Enhancing the SharePoint 2010 UI: Scripted Orientation Aware Content

In my previous post we looked at enhancing the SharePoint 2010 UI through CSS based orientation detection. In this post, we will take it one step further and use some client side script to detect orientation and output content accordingly.

The CSS approach utilizes orientation aware style sheets which are loaded based on the appropriate orientation of the device (in this case an iPad). While this approach is simple to implement, it’s not necessarily the most robust solution or the most scalable solution. The CSS approach is best suited to deployment with your site’s branded master page, when orientation detection is a big part of your design. What if you only wanted it on one or two pages of your site, if you don’t have access to deploy a new master page, or if you want more advanced orientation detection?

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Enhancing the SharePoint 2010 UI: iPad Orientation Detection

I recently had a chance to sit down and rapid prototype some iPad UI Enhancements for SharePoint 2010. I had previously done some light orientation detection for the iPod and iPhone, but with the iPad there’s a lot more power in utilizing orientation detection. As the iPad gains more traction in the business world I expect to see more and more requirements to make enterprise platforms [like SharePoint] usable on the iPad. With Microsoft’s commitment to cross-browser functionality in SharePoint 2010 we’re fortunate that SharePoint 2010 will render on the iPad without any customizations needed.

The typical approach to porting desktop content to a mobile device is to scale content down to fit it all within the mobile device’s display. With orientation detection we can turn off specific regions of content, or change the layout completely in order to maximize on the screen real estate and mitigate the need to scale down content–relative to how the user is holding the device. If we use the iPad as an example, in landscape orientation the resolution is 1024 x 768 but when we move it to portrait orientation the resolution swaps to 768 x 1024 (~250 pixels less on the width). Again, typically we’d just scale everything down to compensate for that drop on horizontal screen real estate. With a platform like SharePoint, making things smaller inherently makes it more difficult to navigate and the two-finger horizontal scroll on the iPad isn’t really all that intuitive. The solution is to detect the orientation of the device and restructure content accordingly.

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2007 jQuery Form Enhancements; Preserving Site Definition

During a recent discussion with @TashasEv, the topic came up of preserving site definition when rolling out jQuery form enhancements. The preservation of site definitions is something that many people ignore, but in the interest of best practices I figured it was worth a blog post to explain some of the pros and cons, and offer some solutions.

Many of us (myself included) use jQuery to enhance out of the box (OOTB) SharePoint forms. jQuery allows us to make a variety of minor or major changes to the usability and functionality of forms either through straight jQuery or with Marc Anderson’s (@sympmarc) popular jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services (SPServices). Cascading dropdowns, content relevant fields, dynamic changes to styling, and other enhancements can greatly improve the user experience and the data entry side of a form, but can be the achilles heel of your support model if done incorrectly.

In layman’s terms, the site definition is the foundation on which all OOTB SharePoint sites, templates, forms and pages are based. Essentially, this allows you to manage assets within the site by managing the site definition. An easy to understand example would be upgrading your SharePoint environment. If a version upgrade or service pack comes along that touches the site definition, all objects using that site definition will be updated accordingly. The issue lies in the fact that when you open your OOTB SharePoint form in SharePoint Designer and edit it, you essentially disconnect that form from the site definition. Six months down the road when you upgrade your environment or push that next service pack, your form will now not be updated. Additionally, if you find yourself in a position where you need to consult Microsoft for support, Microsoft can very well point out that you’ve customized the OOTB code, and refuse your support request.

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Application Wide Quick Launch Control

I ran into a unique challenge on a recent project related to the use of the Quick Launch. I had a Web Application that was broken into about 10 Site Collections to facilitate access control, but had the potential to become an absolute bear to manage. The Quick Launch needed to be the same across all of the Site Collections, which resulted in having to physically touch the configuration of each Site Collection or Subsite every time a link needed to be added or changed. There had to be a better way, right? Enter the SPServices jQuery library by Marc Anderson (@sympmarc). It should be pointed out that I’m working in WSS 3, but I don’t know of anything that would prevent this from working in MOSS (although the jQuery selectors may need to be changed).

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SharePoint List Attachment Technical Brief

I recently found myself searching (to no avail) for information on how the SharePoint list attachment process actually works; it seemed as if there was no documentation or previous experiences available anywhere. In my particular scenario, I needed to be able to produce an auditable list which showed the date/time, filename, and username for every upload, a report which WSS doesn’t offer out of the box.

My solution became the creation of a second list, which would serve as this master record of all uploads. Once I understood how SharePoint actually processes the file attachments, I was able to use a combination of the PreSaveAction function and the jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services to log each of the file names into my list.

This article isn’t meant to address the complete breadth of capability, but more to offer the technical ins and outs. I should point out that for the purposes of the article I’m making the assumption that you’re working on the default NewForm.aspx or EditForm.aspx forms. While I would imagine the document model and process is very similar for custom list forms, I have yet to dive into that world.

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