JSLink: Display Form and jQuery animation

This is short 3rd post of JSLink series where I added customization to display form with jQuery animation. If you are not adding jQuery through master page or custom action or delegate control, you can add jQuery before override script, as JSLink allows us to include multiple JavaScript files separated by pipe symbol '|'.

Here is the override script:

// JavaScript source code
(function () {
    var overrideCtx = {};
    overrideCtx.Templates = {};

    overrideCtx.Templates.Fields = {
        'PercentComplete': {
            'NewForm': customField,
            'EditForm': customField,
            'DisplayForm': customDisplayField //override display form
        }
    }

    SPClientTemplates.TemplateManager.RegisterTemplateOverrides(overrideCtx);
})();

function customDisplayField(ctx) {
    //get percent complete and return div element with id to be used in animation
    var completed = ctx.CurrentItem["PercentComplete"].replace(/\s+/g, '');
    return "<div id='pctComplete' style='background-color:red;width:0%'>" + completed + "</div>";
}

function customField(ctx) {
    .... (removed for clarity)
}

//load animation
$(document).ready(function () {
    //get percent complete eg: 50% for using as animate width
    var pct = $('#pctComplete').text();

    //animate width property
    var config = {}
    config.width = pct;

    //start animation
    $('#pctComplete').animate(config, 1500);
});

Deploy override script and jQuery to master page library and update JSLink property as below on DisplayForm.aspx of list.

~site/_catalogs/masterpage/CSR-jquery-2.1.1.min.js|~site/_catalogs/masterpage/CSRTasksForm.js

If everything went as planned, display page will show animation for 'Percent Complete' field as below:

Hope this helps.

-Javed

JSLink: Edit and New Form

This is my second post on JSLink and I will show how to customize "New" and "Edit" forms using JavaScript and JSLink. I will not spend time on setup and deployment, which I briefly touched on my last post here.

As a ShaePoint developer, most of us have worked on customizing New or Edit form using JavaScript which works but it's a workaround, not an elegant solution. But with JSLink, we don't have to add Content Editor web part to OOTB NewForm.aspx or EditForm.aspx, instead we just have edit the page and set JSLink property.

In this post I am using the same Tasks list as in previous post and will enhance the new and edit forms, by replacing "% Complete" input control with dropdown list with predefined values. Here is the final result:



To achieve this result, create JavaScript file and copy/paste following code snippets. See comments for explanation:

// JavaScript source code
(function () {
    var overrideCtx = {};
    overrideCtx.Templates = {};

    //override 'PercentComplete' field and provide custom rendering functions
    //for NewForm.aspx and EditForm.aspx pages.
    overrideCtx.Templates.Fields = {
        'PercentComplete': { 'NewForm': customField, 'EditForm': customField }
    }

    //register our override
    SPClientTemplates.TemplateManager.RegisterTemplateOverrides(overrideCtx);
})();

function customField(ctx) {
    //get form context for our field
    var formCtx = SPClientTemplates.Utility.GetFormContextForCurrentField(ctx);

    //local vars:
    var fldName = "cbo_" + formCtx.fieldName;    //used to set id of dropdown
    var fldValue = parseInt(formCtx.fieldValue); //get current value for edit form

    //register value callback. this function is called before submitting form
    //returned value will be saved in PercentComplete field. make sure the 
    //return type is compatible with field data type.
    formCtx.registerGetValueCallback(formCtx.fieldName, function () {
        var cbo = document.getElementById(fldName);
        return cbo.options[cbo.selectedIndex].value;
    });

    //return <select> html to replace input control
    var html = [];
    html.push("<select id='" + fldName + "'>");</select>
    html.push(getSelectItem(0, fldValue));
    html.push(getSelectItem(25, fldValue));
    html.push(getSelectItem(50, fldValue));
    html.push(getSelectItem(75, fldValue));
    html.push(getSelectItem(100, fldValue));
    
    return html.join('');
}

//build <option> tag 
function getSelectItem(value, selValue) {
    if (value === selValue) 
        return "<option selected='selected' value='" + value + "'>" + value + "'</option>";
    return "<option value='" + value + "'>" + value + "</option>";
}

Upload JS file to Master Page library and set metadata as below:

Content Type	JavaScript Display Template
Target Control Type	Form
Standalone	Override
Target Scope	Server relative URL of site
Target List Template Id	List template Id (optional)

At this point only task remaining is to edit "NewForm.aspx" / "EditForm.aspx" pages and set JSLink proerty of "ListFormWebPart". You can do this through UI (edit page), Feature receiver or PowerShell script.

