targeting settings
Delete this survey
Save as template
Manage permissions (new ribbon, but core features are unchanged)
RSS settings

New, but common to most SharePoint 2010 lists and libraries - while useful in other lists these often do not add value to surveys

Validation Settings
Rating Settings
Metadata navigation settings
Per-location view settings
Generate file plan report
Form settings

Changed, but common to most SharePoint lists and libraries:

Information management policy settings
Advanced - Some new wording, and the addition of two new but common items: “Offline Client Availability” and “Dialogs”.

Survey Questions:

All the old question types are still there
“Business Data” has been replaced with “External Data”
New! Managed Metadata

Survey Questions – details…

“Enforce unique values” – Interesting new option! This is really useful for lists where each item must have a unique value (I.e. each item is for one State and two items for the state is not allowed). This will have limited value for surveys.
“Column Validation” (only available for Single line of text, Choice, Number, Currency, Date & Time) – used to validate the entered data against a rule (formula) – Example: “[Amount] > 25” – the formula can reference the current field or any other field in the same item (row / survey response)
Currency now has more currency types…
Lookup

can now display multiple columns from the lookup list – BUT they are not displayed in the survey or the results (this is really a feature for columns in lists)
can enforce relational integrity (not of much value to a survey)

Yes/No is just as bad as before! (just a bare checkbox that defaults to Yes)
Person or Group now allows multiple selection (2007 only lets you select a single user)

3/07/2010

SharePoint 2010 Available May 12th?

This says so:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx#fbid=vUy2lbxfiO5

“Watch Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division, announce the launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 on May 12, 2010 at 11 a.m. EST.”

and so does this:

http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2010/03/04/get-office-today-or-tomorrow.aspx

“For businesses, we will launch the 2010 set of products, including Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 worldwide on May 12.”

Cool!

Are you ready?