SharePoint Designer 2013 Crashing on Open Site: The Fix

The Problem My Office365 tenant has become half-upgraded from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013. (If you want to read more of my whinging about this, checkout this thread on SPYam.) This leaves me in the unenviable position of having to use SharePoint Designer 2013 (SPD2013) with my SharePoint 2010 Office 365 tenant. Unenviable because, as…

Displaying Blog Posts in Different Sites in SharePoint 2010

SharePoint blogs are no one’s favorite. There is just enough functionality there to make them useful, but not enough functionality to make them useful enough. On top of that, blogs are sites, not lists. That seems counterintuitive on one level – isn’t it just a list of posts? – but it makes sense on other…

Hide a Document Library from the Browser with SharePoint Designer 2010

Hiding a Document library from user in the browser is straightforward using SharePoint Designer (SPD) and there is a single setting to accomplish it. First, open the site with SPD. Once the site is open, you will see the list of objects contained within the site down the left side of the screen. By default,…

Using Unescaped CAML in a Data View Web Part (DWVP) in SharePoint Designer 2010

I’ve created more customized Data View Web Parts (DVWPs) than I could possibly count, but I still learn new stuff all the time. Tonight I was trying to get a DVWP to switch into DataSourceMode=”CrossList” and I accidentally noticed a nice little trick. If you right-click on the DVWP and select Properties, a Tag Properties…

Compound Filtering in Data View Web Parts (DVWPs) with SharePoint Designer

When you build a Data View Web Part (DVWP) in SharePoint Designer, there are times when you might need compound filtering. By this, I mean something like: Show me the items where (City=”Abington” or Approval Status=”Approved”) and Approval Status!=”Pending” It’s sort of a silly example, but you should get the gist. Where you put the…

Consultant Chronicles Podcast on SharePoint Middle Tier Development

Last week, while I was in Connecticut working with Dan Antion’s team, I was able to meet Mark Thompson (@MCTSMark) and Bill Kelly, who run the blog Consultant Chronicle. Mark and Bill are aiming to build readership amongst consultants and practitioners in the general technology space. Or, as their subtitle says “Building a community to…

Creating a Linked Source for Your Data View Web Part (DVWP) in SharePoint Designer 2010

Matt Bramer (@IOnline247) asked me a good question today in the USPJ Academy forums which I needed to think about and do a little searching to answer. That usually makes for a good blog post. I’ve tried to follow your aggregate data source steps in 2010 and I can’t seem to view a data source…

Are Ampersands Stored Differently in SharePoint 2010 Than SharePoint 2007?

I’ve always prided myself in building Data View Web Parts (DVWPs) that are bulletproof, meaning they will run and render no matter what. However, I ran into something today which gives me pause. The setup on this is a little complicated, so bear with me. In SharePoint 2007, if you have a Lookup column which is based…