Go back to Tasks list and add or edit item to see customization. In next post, will see how we can add custom field validation.

Hope this help.

-Javed

Working with JSLink

Recently I have been looking at CSR (client side rendering) feature which was introduced with SharePoint 2013. I did some display customizations with 2007 and 2010 version by modifying XSLT but when I try to replicate the same customizations with CSR feature, I immediately realized the power and usefulness of this new addition.

JSLink is the new property, available on many web parts, which allows you to override some parts or all of webpart UI on client side. SharePoint 2013 now uses JavaScript display templates to render contents on clients and falls back to XSLT, if for example: JavaScript is disabled on browser. This JavaScript framework provides many advantages compare to previous XSLT based rendering:

1. Not many developers are familiar with XSLT and it is difficult to develop XSLT and debug.
2. Most web developers are already familiar with JavaScript development.
3. CSR – JSLink are easy to deploy and rolling back customization are straight forward too.
4. With CSR – JSLink, the processing moves from server to client browser, thus freeing up server resources.

In this article, I will focus on overriding display of “% Complete” field of custom Tasks list. The goal is to display some kind of progress bar based on percent complete data. In order to implement this feature we have to follow below tasks:

1. Created JavaScript file with override code
2. Upload JavaScript file to SharePoint master page gallery using “JavaScript Display Template” content type
3. Set JSLink property of webpart.

Here are the details of each task and for this article I am using SharePoint UI to complete these task, but it can be deployed as WSP Solution.

Created JavaScript file with override code

Open notepad (or your favorite text editor) and copy/paste the following code:

(function () {
    //create override object
    var overrideCtx = {};
    overrideCtx.Templates = {};

    //we are interested in 'PercentComplete' field. 
    //Note: field name is Internal Field Name which may be 
    //different than display name
    //you can use SharePoint Manager 2013 to find internal field name
    overrideCtx.Templates.Fields = {
        'PercentComplete': { 'View': customField }
    }

    //these are optional, but in case of multiple webparts on 
    //page and these are not set will affect all list view.
    overrideCtx.BaseViewID = 1;
    overrideCtx.ListTemplateType = 100;

    //register the override
    SPClientTemplates.TemplateManager.RegisterTemplateOverrides(overrideCtx);
})();

//this function gets called for each row while rendering 'PercentComplete' field
function customField(ctx) {
    //check if 'PercentComplete' field is populated
    if (ctx.CurrentItem["PercentComplete"]) {
        //remove whitespace
        var completed = ctx.CurrentItem["PercentComplete"].replace(/\s+/g, '');
        //build and return the html to be rendered
        //NOTE: make sure you rename the red.png with your file on 15/images folder. 
        //Mine is 5x5 pixel with solid red
        var result = "<div style='background-image:url(/_layouts/15/images/red.png);width:" + completed + "'><b>" + completed + "</b></div>";
        return result;
    }
}

Upload JavaScript file to SharePoint master page gallery using “JavaScript Display Template” content type

• Navigate to Site Settings > Master pages and page layouts screen.
• From ribbon click “Upload Document” > Browse and select above JavaScript file > click OK
• On next screen; enter as follows:

Content Type	JavaScript Display Template
Target Control Type	Field
Standalone	Override
Target Scope	Server relative URL of site
Target List Template Id	List template Id (optional)

• Click “Save”

Set JSLink property of webpart

• Expand “Settings” menu and click on “Edit Page”
• Open webpart menu and click “Edit Web Part”
• Expand “Miscellaneous” tab and add JavaScript URL with site token eg: ~site/_catalogs/masterpage/CSRTasks.js
• Click “OK” to save.
• Save and close the edit page screen.

At this point you are ready for testing, hit F5 to refresh the list web part page and if all went fine the UI would look like this:



Next article will talk about overriding Edit and View forms.

Hope this helps.

