These are the slides from my #SPSBE session #SPSBE23 on Display Templates and JSLink for IT Pros. This is a slightly amended version of the session that I've uploaded for SPSUK and SPSSTHLM as a result of feedback from those earlier sessions.
As a result of conversations from this session and a twitter jam during the journey home, I'll announcing some great news about a community effort to make Display Template samples from many great speakers around the world available in one location.
Watch twitter using hashtag #SPCSR for more info as we announce it.
3. Who Am I?
• SharePoint Architect for
Trinity Expert Systems
• Co-organiser of SUGUK
London Region
• Member of the SharePoint
community since 2007
• In my spare time I’m a
woodturner, making Pots,
Pens and artistic pieces!
• Paul Hunt
• Twitter: @Cimares
• www.myfatblog.co.uk
• www.trinityservice.co.uk
4. What is this session all about?
• The List View Web Part
5. Who’s this session for?
• Primarily First/Second tier developers
ITPros who customised 2010 list views in SPD
ITPros that used to write their own XSLT in SP2010
Developers that want to know what's available before opening VS2012
• On Premises or Office 365 Deployments
• Might not be ideal for someone who isn’t comfortable with JavaScript, HTML
and CSS.
– Though if you used to play in SPD 2010 you’re halfway there!
– If you want to know what's achievable without deployed solutions
6.
7.
8. What did we used to do?
• We used SPD and the Design View
We did conditional formatting
Played with colours
Injected Hyperlinks
9. What did we used to do?
• But
No design view anymore!
10. What did we used to do?
• We used XSLT Overrides (Still exist, but deprecated!)
11. What did we used to do?
• We used XSLT Overrides (Still exist, but deprecated!)
Which took boring list data views
12. What did we used to do?
• We used XSLT Overrides (Still exist, but deprecated!)
And transformed them into engaging visual representations
13. What did we used to do?
• We used custom code solutions (We still can!)
Custom CAML Rendering Templates
Custom List Views
Custom Web Parts
• All bring additional headaches
15. • It’s client side, moving the impact of customisations off of the web
server and onto the often powerful and under utilised client machine
SETI@Home
Folding@Home
So why the focus on Client Side Rendering?
16. • It’s client side, moving the impact of customisations off of the web
server and onto the often powerful and under utilised client machine
• Some client machines may struggle with heavy Javascript loads!
So why the focus on Client Side Rendering?
17. Specifically why JavaScript, HTML and CSS?
• It’s easier to develop..
• Much simpler than XSLT
• Certainly easier to troubleshoot than XSLT
• Likely to have the skills in house
• Cross-platform (ish!)
Some frameworks such as jQuery help with this
18.
19. Exactly what is a JavaScript Display
Template?• A small piece of JavaScript code that is called by the
browser AFTER the page has been delivered.
• They are prolific in SharePoint 2013
Some examples
Search Results
Field Rendering
Search Refiners
List Forms
List views
eDiscovery
23. We’re just looking at:-
• List View Display Templates
These provide the ability to override the rendering of an entire view
• Field Rendering Display Templates
These provide the ability to override the rendering of a single field in a list
view
25. Page lifecycle – The Foundations
• SharePoint outputs JSLink in the Header of the page
This registers our Display Template
26. Page lifecycle – The Foundations
• SharePoint LVWP outputs the list data into the page
JSON Object Format
27. Page lifecycle – The Foundations
• And finally after setting things up
Calls the RenderListView() function for the web part.
• Which in turn:
– Calls the GetTemplates()
28. Page lifecycle – The Result
• Which compares the Context object to the list of
registered overrides
• And if everything is in place, our override
wins the battle!
29.
30. ###CALLOUT – Internal Name Pain
• Creating your fields carefully will save you pain!
31. ###CALLOUT – Internal Name Pain
• Creating your fields carefully will save you pain!
• Internal names get encoded once, then URL encoded when displayed.
• The displayed name
The%5Fx0020%5Fnumber%5Fx0020%5Fof%5Fx0020%5F
• Is actually an internal name of: The_x0020_number_x0020_of_x0020_
32. ###CALLOUT – Internal Name Pain
• Creating your fields carefully will save you pain!
