Replacing AllItems.aspx with a custom AllItems.aspx

Question

I'm trying to customize the page that is used to show the content of folders in a certain (dynamically created) list. This page appeared to be AllItems.aspx. To customize the page I decided to replace the AllItems.aspx with a custom one. I can't use SharePoint-Designer, only Visual Studio.

Whenever a list of this type is created I delete the AllItems.aspx from "ListName/Forms/AllItems.aspx" and use a feature with module to insert the custom page into that folder. Like that:

file = currentWeb.GetFile("OffeneVorgaenge/Forms/AllItems.aspx");
file.Delete();
currentWeb.Features.Add(new Guid(Constants.FeatureIdVorgaengeAllItemsPage));
ActivateFeature(Constants.FeatureIdVorgaengeAllItemsPage, currentWeb);

However, after replacing the AllItems.aspx the page is no longer used to display the folder content, even though the replacement seemed to work fine (I checked if the file in the Forms-Folder is actually my customized AllItems.aspx and it was).

How can I fix this? Is there any smarter way to customize this page?

Answer 1

It depends what you are trying to achieve...

If you want to completely customise the list view page, or add content to it, you could modify the collection of web parts on that page with C# code. This would involve:

• Creating a feature receiver within your solution that modifies the list view page web part collection (using SPWebPartManager or SPLimitedWebPartManager)
• Either create a custom web part and add an instance of this web part to the list view page or add one of the web parts that are included with SharePoint (such as a Content Editor Web Part which can be used to render HTML content).

If you're using SharePoint 2013, you may want to look at Client Side Rendering via the JSLink property of the list view web part - this allows you to customise how the list view is rendered.

Answer 2

You can create a custom List Definion with a custom form or a list intance with a custom schema. A good tutorial with excellent examples you can/ must watch Core SharePoint List Development by Wouter van vught. This is one of the best overviews I have seen about list development.

Answer 3

Can you try setting the default page as part of your feature?

SPFolder rootFolder = currentWeb.RootFolder;
rootFolder.WelcomePage = "OffeneVorgaenge/Forms/AllItems.aspx";
rootFolder.Update();

If it is a publishing web then you should use currentweb.DefaultPage instead.

I am still a little unsure of what is going on but I Hope this helps...

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.publishing.publishingweb.defaultpage.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spfolder.welcomepage.aspx

Answer 4

allitems.aspx is a View. Each list has only one default view. When you deleted allitems.aspx, the next view became the default view. So, you may need to set your view back as the default view.

Url                        DefaultView
---                        -----------
Lists/Tasks/AllItems.aspx         True
Lists/Tasks/late.aspx            False
Lists/Tasks/Upcoming.aspx        False
Lists/Tasks/completed.aspx       False
Lists/Tasks/MyItems.aspx         False
Lists/Tasks/gantt.aspx           False
Lists/Tasks/calendar.aspx        False

This is PowerShell, but shows the objects you need to update:

$view = $list.Views["All Tasks"]
$view.DefaultView = $true
$view.Update()