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Remove the Title link, replacing it, in list views?

January 14th, 2009
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Today a colleague of mine noticed the Title field both in the newform and list view of a custom list we are developing for WSS3. The list itself is not at all complicated, it’s an FAQ entry with two fields: Question (text) and Answer (richtext).

Replacing or removing the Title field was easy as pie, just remove it from the contenttype, with the following snippet inside the contenttype declaration:

<RemoveFieldRef ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}"/>

But, removing the title field also removes the handy link to view or edit the list item. Google gave very little on the subject, but I found some goodies here (scroll down to ChrisF post). So without removing the title field, I am going to examine how we can move the view/edit link to another field in the list, looking at how the original Title field works.

I fired up Caml Viewer to take a look on the list. Point Caml Viewer to the subweb containing the list, and view the list tab:

spcamlviewer

There is xml for the actual list, and the fields LinkTitle and LinkTitleNoMenu are defined in there, copy all text into your favourite editor and do a search for “LinkTitle” and “LinkTitleNoMenu”, respectively, and copy the entire <Field> declarations to a new editor window.

Now, generate a pair of fresh new Guid’s, replacing the ones in the two fields, and give them new names. I chose to call mine LinkQuestion and LinkQuestionNoMenu to keep the naming convention. Also go through the fields replacing references to the Title field with references to the Question field, etc.

Xml code for the two fields, after replacing Title for Question:

<Field ID="{1B451C6D-8766-4292-AEDA-62AB3413A66D}" ReadOnly="TRUE" Type="Computed" Name="LinkQuestionNoMenu" DisplayName="Question" Dir="" DisplayNameSrcField="Question" AuthoringInfo="(linked to item)" EnableLookup="TRUE" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3" StaticName="LinkQuestionNoMenu" FromBaseType="TRUE">
<FieldRefs>
	 <FieldRef Name="Question" />
	 <FieldRef Name="LinkFilenameNoMenu" />
</FieldRefs>
<DisplayPattern>
	 <IfEqual>
		  <Expr1>
			   <LookupColumn Name="FSObjType" />
		  </Expr1>
		  <Expr2>1</Expr2>
		  <Then>
			   <Field Name="LinkFilenameNoMenu" />
		  </Then>
		  <Else>
			   <HTML><![CDATA[<a onfocus="OnLink(this)" href="]]></HTML>
			   <URL />
			   <HTML><![CDATA[" ONCLICK="GoToLink(this);return false;" target="_self">]]></HTML>
			   <Column HTMLEncode="TRUE" Name="Title" Default="(no title)" />
			   <IfEqual>
					<Expr1>
						 <GetVar Name="ShowAccessibleIcon" />
					</Expr1>
					<Expr2>1</Expr2>
					<Then>
						 <HTML><![CDATA[<img src="/_layouts/images/blank.gif" class="ms-hidden" border=0 width=1 height=1 alt="]]></HTML>
						 <HTML>Use SHIFT+ENTER to open the menu (new window).</HTML>
						 <HTML><![CDATA[">]]></HTML>
					</Then>
			   </IfEqual>
			   <HTML><![CDATA[</a>]]></HTML>
			   <IfNew>
					<HTML><![CDATA[<IMG SRC="/_layouts/1033/images/new.gif" alt="]]></HTML>
					<HTML>New</HTML>
					<HTML><![CDATA[">]]></HTML>
			   </IfNew>
		  </Else>
	 </IfEqual>
</DisplayPattern>
</Field>
<Field ID="{33AF1D6E-10D6-4e55-858F-C96836777A0E}" ReadOnly="TRUE" Type="Computed" Name="LinkQuestion" DisplayName="Question" DisplayNameSrcField="Question" ClassInfo="Menu" AuthoringInfo="(linked to item with edit menu)" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3" StaticName="LinkQuestion" FromBaseType="TRUE">
	<FieldRefs>
		 <FieldRef Name="Question" />
		 <FieldRef Name="LinkQuestionNoMenu" />
		 <FieldRef Name="_EditMenuTableStart" />
		 <FieldRef Name="_EditMenuTableEnd" />
	</FieldRefs>
	<DisplayPattern>
		 <FieldSwitch>
			  <Expr>
				   <GetVar Name="FreeForm" />
			  </Expr>
			  <Case Value="TRUE">
				   <Field Name="LinkQuestionNoMenu" />
			  </Case>
			  <Default>
				   <Field Name="_EditMenuTableStart" />
				   <SetVar Name="ShowAccessibleIcon" Value="1" />
				   <Field Name="LinkQuestionNoMenu" />
				   <SetVar Name="ShowAccessibleIcon" Value="0" />
				   <Field Name="_EditMenuTableEnd" />
			  </Default>
		 </FieldSwitch>
	</DisplayPattern>
</Field>

These fields are then placed in the list definitions schema.xml, in /List/MetaData/Fields.

Don’t forget to update ViewFields to reflect the change:
Change

<ViewFields>
	<FieldRef Name="LinkTitleNoMenu">
  </FieldRef>
</ViewFields>

Into

<ViewFields>
	<FieldRef Name="LinkQuestionNoMenu">
  </FieldRef>
</ViewFields>

and

<ViewFields>
	<FieldRef Name="LinkTitle">
  </FieldRef>
</ViewFields>

Into

<ViewFields>
	<FieldRef Name="LinkQuestion">
  </FieldRef>
</ViewFields>

Then just remove the Title field from your contenttype and you’re set!

Result:

question_link

A word of caution. More things depend on the Title-field, for example the breadcrumb and title bar, so these fields will display (no title), after this operation:

result_missing_title

peter Example, Sharepoint , ,