Oct15

How to open a closed Web Part

When you click on the edit dropdown on a Web Part you are presented with a few options including Close and Delete. It seems that most users are scared by what would happen if they delete the web part, so they close it.  It doesn't show on the page so it must be gone!
 
But have you ever wondered what the difference is between closing a Web Part and deleting it? When you close a Web Part although it doesn't show up, it is still on the page and does whatever it is supposed to do.  For example, if you had a Content Query Web Part and closed it - everytime the page was opened it wouldn't display but it would still run its query.
It is a small hit, but I've seen on more than one occasion users who close Web Parts instead of deleting them and end up with 10+ closed Web Parts on the page.
 
The million dollar question is, how do you open Web Part once it has been closed?  You can try appending ?contents=1 and get to the Web Part Maintenance screen, but that doesn't help. 
 
To open a closed Web Part:
  1. Place the page into edit mode
  2. Click Add a Web Part at the top of a Web Part Zone
  3. In the lower right hand corner of Add Web Parts window, click on Advanced Web Part Gallery and options.
  4. In the top section of the Advanced Web Part Gallery, there is a link called Closed Web Parts. Click on this to display all of your closed Web Parts.
  5. To add them back to the page simply drag them back onto the page in your favorite Web Part Zone.

I can't really think of many good situations where it is a good idea to close Web Parts on the page. If you want to save them, it is better to export them and save them off. They can always be added back later if needed.  The best plan is that if you don't want a Web Part to show on the page - delete it! If it is a pain to set up and you want to make sure you don't have to go through a bunch of trouble next time then export it and save it off.

JR

Published: Oct-15-08 | 1 Comment | 0 Links to this post

Oct03

Can you really make MOSS look the same as any other website?

One of the most common things I’m asked when talking about SharePoint branding topics is about whether you can make SharePoint look as good as a typical website.  And my response is always “yes, of course you can.”  People normally are happy with the answer and move on to something else, but I’ve always gotten the feeling that everyone felt that I might be looking at the world with SharePoint colored glasses.  The proof is in the pudding though….

The University Of Pennsylvania School Of Nursing came to us a few months back and was in the final stages of implementing their public facing MOSS site.  Their goal was to replace their existing site with a new site running in MOSS to take advantage of all of the WCM functionality.  Their existing site already had a great design that they wanted to keep.  I worked with uber SharePoint branding ninja Randy “The Mossman” Drisgill worked with Eric Stern from U Penn to make sure this project launched in time for the start of the new semester.  Eric and his team had already done some early work with the design but there were still some questions about how to recreate some of the existing functionality in SharePoint.  And to top it all off we had about 3 weeks.  Randy worked his usual magic creating several master pages, layouts, CSS, and did some custom XSLT for some content query web parts.  I worked on creating an information architecture that would display all of their current content in an intuitive SharePointy way.  And Eric, honestly I’m not sure exactly what he did but the guy busted his tail and made sure all the content looked like it was supposed to.  If he ever decides to visit Orlando we owe him a frosty beverage of his choosing.

Here’s a look at the original non-SharePoint site:

 

Here’s the MOSS version of the site:

 

Looks pretty similar doesn’t it?  I bet some of you think we just Photoshopped that pic – for those of you doubters here’s a look at that page in edit mode:

 

If you are interested in checking the site out for yourself take a look at http://www.nursing.upenn.edu.    

Published: Oct-03-08 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post