Beginning SharePoint® 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007

4.4. Creating and Customizing Views

In Chapters 2 and 3, you read how both lists and libraries can contain views. A view basically displays the information about a list in different ways. Some views display all the items in the list, while others show specific items based on their properties or metadata values. Every list has at least one view, and SharePoint offers five views: Standard, Datasheet, Calendar, Gantt, and Access. You can customize these SharePoint views to quickly find relevant information. Imagine opening the telephone book and having it display only the numbers that are relevant to you. That's the type of flexibility you have with a custom view. The following examples guide you through the basics of setting up the views available with SharePoint 2007.

This section goes deeper into what views are. You learn the different types of views as well as how to use them effectively:

• You start by setting up the Standard view. The Try It Out that accompanies this section also shows how to select a view, once you create it. The method for displaying a view is the same regardless of the type of view that you create. Therefore, the rest of this chapter assumes that you'll use one of these methods whenever you select a view for a list.

• Next, you work your way through setting up a Gantt, Calendar, and Datasheet view. You also create a view based on an existing view.

• Finally, you learn how to work with an Access view, which essentially lets you combine the best aspects of SharePoint ...