I've made a mess of MOSS (well not really, just that I've created some site columns that are now impossible to delete).
Is there any way I can revert to a default installation without reinstalling everything?
Failing that is there a way to force delete site columns?
Update
Basically another "typical day developing around Sharepoint..." moto, with Sharepoint it is 100% probable something will go wrong.
I have Site Columns that can't be deleted, because they're "bound to a content type, that I've already deleted"
If you are created custom columns on Document Library level you just need to delete Document Library
In case you created custom columns at site collection level you should delete your site collection and create a new one. New site collection will not be affected unless you made some non-supported customizations to "12 hive".
In both cases you can solve the problem without reinstallation.
Hope it helps,
Related
We are currently migrating our EDMS into SharePoint. As part of this workstream, I recently set up a SharePoint site with a Quick Part Label containing just the version number - as per the instructions here.
This worked fine in testing, now a few users have been added to the site and the migration works have begun. The option for "Label" within Quick Parts has simply dissapeared.
I tried some trouble shooting on Friday and found the following:
Recovering an old document from the recycle bin, still contain a correct version number label.
This label can be copy and pasted to a new document, and it correct applies the label quick part with the new documents version.
I set up a new test site and the Quick Part Label behaved exactly as expected, meaning the issue is within the Live SharePoint site itself.
I turned off labels and reset them. With no success.
I am opening in the app, the library has minor versions, check-in/check-out turned on (and currently approvals are turned off).
I also suspected that OneDrive sync might cause issues, but this again didn't seem to solve anything in the test site.
NB: this is also posted here, I will keep both threads up to date.
Screenshot showing label missing
Update 20/12/22
Since this morning I have now taken the following additional steps:
Added a new content type
Recreated the label for that content type
Change the content type of the document in the library, and the label
option now appears
This seems like a fix, but I am also curious as to limitations of
this method.
Limitations noticed so far: cannot edit SharePoint columns in the
details pane
Recently, we came across a severe problem in production farm with the Content Types. I would like to explain the background of this problem first.
We have nice working feature for Content Types installation in production and test farms. We developed and deployed (using wsps) this SharePoint feature in Visual studio. We are using the publishing pages using page layouts and Content Types to help content editors to quickly publish the web pages. Unfortunately, some Content Types and site columns have been manually updated/added by some people in the production, so whenever I (developer) make some changes to the existing Content Types (using Visual Studio and feature activation/deactivation) , SharePoint removes one or two columns (during feature activation/deactivation) from Content Types; or the columns which have not been added in a best practice way. I think the best practice is to update Content Types using Visual Studio.
Now, I wish to ensure that site columns shouldn't get removed from Content Types upon feature activation/deactivation.
Note: Our feature for Content Type activation/deactivation doesn't hold any activation dependencies in the feature.xml
Recommended Approach
Based on all these factors, my suggestion would be to:
• Create two Features: one for the original markup and one for making changes. (Or you can put them in the same Feature; I just want to differentiate between where you do what.)
• The original Feature should contain the CAML for Site Columns and Content Types. This ensures the IDs have been assigned ahead of type and remain constant.
• If you want to update a Site Column by changing nearly anything about it except its Field type, do it using a Feature Receiver. By doing this, you can call the Update method and pass in a boolean indicating if you want all the existing assets in the site that inherit from this to update to, (something you couldn't do via the CAML.)
• You can also add an existing Site Column (that you provisioned via the CAML feature) to an existing Content Type (that was provisioned via the CAML feature). This is helpful if the Column was not part of that Content Type before, etc.
• In a scenario like the one I just mentioned in the last bullet point, it's necessary to deactivate and reactive the CAML feature (to provision the new assets) before calling your Feature Receiver. What will this mean for the site? Since all the Site Columns and Content Types in the lists in the site are using the same ID's as the ones provisioned in the Site Collection root, removing its parent from the Site Collection won't change that. It might leave it orphaned temporarily, (i.e. there will be no relationship between that item and an item in the Site Collection root, but it will function the same way it always has, since it's really a fully-functioning copy of the original item) until you reactivate the Feature that puts the item back in the Site Collection. It's like the parents are going on vacation when you deactivate the Feature, and are coming back home when you activate the Feature again.
You have a choice when it comes to how you maintain the CAML and the Feature Receiver, since you have two scenarios: existing Site Collections and new ones.
• You could make a policy that every time you write code in your Feature Receiver to update a Site Column or Content Type, you have to make the change in your CAML as well. That would mean that every time you activated the CAML Feature in a "fresh" Site Collection, the CAML would be up-to-date and accurate; there would be no need to run the "updater" feature. (In your Feature Receiver, you should make sure you do some extra checking to make sure a Site Column doesn't already belong to a Content Type before adding it, etc. in case that change is already in place before the code executes.) This approach means you only have to execute one Feature when creating a new Site Collection, but it also means you're maintaining changes in two places: in your Feature Receiver for making changes to existing sites, and in your CAML for new sites. It's a cleaner approach, but also contains an element of redundancy, which always leaves room for human error.
