Essential SharePoint 2007, 2nd Edition

Customizing List View Web Parts

Whenever you add web parts to a page, the lists and libraries in the current web site show up at the top of the list of available web parts. Each of those is actually a List View web part. The List View is a special type of web part created automatically for each list or library in a site.

I showed you how to add lists as web parts way back in Chapter 1, so I won't repeat that here. Instead, I'll show you how to use advanced techniques to:

• Connect one List View to another to show summary/detail views.

• Convert a List View to a Data View to fully customize the web part using SharePoint Designer.

• Move web parts from one page to another.

• Export, Import, and Deploy customized web parts for use on other pages and sites.

The following sections cover each of those tasks in turn using the Phone List sample from Chapter 1 and Chapter 4. These tasks apply to all types of List Views and are fundamental to working with web parts.

Connecting Summary/Detail Views

In this sample, we'll add a detail view of the employees that appear in the Phone List web part. When the user selects an employee on the Phone List, the employee's details will appear in a box below. To complete this sample, perform the following tasks:

1. Add a detail view of the Phone List to the home page.

2. Connect the detail view to the Phone List web part (the summary view).

3. Test the connection to see how the summary/detail web parts work.

To add the detail view:

1. Navigate to the home page where the Phone List web ...