• Multiple long field names lose meaning
• The_x0020_number_x0020_of_x0020_ • The_x0020_number_x0020_of_x0020_0
33.
34. Anatomy of a List View Display
Template• Start with an empty .JS (Or copy example templates)
• Define a Function to register the Display Template
• Define the Function called by the Display Template for
each item.
• Call the register function
35. Anatomy of a List View Display
Template• Define a Function to register the Display Template
For a list of template types see - http://bit.ly/169AbS9
36. Anatomy of a List View Display
Template• Define the Function called by the Display Template
• Note the use of ctx.CurrentItem.Title
– Any field in the view can be obtained this way
– You must use the internal name
• Obtained from the edit column screen
– Beware the double encoding issue!
• Or using the browser debugger
37. Anatomy of a List View Display
Template• Call the function we defined when the page loads.
38. Anatomy of a Field Rendering Display
Template• All that really changes is the override set-up
• This time there are no headers/footers
• We only specify the Base View ID/Field Name
39. Anatomy of a Field Rendering Display
Template• The render function is similar to the list view item
function
40. How do we use them with List Views?
• First we need to upload/create them in the
MasterPage gallery
41. How do we use them with List Views?
• Set some metadata
42. How do we use them with List Views?
• Add a link into the JSLink on the web part
• Note the ~token in use
– ~sitecollection
– ~site
– ~layouts
– ~sitecollectionlayouts
– ~sitelayouts
• You can have multiple JSLinks
– Join them with |
43.
44. How do we troubleshoot?
• IE Developers Toolbar (Other debuggers exist!)
45. How do we troubleshoot?
• Fiddler – HTTP Proxy
46. How do we troubleshoot?
• Fiddler – HTTP Proxy
48. There has to be a catch?
• Minimal Download Strategy
• Multiple list views on a page
• Changing SharePoint functionality
49. There has to be a catch?
• Minimal Download Strategy
Our display templates work on page load
But fail during a refresh.
This is because our JavaScript doesn’t get called a second time
• Two workarounds!
• Turn off the Minimal Download Feature in each Web
• Include the relevant JavaScript in your Display Template code
50. There has to be a catch?
• Multiple list views on a page
Because of the way Display Templates are registered, it’s not possible to have
two on the page if the list templates are the same.
(E.g. Custom TemplateType = 100)
There is a workaround though published on my blog
http://bit.ly/JSLinkIssues
51. There has to be a catch?
• Changing/Breaking SharePoint functionality
For example, overriding the Tasks view breaks SharePoint rendering.
This is fixed in the earlier Field demo with a couple of lines of JavaScript.
54. Call to Action!
• Take a look at these sites for more detailed info
• Wes Preston – JS Link a primer - http://bit.ly/102fcNa
• Martin Hatch – JSLink 7 part series -
http://bit.ly/Hh5zFk
• My blog
Solving the multiple list view issue - http://bit.ly/JSLinkIssues
Editing local JS files using fiddler - http://bit.ly/EditUsingFiddler
54
55. Don’t forget SharePint!
• SHARE·PINT: [SHAIR-PAHYNT]
Noun
1. An assembly or meeting in relation to Microsoft
SharePoint, accompanied with an alcoholic beverage.
Notes de l'éditeur
Template may not be modified Twitter hashtag: #spsbe for all sessions
I also do woodturning! SharePoint can be a lot like woodturning.. If you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing, it’s easy to make a mistake and go through the bottom of the bowl!
This session is all about dropping a list view web part on the page and doing something visually with it using the tools that Microsoft provide and no serious custom development. A lot of what you see about display templates on the web is all about the Search Web Parts.. We’re not looking at those today!
We’re targeting First/Second Tier developers.. That’s the UI and Client side to you and me..You’ll need to know Javascript, HTML and CSS..But not a lot, start small and work up!
Primarily we worked server sideThough Marc Anderson and others championed what could be done client side with jQuery and similar
The design view has now gone.Lots of discussion as to why.Can’t now use (in visual design mode):-the conditional format builderThe xPath expression builderWeb part connectionsWeb Part filters
We did use XSLT over ridesDifficult to troubleshootA single wrong character could break the rendering! Very difficult to troubleshoot without access to the ULS logs (Or even with the logs!)