• The other approach is to simply assume that every time the base CAML feature is activated, you're always going to execute the Feature Receiver. This approach says the only time you'd change the CAML is to add a new Site Column or new Content Type; otherwise, all the changes happen in the Feature Receiver. This approach reduces redundancy, but also means your Feature Receiver code could get quite large with all your changes over time, and it could leave your CAML as very much "legacy" over time.
Src: http://blog.beckybertram.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=eb3e1762%2Dbab0%2D4e96%2D8bc5%2Dd67d6e6bfd44&ID=18
Updating Content Types is still one of the underdeveloped portions of Sharepoint which sometimes causes trouble, especially in Content Deployment scenarios.
The best thing in your case would be to always avoid making any changes to content types by hand (using UI)
Whenever you are installing the content type, make sure that you remove the previous one and then install the new one. (Sometimes its not possible due to pages being already created out of it).
My current approach to deploying content types is to do as much as possible using code rather than CAML. That way it is easy to fully control the logic of updates, including ensuring that changes made manually don't cause conflicts. I have the structure defined as attributes on an interface I also use for strongly typed list access, but there are several other ways you could do it.
The only piece that isn't available in the API is setting a specific content type ID, so you need to have a caml file for that, but it's a small/simple file, doesn't try to make updates and is only referenced from a feature that will also run the update code.
in a List i have one 'Status' field that should be accessible to only Owners and to the Viewers/Readers it should not be accessible. Do anybody can guide me how to do this.
Well, you can, your view still is visible if the users know how to reach the default views of your list, if its not a security issue, you can use this:
Open your All Items View (/Lists/MyList/AllItems.aspx)
Edit the Page
Add the same List as a WebPart, twice
Delete the original webpart (the one with the Change View drop down)
Edit your WebParts and configure your views
In the Toolpart, on the Advanced [+] set Audience Targetting to your desired Groups
Done!
Either that or you can create a workflow that copies the item to a new list with its metadata, but without that specific column and only give the viewers rights to see that list.
If the question is one of security (it usually is, else just use a view), you can't lock down specific columns. You can find techniques to hide them, but then you're just plugging holes.
The workflow approach recommended by KoenVosters is probably the only secured way I can think of delivering this without coding.
This is not possible out of the box, but I came across this tool that will help to archive this with ease
I have a custom list which has customized edit and new forms which were required by the user.
I then tried to add a new item to a folder (folders have the text of the year e.g. 2010) and when I click save on the customized new form it saves correctly but always to the root of the list.
I am wondering if there is a fix or a work around for this as it is highly annoying.
Alternatively can anyone recommend a way to implement a field which will auto calculate + 1 year from creation date, which might be a possible alternative however it will have to take into account the following.
Where the current year runs october to september.
Thanks for any help this has been driving me mad trying to find a solution.
Can't help much without knowing what you based the custom form on, but for a new form the folder to save to usually shows up in the query string.
The form is a basic custom form list which I have then just modified parts to remove fields that are not required or need to be read only.
The original form worked perfectly and allowed items to be added to the list subfolders.
The new one has no additional code and is using the standard sharepoint DataFormWebPart to create the custom list form and so I have no back end code to insert the item etc, although I may have to resort to this...will I?
You need to be careful when modifying standard forms. I recommend you go back to a copy of the standard form and verify that that saves correctly. Remove the "unneeded" fields until it stops working.
Sometimes with this sort of customisation you need to use css rather than server side changes to modify the form so that the functionality remains in place after the component is hidden.
It is definitely not an issue with the removal of fields as I created a new copy of the original and then changed it to a custom field saved it and tried to add an item.
It went straight into the root.
I tried the original form and it saves to the sub folder correctly.
Okay only work around I have for this at moment (I am currently in discussion with MS) is this.
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2007/06/13/using-javascript-to-manipulate-a-list-form-field.aspx
I used the method getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle(tagName, identifier, title)
This returned the element I was after and then I basically went to the row dom node and deleted it.
I am hoping to have a nicer method but at least it is a work around for now.
We deployed a feature that installs a custom site column named "Classification." It is a Choice column type. Now, we need to change the choices. We can update the XML in the feature easily enough, but it doesn't affect any of the lists already used the existing site column; they still see the old choices.
Is there any way to send a refresh signal or something to the lists that use our Classification site column feature to have those lists use the updated choices?
I think the only way to archive this is by iterating each list that uses the column and change the XML there as the column within a list has no reference to the original column any more.
Flo has a point, and I have previously been working with this issue and have made a blog post that might help you out somewhat. Have a look:
http://johanleino.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/propagating-updates-to-content-types/
SharePoint can do this.. Don't change your feature but modify the created site column in each site collection through the web UI. Changes made this way will propagate.
(I hope you don't have 10.000 site collections ;)