Display Calculated Field as link

Question

in a custom ListDefinition I used a calculated field to format a Text into an URL. I'm developping in VisualStudio2010 for SP2010.

Here is my ListDefinition:

<Fields>
      <Field Name="DocumentLink" StaticName="DocumentLink" DisplayName="Dokumentenlink" Type="Text"
         ID="8E434824-3230-493D-86B0-A60BABC56672"/>
  <Field Name="LinkType" StaticName="LinkType" DisplayName="Linktyp" Type="Choice" Format="RadioButtons"
         ID="D6A6880E-DF32-4A15-B5CC-1ABFA88EF2F4" >
    <CHOICES>
      <CHOICE>HTTP</CHOICE>
      <CHOICE>Datei/Ordner</CHOICE>
    </CHOICES>
  </Field>
  <Field Name="DocumentPath" StaticName="DocumentPath" DisplayName="DocumentPath" Type="Calculated"
         LCID="1031" ResultType="Text"
         ID="3957EA2D-5E88-477D-B801-27A51B5599C2" >
    <Formula>=IF(LinkType="Datei/Ordner", CONCATENATE("file:///", DocumentLink), DocumentLink)</Formula>
    <FieldRefs>
      <FieldRef Name="LinkType" />
      <FieldRef Name="DocumentLink" />
    </FieldRefs>
  </Field>
</Fields>

in my View the Field is displayed as Text, but in the DisplayForm it's (like i expect it) displayed as hyperlink.

My ViewFields are not complicated, so I would guess this isn't the failure

    <ViewFields>
      <FieldRef Name="LinkTitle"></FieldRef>
      <FieldRef Name="DocumentPath" Format="Hyperlink" CreateURL="TRUE" TextOnly="FALSE" >
      </FieldRef>
      <FieldRef Name="Describtion" ></FieldRef>
    </ViewFields>

Tried solutions: -Adding a Computed Field with DisplayPattern. -Formula which calculates the FieldValue in HTML-tags (value) Alternative formula:

<Formula>
      =IF(LinkType="Datei/Ordner",
      CONCATENATE("&#60;DIV&#62;&#60;A href='file:///", DocumentLink, "' &#62;", DocumentLink, "&#60;/A&#62;&#60;/DIV&#62;"),
      CONCATENATE("&#60;DIV&#62;&#60;A href='", DocumentLink, "' &#62;", DocumentLink, "&#60;/A&#62;&#60;/DIV&#62;"))
</Formula>

Thanks for your help in advance.

Answer 1

Thanks you for the suggestions. Here's the working solution: I had to create a xsl:stylesheet for the field. (The View stayed as before). The xsl I had to deploy in the sp-folder

"{SharePointRoot}\Template\LAYOUTS\XSL" My Template looks like this:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
            xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp"
            version="1.0"
            exclude-result-prefixes="xsl msxsl ddwrt"
            xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime"
            xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20"
            xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer"
            xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
            xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
            xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"
            xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal">
  <xsl:template match="FieldRef[@Name='DocumentPath']" mode="Text_body">
    <xsl:param name="thisNode" select="."/>
    <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;a href="</xsl:text>
    <!--explicit link value-->
    <xsl:value-of select="$thisNode/@DocumentPath" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
    <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">" &gt;</xsl:text>
    <!--short field value, without the file:/// text in case of file/dir-link-->
    <xsl:value-of select="$thisNode/@DocumentLink" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
    <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;/a&gt;</xsl:text>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

I hope someone else could make profit of this solution.

Answer 2

You could try to use the disable-output-escaping attribute in your XSLT.

You'll find some more explanations in this blog post:

http://blog.pathtosharepoint.com/2009/07/26/html-calculated-column-and-data-view-web-part/

Answer 3

If you want to avoid making XSL changes, you could try out my company's free HTML Calculated Column.

Here's my recent article on using it to create links that open in a new window:

Pentalogic: Opening a URL in a new Window from a SharePoint list