This example is a project status dashboard, fed from a project list.
But these bring their own headaches.Deployment,SupportUpgrades
In my opinion it’s about the cloud.MS wants to offer a platform that’sscalable.Moving the customisations as far away from that platform makes sense..
A large majority of Business and Home PC’s spend a massive amount of their time doing nothing.Several large Grid computing projects rely on thisNotably Folding@Home looking at causes of Cancer and other Degenerative diseases.And Seti@Home searching Radio Telescope signals for signs of ET!
Warning though, Some small format PC’s may struggle.I’ve had personal issues with ARM processor based systems
Cross-platform: Some browsers have different ways of handling some javascript.The use of jQuery helps alleviate this
You can find them in the MasterPagecatalog /Display Templates subfolder
Note: I added this page after the Stockholm event in response to a question that was posed to me after the event.List View Display Templates are JavaScript from start to finish.There is no requirement to embed the properties in the same way (But the field you want MUST be in the list view!).Everything you need should be available through the CTX context object passed in when called.
Before we jump into how a display template is created, a note on Field Naming!Create your fields with a sensible name first and edit afterwards.This creates a short internal name for use in scripts.
Note how the Space in names is encoded for the URL..The actual internal name is The_x0020_number_x0020_of_x0020_
Note how the Space in names is encoded for the URL..The actual internal name is The_x0020_number_x0020_of_x0020_
We’ll go through each step in the next few slides.
BaseViewID & ListTemplateType both used to match the template requiredLoaded when the page is first processed.
This function is called for EACH item the list will render. E.g. If you have a list view with 20 items, this function will run 20 times and each time ctx.CurrentItem will the next item in the list.Note: Fields called in the view MUST be selected when the view is created.Note: Field internal names that include encoded characters will be URL encoded too… A space becomes %5Fx0020%5F which is actually an internal name of _x0020_ (See next couple of slides!)
We call our register function at the in the main script file. This ensures our functions are called.
We only base this on BaseViewID,ListTemplateType has no impactThe field name is specified in the Templates collectionNote: We’re only affecting the View mode here.. But you can do Edit too.
.
You can do this directly through the UI,Or in SPD 2013, but they don’t have to be! File system, Asset library… anything works..
This is good practice.. But not essential..they will work anyway!This just ensures they show up in the right place in Designer mostly!
You can define List Views with JSLinks, or add them through PowerShellTokens courtesy of Martin Hatch’s blog~site – reference to the current SharePoint site (or “Web”)~sitecollection – reference to the current SharePoint site collection (or “Site”)~layouts – version specific reference to the web application Layouts folder (so it will automatically swap out /_layouts/14 or /_layouts/15 for you)~sitecollectionlayouts – reference to the layouts folder in the current site collection (e.g. /sites/team/_layouts/15)~sitelayouts – reference to the layouts folder in the current site (e.g. /sites/teams/subsite/_layouts/15)
Setting up the Field render on SPSUK Tasks.~sitecollection/_catalogs/masterpage/Display Templates/csr_ovr_PercentComplete_Field.js
Open the Developers Toolbar with F12Switch to the Script tagSelect the drop down near the “Start Debugging” buttonSelect our template fileStart Debugging
In the normal flow, IE makes the request directly to SharePoint.Fiddler injects itself as a proxy between your browser requests and the outbound network connection.This allows us to inspect and event alter the requests and responses being made
If time..one of the other benefits of fiddler is off-line editing.Using auto-responders, fiddler can return a LOCAL file instead of the server file.This can be a local copy of your display template that you are editing, thus NOT affecting the live site, butWorking with live data.
Using the demo we created earlier, we’ll show how to trap the code and step through.http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ie/bg182326(v=vs.85) The F12 developer tools site.
Martin Hatches blog has more details on some of the other breaking issues with Display templates.
If plenty of time (show the multiple list view issues)Tasks (If not done already)Average Temps (Charting)Belgian Beers – Styling, linked webparts, broken webpartsBelgian Beers – Set in powershellAbout My TeamGame ShowsOffice 365