-Javed

How to disable event firing in custom code

Recently I worked on application page which updates list item, which in turn causes item update event to fire. The goal was to avoid any event execution. I have done this many times before, but had a hard time recalling. This post is a note to myself, so I know where to look for code sample, if I forgot again. :)

If I am writing event receiver, I can use EventFiringEnabled property to disable events temporarily. But in application page I don’t’ have access to SPEventReceiverBase which exposes this property. So here is the coed I used to temporarily disable event firing.

public class DisableItemEventFiring : SPItemEventReceiver, IDisposable 
{ 
  public ItemEventFiring() 
  {
    this.EventFiringEnabled = false; 
  }
  
  public void  Dispose() 
  {
    this.EventFiringEnabled = true; 
  }
} 

Now we have defined class for disabling list item event, I can use this class in application page,

using (DisableItemEventFiring disableEvt = new DisableItemEventFiring ())
{
  //no event will be fired
  item.SystemUpdate(); 
}

//event firing enabled again
item.SystemUpdate(); 

Hope this helps.

-Javed

JavaScript Frameworks

With arrival of SharePoint 2013 last year and Microsoft push to move your code away from SharePoint server to the client browsers, JavaScript is now considered an important skill. The new SharePoint App model allows developers to use JavaScript to write entire application and in case of SharePoint-hosted app, is the only option. Now it is a good idea to spend some time understanding and learning JavaScript and many freely available Frameworks. If you are writing Single Page Application or just DOM manipulation or implementing user notifications, there are at least couple of open source JavaScript frameworks available. I have been using some of these and below is the list of some of those frameworks.

jQuery	I think the most popular and useful library.
AngularJS	Recently completed Single Page App on SharePoint using Angular and I love this framework for its powerful bi-directional data binding, routing, REST support and much more.
Knockout.js	Great bi-directional data binding framework, but the only thing bothers me is to convert JSON (from server) to observable collection.
Underscore.js	Makes life lot easier handling arrays and collection
moment.js	Date and time utility functions. Data validation, formatting, international formatting.
noty.js	A jQuery plugin to display success/error notification. Highly configurable.
toastr.js	Similar to noty.js
Open XML SDK for JavaScript	Now you can create Office documents right in the browser with this library. Check out these links for more info: Introducing the Open XML SDK for JavaScript Open XML SDK for JavaScript

I will continue adding more libraries and frameworks as and when I get a chance to play with.

Hope this helps.

-Javed

Change Certificate for Trusted Identity Provider

Many times we are required to update X.509 certificate for Trusted Identity Provider because certificate may have expired or may be we were using self-signed certificate and now wants to replace with commercial CA issued certificates.

Use this PowerShell commands to update certificate for existing Trusted Identity Provider.

$newCert = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2("C:\MyCerts\CA_Issued_Cert.cer")
New-SPTrustedRootAuthority -Name "New CA Issued Cert" -Certificate $newCert 

Set-SPTrustedIdentityTokenIssuer -Identity "My Id Provider" -ImportTrustCertificate $newCert

If you want to remove the old/expired certificate from SharePoint trust root, use this command to delete the certificate.

Remove-SPTrustedRootAuthority -Identity "My Old Cert"

Hope this helps.

-Javed.

Sign Out from STS in ASP.NET web application

This post is related to my last post about Claims Provider from IP-STS. STS was used by ASP.NET web application and require single sign out. But even after calling Session.Abandon() and FormsAuthentication.SignOut(), users were still logged in to STS.

After some looking around I found the answer on stackoverflow. The problem was Session.Abandon() and FormsAuthentication.SignOut() were clearing the user cookies and session state but STS token were never cleaned up. Use this code to complete Sign out process:

WSFederationAuthenticationModule fam =
     FederatedAuthentication.WSFederationAuthenticationModule;

string wrealm = string.Format("wtrealm={0}", fam.Realm);

string signOutUrl = 
     WSFederationAuthenticationModule.GetFederationPassiveSignOutUrl(
     fam.Issuer, null, wrealm);

string wreply = Request.Url.AbsoluteUri;

WSFederationAuthenticationModule.FederatedSignOut(
     new Uri(signOutUrl), new Uri(wreply));

You can paste this code in your logout handler and should clean up STS token. After logout STS will redirect browser to URL set by “wreply” and can be set to any URL. You don’t need to set this parameter, in case of null, STS will redirect to default application page set during STS configuration.

This routine send “wsignout1.0” command to STS to clean up token for the user. Here is the signout URL:

http://localhost:8888/?wa=wsignout1.0&wtrealm=http%3a%2f%2flocalhost%3a58077%2f&wreply=http%3a%2f%2flocalhost%3a58077%2fdefault.aspx

Hope this helps.

-Javed