custom SharePoint lists forms

Question

I am facing some specific issue here regarding SharePoint Lists New/display/edit forms...

I explain:

I have created (from Visual studio) a SharePoint List based on DiscussionBoard ListTemplate. now i want to customize the NewForm and EditForm of that list.

I walked through several approches; for examlpe modifiying in the Schema.xml but this only works for custom Lists not for Sharepoint list (those who are based on Templates like Discussion board) because i have only the listInstanceFile and the elements.xml file i don't have the schema.xml file to make my modifications in it.

I tried then to do that programmatically, i tried the following (after creating an application page in a mapped layout folder)

string sDirectory=Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.GetCurrentGenericSetupPath(@"TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\TetSPCustomForms");
    string newUrl = sDirectory + @"\DiscussionApplicationPage.aspx";
    var form = web.GetFile(newUrl);
    if (form != null && form.Exists)
    {
      lstTest.DefaultNewFormUrl = newUrl;
      lstTest.Update();
    }

This doesn't work; The GetFile is getting out of range...

I tried also this,(after creating an application page and putting it under the list)

string urlNew = lstTest.DefaultNewFormUrl.Replace("NewForm.aspx", "D2appPage.aspx");
lstTest.Update();

I tried this after,

var web = properties.Feature.Parent as SPWeb;
if (web == null) return;
SPList lstTest = web.Lists["testBoard"];
string newUrl = string.Format("{0}{1}/D2appPage.aspx",web.ServerRelativeUrl,lstTest.RootFolder.Url);

newUrl is getting a wrong one ...

And lastly i tried this

SPList myList = web.GetList(SPUrlUtility.CombineUrl(web.ServerRelativeUrl, "/Lists/testBoard")); //Rq var list = web.Lists.TryGetList("testBoard"); var rootFolder = list.RootFolder;

    var newFormUrl = string.Format("{0}", list.DefaultNewFormUrl);

    var newForm = web.GetFile(newFormUrl);
    if (newForm != null && newForm.Exists)
        newForm.Delete();   // delete & recreate our new form


    newForm = rootFolder.Files.Add(newFormUrl, SPTemplateFileType.FormPage);
    var wpm = newForm.GetLimitedWebPartManager(PersonalizationScope.Shared);

    var webpart = new ListFormWebPart
    {
        ListId = list.ID,
        ListName = list.ID.ToString("B").ToUpper(),
        PageType = PAGETYPE.PAGE_NEWFORM,
        Title = list.Title,
        Description = list.Description,
        CatalogIconImageUrl = list.ImageUrl,
        TitleUrl = list.DefaultViewUrl,
        //TemplateName = "SomeCustomRenderingTemplate"
    };
    wpm.AddWebPart(webpart, "Main", 0);

nothing is getting changed...

Am i missing something ?

Any help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

I also try different approaches. I achive my goal with this peace of code:

SPFolder rootFolder = list.RootFolder; //at this point you should have SPList (list) and SPWeb (web) objects           

            /* create a new CustomNewForm (copy oryginal and modyfied it) */
            string newFormUrl = string.Format("{0}/{1}/{2}", web.ServerRelativeUrl, list.RootFolder.Url, "NewFormCustom.aspx");
            SPFile newForm = SharePointLibrary.PageHelper.copyPage(web, newFormUrl, list.DefaultNewFormUrl); // this is my custom simple method uses CopyTo metchod of SPFileObject                
            list.DefaultNewFormUrl = newFormUrl;

            SPLimitedWebPartManager lwpm = newForm.GetLimitedWebPartManager(PersonalizationScope.Shared);
            foreach(Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart wp in lwpm.WebParts )
            {
                if(typeof(Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ListFormWebPart).IsInstanceOfType(wp))
                { 
                    ListFormWebPart lfwp = wp as ListFormWebPart;
                    if (lfwp.TemplateName == "ListForm")
                    {
                        wp.Hidden = true; // just hide it. (I do not know if you can remove it, but like this, it works)
                    }
                    lwpm.SaveChanges(lfwp);
                }
            }
            myWebPart webpart = new myWebPart();
            lwpm.AddWebPart(webpart, "Main", 0);

I try other options but in most cases

list.DefaultNewFormUrl = newFormUrl;

in this line I saw error.

Here is a bit information about ListForm

Hope it helps.