List view loses focus when additional webpart added to page

Question

I have a list page to which I need to add an additional webpart (in this case, a more powerful filter). However, the ribbon doesn't appear because the listview does not have focus.

This is easily overcome simply by clicking it, but I have an even bigger related issue. When you select items in the list, and then click somewhere else (including inside of a dialog box!), the listview loses focus again and the selected items get unselected. This is a major problem because my dialog box needs to know what items were selected. Does anyone know if there's any way to prevent this?

Based on the answer to this question, it looks like there's some Microsoft JavaScript function which checks for a single web part and thus causes this annoying behavior. Maybe there's a way to trick that function into thinking there's only a single web part?

Answer 1

After a ton of stepping through the SharePoint JS in a debugger, I've finally found a way to prevent this problem.

In SharePoint 2010:

//Set focus on our list web part
var webPart = document.getElementById('WebPartWPQ1');
WpClick({target: webPart});

//Prevent it from losing focus
SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent.$3_1.deselectWebPartAndZone = function() { };

In SharePoint 2013 Beta:

//Set focus on our list web part
var webPart = document.getElementById('MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ2');
WpClick({target: webPart});

//Prevent it from losing focus
SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent.$3.deselectWebPartAndZone = function() { };  

Note: This is super-hacky, and is in no way supported by Microsoft (thus it's very likely to change in a future version or possibly even the RTM of SharePoint 2013).

Also, note that your web part ids are likely to be different, so you should double check you're giving focus to the correct web part.

Explanation: It basically overrides the instance of SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent's ability to deselect a web part. From what I can tell, the $3/$3_1 property stores a reference to the SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent instance.

If anyone knows of a better way to access the instance of SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent other than the $3/$3_1 property, please speak up, as that would be make this method much more robust.

Answer 2

Use JQuery .focus() on document load to target the element you want to be focused.

That's the only solution that came to my head.

Answer 3

Just had to confront myself with the same problem (seems to occur only with filter webparts lol).

I solved it by overriding the $3r_1 and making sure that the css class 's4-wpcell' is NOT being removed from the webpart. This works fine for me (even with 2 listview webparts it allows multiselection and the ribbon behaves correctly and it deselects items once you switch to the other list view correctly).

SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent.get_instance().$3r_1 = function SP_Ribbon_WebPartComponent$$3r_1($p0, $p1) 
{
        var $v_0 = window._spWebPartComponents;

        if (this.get_$5_1() !== $p0 && this.get_$5_1(   )) {
            Sys.UI.DomElement.removeCssClass(this.get_$5_1(), 's4-wpActive');
            if (!SP.Ribbon.Utility.$G(this.get_$5_1(), 's4-wpcell') && !SP.Ribbon.Utility.$G(this.get_$5_1(), 's4-wpcell-plain')) {
                Sys.UI.DomElement.addCssClass(this.get_$5_1(), 's4-wpcell');
            }
            DeselectAllWPItems();
            var $v_2 = 'SelectionCbx' + this.$u_1(this.get_$5_1());
            var $v_3 = $get($v_2);

            if (!SP.Ribbon.SU.$0($v_3)) {
                $v_3.checked = false;
            }
        }
        this.set_$5_1($p0);
        if (!SP.Ribbon.SU.$0($v_0) && $p1) {
            var $v_4 = $v_0[this.get_$L_1()];

            if (!SP.Ribbon.SU.$0($v_4)) {
                var $v_5 = $v_4['firstTabId'];

                if (!SP.Ribbon.SU.$0($v_5)) {
                    window._spNextRibbonTabId = $v_5;
                }
            }
        }
        if (SP.Ribbon.WikiPageComponent.$C() || this.get_$I_1() || this.$4o_1(this.get_$L_1())) {
            if (!SP.Ribbon.Utility.$G($p0, 's4-wpActive')) {
                Sys.UI.DomElement.addCssClass($p0, 's4-wpActive');
                if (SP.Ribbon.Utility.$G($p0, 's4-wpcell')) {
                    ;/*Sys.UI.DomElement.removeCssClass($p0, 's4-wpcell');*/
                }
            }
            var $v_6 = 'SelectionCbx' + this.$u_1($p0);
            var $v_7 = $get($v_6);

            if (!SP.Ribbon.SU.$0($v_7)) {
                $v_7.checked = true;
            }
        }
        SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent.$1W();
        this.$2O_1($p0);
        SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent.$2x();
        if (this.get_$I_1()) {
            var $v_8 = GetElementsByName('MSOZone');

            if ($v_8 && $v_8.length > 0) {
                for (var $v_B = 0; $v_B < $v_8.length; $v_B++) {
                    Sys.UI.DomElement.removeCssClass($v_8[$v_B], 's4-wzActive');
                }
                var $v_9 = this.get_$F_1();

                if ($v_9 && !SP.Ribbon.Utility.$G($v_9, 's4-wzActive')) {
                    Sys.UI.DomElement.addCssClass(this.get_$F_1(), 's4-wzActive');
                }
                var $v_A = SP.Ribbon.WebPartComponent.getWebPartAdder();

                if ($v_A) {
                    $v_A._setZone(this.get_$d_1());
                }
            }
        }
        if (SP.Ribbon.SU.$0($v_0)) {
            return;
        }
        var $v_1 = $v_0[this.get_$L_1()];

        if (SP.Ribbon.SU.$0($v_1)) {
            return;
        }
        if (!SP.Ribbon.SU.$2($v_1.initPageComponentScript) && !(this.get_$5_1())._wpRibbonFetched) {
            (this.get_$5_1())._wpRibbonFetched = '1';
            eval($v_1.initPageComponentScript);
        }
        else {
            SP.Ribbon.UtilityInternal.$i();
        }
    }
;

Best, frevd