How to hide/show table rows in IE7

If you need to hide a table row (TR), you'd usually use the following:

.hide-tr { display:none; }

The problem develops when you later wish to show the row; simply setting the display to block is insufficient, as the individual cells in the row lose their positions and often get bunched next to each other. Using display:table-row works on most modern browsers, but IE7 ignores that and prefers display:inline-block. So the solution? There are a few ways to fix the problem, as indicated on Stack Exchange. The problem with using visibility:hidden is that the row still takes up space on the page and shrinking its height is a non-trivial task. Another solution involves a method less recommended, using browser and version detection via jQuery. However, it does fix the issue:

if ($.browser.msie && jQuery.browser.version == '7.0'){
  $('.hide-tr').css('display','inline-block');
}
else {
  $('.hide-tr').css('display','table-row');
}

Not a clean solution but it gets the job done :)

Update: An even easier solution: Simply call the jQuery show() method on the object and it's smart enough to apply the appropriate CSS to the object.

SharePoint: Create an easy "Share page with friend" button

In SharePoint, it's useful to have an email icon that allows users to email the page to friends. Though we could build a popup box, we can also go with a simpler solution that uses the person's email client to do the heavy lifting. In another post, I covered how to fetch some of the server-side variables into a JavaScript array needed for generating this email. Now, let's use the variables and see how we send the email. One key to this feature is to keep it simple; this means, we'll leave the To field of the email blank and use the commonplace "mailto:" HREF attribute. So, let's get to the code:

function generateEmailTo(){
  var body = currentElements.currentUserName + ' has shared a page with you on the intranet.%0A%0APage Title: %22' +
    currentElements.currentTitle  + '%22%0A' + $(location).attr('href').replace('#',''); 
  var subject = currentElements.currentUserName + ' has shared an intranet page with you';
  var mailto = 'mailto: ?body=' + body + '&subject=' + subject;
  var anchor = '<a href="' + mailto + '"></a>';

  $("#send-email").wrap(anchor);
}

We can pass the body, subject, and mailto for the mail message. The ?body= and the &subject= allow the main message and the subject to be passed in the querystring. To provide line breaks, we use %0A hex values; so for two line breaks, we use %0A%0A in the querystring value. To pass quotes, we use %22. To pass a blank mailto:, we leave a space in front of it, before the ?body=. More notes on mailto, setting its cc, bcc, and special characters can be found here.

Once we've concatenated the various elements, we pass the anchor variable to the jQuery wrap() function, called on the email icon img tag (with ID of send-email). We call the above generateEmailTo() in the document.ready function. When you click the link, it produces something like this in the generated email (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.):

Alex C has shared a page with you on the intranet. 

Page Title: "My Page Title" 
http://mysite.org/Pages/mypage.aspx

The subject, not shown, will be "Alex C has shared an intranet page with you". Note that the URL will appear as a clickable link in most email clients. Also note that we can't pass HTML to the body of the message, only plain text.

Hope you find this useful.

Update: Here's the IMG tag that is being referenced in the code above:

<img id="infoweb-email" title="Send this page to a friend." 
  src="<%= baseUrl %>/SiteAssets/media/icons/email-icon.gif"/>

The baseUrl server-side variable is set in the page layout's OnLoad event handler:

<script type="text/c#" runat="server">
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
  base.OnLoad(e); // Required for the SharePoint ribbon bar, etc., to work correctly.
  Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext context = Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.GetContext(HttpContext.Current);
  baseUrl = context.Site.Url;
  // Other code...
}
</script>

For the page layout to allow code blocks, we must make the following change to the Web.config file:

<PageParserPaths>
   <PageParserPath VirtualPath="/_catalogs/masterpage/*" 
       CompilationMode="Always" 
       AllowServerSideScript="true" IncludeSubFolders="true"/>
</PageParserPaths>

Note that this allows all files in the masterpage folder to contain code blocks. If we use Firebug to examine the element in Firefox, we'll see this is the HTML generated by our server- and client-side code:

<a href="mailto: ?body=Alex%20C has shared a page with you on the intranet.%0A%0APage Title: %22My%20Page%20Title%22%http://mysite.org/Pages/mypage.aspx&subject=Alex%20C has shared a page with you on the intranet.">
<img id="send-email" src="http://mysite.org/SiteAssets/media/icons/email-icon.gif" title="Send this page to a friend.">
</a>

So the IMG element has been wrapped by an anchor tag which has the properties we set in JavaScript.

SharePoint: Fetch environment variables and store in JavaScript

For a header text, we needed the current site's name. In addition, to generate a "Share this page with a friend" button, we needed the current user's login name and full name. We could use SharePoint's Client Object Model, which does an asynchronous call from JavaScript to get the information.

However, we needed the site's name to be available with the DOM, not when the page loads; we tried the AJAX call and it took a second or two to fetch the data. During this time, the page had no header text saying which site the user was on.

