New CodePlex Project: SharePoint XSL Templates (SPXSLT)

 I got a DM in HootSuite today from Raymond Mitchell (aka @iwkid):

 

We went back and forth a little, and I ended up creating the SharePoint XSL Templates project.

This is an idea I’ve had for a while, but just hadn’t gotten to.  Raymond’s prod made me actually do it.  Creating a  new Codeplex project is the easy part. You then have to figure out how you are going to manage it and organize it.

In the near term, I’ve set up several links on the home page of the project (http://spxslt.codeplex.com/) that will let you pitch in your favorite bits of XSL.

I’m interested in hearing your ideas about how to organize things to make it the most useful.  There won’t really be releases.  Maybe just use the wiki?  It will be good to have each template as a standalone file for download, though.  I suppose each could just be an attachment to its own wiki page?

For those of you who are asking yourselves the perennial question “How can he do this for free?” (I’ve already gotten the question twice after setting this up.), that’s a very good question. What are your thoughts? I’ve enabled advertising, but that will bring in only small sums.  Would you pay to use the XSL I collect?

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7 Comments

  1. Hi Mark,
    I am following your posts and write ups on xsl tags.
    It is really a very good resource for understanding the same in SharePoint Desigenr context.
    It would be great reference and learning material if you can put all these in a book form with some examples as how to use these.
    I am sure you will find so many people wanting this type of book.
    There is none at present in market with so much clearity and details.
    Thanks.
    Bharat.

    1. At this point, Mike, any ideas on structure would be great. Also, if you have any XSL you’d like to contribute, I’d love to have it!

      M.

  2. Marc,

    It sounds like you may be the expert with the answers to some burning questions I have. Don’t want to pick your brain for free, but don’t want to buy a book that might not have my answers…

    I’m creating a custom Content Type on our SP implementation, then creating a list that uses it, and then using a CQWP to display, and trying to customize the webpart and XSL to create specific looks with varying data off the same list. I’m having great trouble determining what the field types should be in the webpart. For example, I’m creating a ContentBody column, that is multi-line text, setup for full HTML with images… Trying to display it by calling the column name @ContentBody, doesn’t show. Most likely, I’m putting in the wrong field type in my property in the webpart, but I can’t find a list of what field types correspond to selections in sharepoint. Can your book help? I’m also trying to use a URL type and pull just the link data and not the full package and don’t know XSL well enough to do so.

    If your book answers these questions in relatively plain terms, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat!

    Thanks,

    Kev

    1. Kev:

      It’s hard to say if my book is going to answer all of your specific questions. You can take a look at all of the individual posts here on my blog or over at EndUserSharePoint.com to see what it covers. (There’s a bit more in the book than the articles, actually.) The mess of XSL that sits behind the CQWPs by default can be pretty unfathomable. I just bypass them and do DVWPs instead because I have as much or more control, and I can keep it simpler in the XSL.

      M.

  3. If you could figure out a way to make a list/library tree-view-like grouping for nested managed metadata term sets, it would make a lot of folks happy. Say you have a term set that represents document categories. There’s a term named ‘Reports’ and it has a child term named ‘Investment’ and that has a child term named ‘Asset Allocation’. The view would display in a ‘group by: Category’ fashion, but would allow more than one group and one subgroup – say, 8 levels, or whatever the limit is for term set nesting. I know there’s Managed Metadata Navigation, but it’s pretty terrible, especially when document sets are involved.

    Anyway, thanks for your work on this stuff.

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