How to set hyperlink url and display name in Sharepoint Designer workflow

A Hyperlink field is made up of two separate parts, the clickable display name and the actual URL. In SharePoint Designer Workflow there is only one field to set for both values.

I was creating a custom 'My favorites'  list when this problem came up. I wanted to create a simple workflow in a document library where users could opt to create links to certain documents in the favorites list by running the workflow for each of these items.

The central part of the document library workflow is of course the create item action. The action is simply set to create an item in the favorites list that sets the item's URL field. I created a workflow variable where I define the string that will hold both the link's display name and URL. Thus the first action of the workflow is to update the variable.

In the string builder dialog simply put together: [%Current Item:URL%], [%Current Item:Name%]. The URL and display name is thus separated by a comma and space. Both of these are important.

Tweaking search results xslt to get document titles to open documents directly in browser instead of Office client

In a recent BI-project we needed lots of Excel files to be opened directly in the Excel web app also when found through search. All libraries were configured to open documents in the web browser, but even so search results always lists all document titles to open in Office clients.

In addition to displaying the document title, the author, description, ++, the default search results also display a separate 'View in browser' link for each document. So the logic was to get the functionality of this link to work for the item document titles instead.

This is quite easy to fix. You have to go into the XSLT file that controls how the search output is put together and do three minor changes. This is preferably done through SharePoint Designer.

I really, really advice you to not do these changes directly in the XSLT found in the web part properties of your search core results web part, but rather create your own XSLT file in SharePoint Designer and link this to your web part like described in Matthew McDermott's great blog.

In your copy of the original XSLT - do the following:

Here is the code that replaces the original div for srch-Title3:

<div class="srch-Title3">
<!-- call custom template to show link to doc that opens in browser-->
<span>
<xsl:call-template name="TitleOpensInBrowser">
<xsl:with-param name="browserlink" select="serverredirectedurl" />
<xsl:with-param name="currentId" select="$currentId" />
</xsl:call-template>
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&amp;nbsp;</xsl:text>
</span>
</div>

Here is the custom template code that I've put right below the original ViewInBrowser template code:

<!-- Custom template to fetch doc title into link that opens in browser-->
<xsl:template name="TitleOpensInBrowser">
<xsl:param name="browserlink" />
<xsl:param name="currentId" />
<xsl:if test="string-length($browserlink) &gt; 0">
<span class="srch-urllink BISearchResultsUrlLink">
<a href="{$browserlink}" id="{concat($currentId,'_VBlink')}"><xsl:value-of select="title" /></a>
</span>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

Also there is the param definition right at the top of the file:

<xsl:param name="TitleOpensInBrowser" />

This should do the trick. All items listed in your search results should now open in the web browser rather than in clients.

Opening items from core search results in modal popup

I am a big fan of using search instead of for example CQWP, so for listing out a set of news items from one specific list (this part is important) I created a separate search centre site in this project. Instead of sending people to the listed item's original list location when clicking on the item links in core search results I wanted to keep people on the same page for ease and user friendliness when browsing through several news items in sequence. I hence wanted to open each item in a modal popup within the search results page.


Out of the box opening of items from core search results web part




To change this behaviour I obviously had to change the XSL that tells the core search web part how to list it's listed items.

Start by editing the core results web part by clicking “Edit Page” were this Web Parts is placed, then click “Edit Web Part”. In the edit panel under heading "Display properties" uncheck the “Use Location Visualization” checkbox and click "XSL editor". This enables us to edit the XSLT directly in the built in editor (but it's best to copy paste this code into other editor like SharePoint Designer).

To find what lists the original Item Title and Link within the XSLT localize the following:   <div class="srch-Title3"> around line number 300. Just underneath this add the following Javascript:

<a onclick="javascript:NewItem2(event, &quot;http://[listviewurl]&amp;ID={substring-after($url,'ID=')}&quot;);
javascript:return false;" href="[listviewurl]&amp;ID={substring-after($url,'ID=')}" target="_self"><xsl:value-of select="title"/></a>

Thanks to Pete Stilgoe and his article "How to display ‘anything’ in Sharepoint 2010 pop up / modal window" for helping me find the javascript basis.

My javascript is basically built up of three parts: The [istviewurl], the ID=... and the <xsl:value-of select="title"/>.

The [listviewurl] you will find by seeing how the specific list your items live in behave when viewing the items there (where they in fact open modal by design). Go to the list and put your cursor over an item's link, right click and copy it's link.

You will find similar to this: http://server/site/_layouts/listform.aspx?PageType=4&ListId={63628054-BF65-4FB2-9A60-8EBBEB659640}&ID=2&ContentTypeID=0x0100B0CD2426D905CB4FABC1450EF4289FC9004FAC50F90D5C224EA8956A6A6CB9D6C6

Except for the ID=2 part, this is your [listviewurl] in the javascript.

The ID=2 is of course the ID of the specific list item, so this needs to vary for each result in the search list. To find each item's ID you need this in your XSL: &amp;ID={substring-after($url,'ID=')}". What it does is to use the built in variable $url (each item's search result list URL) that of course also includes the item's ID, and extract just the ID.

Then lastly the <xsl:value-of select="title"/> lists out the item's title as the clickable part of the javascript code.

Using my list details the complete javascript comes out as:

<a onclick="javascript:NewItem2(event, &quot;http://server/site/_layouts/listform.aspx?PageType=4&amp;ListId=63628054-BF65-4FB2-9A60-8EBBEB659640&amp;ContentTypeID=0x0100B0CD2426D905CB4FABC1450EF4289FC9004FAC50F90D5C224EA8956A6A6CB9D6C6&amp;ID={substring-after($url,'ID=')}&quot;);
javascript:return false;" href="/site/_layouts/listform.aspx?PageType=4&amp;ListId=63628054-BF65-4FB2-9A60-8EBBEB659640&amp;ContentTypeID=0x0100B0CD2426D905CB4FABC1450EF4289FC9004FAC50F90D5C224EA8956A6A6CB9D6C6&amp;ID={substring-after($url,'ID=')}" target="_self"><xsl:value-of select="title"/></a>
Now, I'm no javascript expert so I'm not sure what the two almost similar url parts do, nor why they are not exactly the same when it comes to formatting. But it works!

Looking at the code in SharePoint Designer it looks like this:

As you can see I have commented out the original code that lists out the result list titles.

And the result: Voila!

Adding a custom CSS file to your SharePoint 2010 master page

I have been meaning to blog for quite some time, but have been thinking that it will take way too much time. But let me start simple by documenting the single most impactfull change one can do to the visual side of SharePoint, namely change the master page by adding your own CSS file.

To get it to load correctly and in the right order to the native CSS files used by SharePoint you have to do it like this.

<SharePoint:CssRegistration name="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/myCustomStyles/myCustomSheet.css %>" After="corev4.css" runat="server"/>

Place the line right before the closing </HEAD> tag and you'll be off to a good start.