What to do? We could use jQuery to get the site name from the breadcrumbs generated via the asp:SiteMapPath control, but there could be times when we wouldn't be using this control. Else we could fetch it from the top-left navigation tree dropdown; even that was clunky. So we decided to put the following code in the Page Layout's PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead control; it can also be placed in the master page:

<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead" runat="server">
<%
String currentUserName = Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.Name.ToString();
String currentUserEmail = Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.LoginName.ToString().Replace("MYDOMAIN\\","");
String currentSite = Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Web.ToString();
String currentTitle = (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Item["Title"] == null) ?
 "" : Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Item["Title"].ToString();

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.Append("<script type='text/javascript'>var currentElements = { currentUserName: '");
sb.Append(currentUserName);
sb.Append("', currentUserEmail: '");
sb.Append(currentUserEmail);
sb.Append("', currentSite: '");
sb.Append(currentSite);
sb.Append("', currentTitle: '");
sb.Append(currentTitle);
sb.Append("'}</script>");
Response.Write(sb.ToString());
%>

....

</asp:Content>

We fetch the current user's name using the SPContext.Current property, which gives us a handle to the current HTTP request in SharePoint. Then we get the various items we need, such as the user's name, login name, web (current site name), and the publishing page's title.

Once we have the values, we plug them into a JavaScript array that we build server-side. When the page loads in the browser, the array will be instantiated with the values we set using C#. We use a StringBuilder object for optimal performance because of the string concatenations.

So what does it look like when the page loads? Here it is:

<script type='text/javascript'>var currentElements = { currentUserName: 'Alex C', currentUserEmail: 'myemailid', currentSite: 'My Site Name', currentTitle: 'Page Title'}</script>

To use any of the array elements in jQuery or elsewhere, just call it via something like this: currentElements.currentSite

A final note: If any of the values will have a single quote in them, just escape the value using a .Replace("'","\'")on the string in C#.

SharePoint: Programmatically add JS/CSS to pages

John Chapman has a great article on creating a feature for your SharePoint installation that adds JavaScript and CSS files to all pages without touching the site's master page. The good folks on SharePoint.StackExchange.com helped me implement it and also modify the code to better utilize SharePoint's native control libraries.

First, follow the code provided by John Chapman. Then modify the CustomPageHead.ascx.cs to take advantage of the built-in SharePoint controls:

using System;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;

namespace CustomPageHead.CONTROLTEMPLATES.CustomPageHead
{
public partial class CustomPageHead : UserControl
{
    protected override void CreateChildControls()
    {
        base.CreateChildControls();

        this.Controls.Add(new ScriptLink()
        {
            Name = "/_layouts/CustomPageHead/jquery-1.6.2.min.js",
            Language = "javascript",
            Localizable = false
        });

        this.Controls.AddAt(0,new ScriptLink()
        {
            Name = "/_layouts/CustomPageHead/some-custom-code.js",
            Language = "javascript",
            Localizable = false
        });

        this.Controls.AddAt(1,new CssRegistration()
        {
            Name = "/_layouts/CustomPageHead/some-stylesheet.css"
        });
    }
}
}

Note that using the native controls, you don't have to worry about paths to where the files will be; SharePoint will place these items in the following location on your server:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\CustomPageHead

Also, the advantage of using the this.Controls.AddAt() method is that you can specify where in the object hierarchy to add the specified object.

In addition, the solution can be generated into a *.WSP by selecting "Package" from Visual Studio's Build menu. The file can then be copied from the bin/Release folder and run on the command line to install the feature.

Special thanks goes to omlin and James Love for their help.

Stream your Google Music library via AirPlay just like in iTunes

http://www.we-are-gurus.com/blog/1713-stream-your-google-music-library-via-airplay-just-like-in-itunes

SharePoint tabs UI for web parts

Christophe Humbert's beautiful Easy Tabs for SharePoint works wonderfully well; it automatically generates tabs for the web parts on the page. You simply drop the code Christophe provides into a content editor web part (CEWP) and off you go.

In a current project, we needed the ability to have all pages show tabs without dropping a CEWP on every page. The code needed to be on a page layout for a publishing site. The challenge? Christophe's code traverses up the DOM from the current CEWP to find the parent container of the web parts; unless you use a CEWP, it won't work.

Some serious trial-and-error, as well as posting to the SharePoint group on StackExchange.com, provided the clues; we need to provide a direct reference to the parent container of the web parts. Here's the part of the code that was moving up the DOM tree:

var el=document.getElementsByTagName("SCRIPT"),p=el[el.length-1],sT,a,sep,tabRow;
do {p=p.parentNode;sT=p.innerHTML.split("MSOZoneCell_WebPart");}while (sT.length<4 && p.parentNode.id!="MSO_ContentTable")

In the page layout, the web parts are in a Page Content control (PublishingWebControls:richhtmlfield), so here's the change to the JavaScript to reference that parent container:

var p,a,sep,tabRow;
p = document.getElementById('ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_ctl01__ControlWrapper_RichHtmlField');

Note that there's no need for the el variable or the do-while loop. You probably need to do some trial-and-error, using alert() statements to view the p.innerHtml and/or p.parentNode.innerHtml; this helped me discover what p was pointing to after the do-while and simply reference it directly.

SharePoint: If your stylesheet isn't added to the page...

For a current project, I'm using a custom page layout within a publishing site. I had the following code in the my_page_layout.aspx file:

<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead" runat="server">
<link type="text/css" href="../../SiteAssets/js/jquery/jquery-ui-1.8.16/css/cupertino/jquery-ui-1.8.16.custom.css"/>
....
</asp:Content>

No matter what I did, the stylesheet wouldn't be available to the SharePoint page. However, another stylesheet was showing up. The difference? I was missing the rel="stylesheet" attribute on the bad link tag. Added it and everything worked.