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Continuing the series started last week, I am releasing today a Print Preview bookmarklet:
http://sp2010.pathtosharepoint.com/SharePoint-User-Toolkit/Pages/Bookmarklet-Print-Preview-Web-Parts.aspx
The instructions are the same as for the expand/collapse bookmarklet, but instead of +/- buttons you’ll get a Print Preview icon next to each Web Part title. Click on the Print Preview icon 
, and the Web Part will be displayed alone in the page. Then if you click on the Back icon 
, you’ll get back to the SharePoint page.
Note that today’s bookmarklet is bigger than the one from last week, and will not work on older browsers like IE 6.
This is work in progress, and I am releasing it as version 0.9. I am interested in your suggestions on how to improve it.
The code is actually derived from the Easy Tabs’ Print Preview tab. I adapted it to work at the Web Part level instead of the Web Part zone level.
In the past two years, I have published multiple solutions for site owners, allowing them to enhance their SharePoint sites without the need for server side deployments.
These solutions, however, can’t be used by the majority of the SharePoint population: end users who only have read or contribute rights. To remedy this, I am going to release in the next months solutions open to all SharePoint users.
How do these solutions work?
All browsers allow you to save URLs. This feature has different names: favorites in Internet Explorer, bookmarks in other browsers like Firefox and Safari. What is less known is that these Favorites/Bookmarks can also include code. In this case they are called bookmarklets (or favelets).
If you select a bookmark, the browser will load the corresponding page. If you select a bookmarklet, the browser will remain on the current page and run the script. It is as simple as that.
Warning! Bookmarklets can contain malicious code. Only use bookmarklets from trusted sources.
The first bookmarklet I am releasing today allows you to add expand/collapse buttons to the Web Parts present on a SharePoint page. It works in both SharePoint 2007 and 2010. I compacted the code to less than 500 characters, to make it compatible with older browsers.
Try it, now!
First, you need to grab your bookmarklet. Go get it on my SharePoint User’s Toolkit:
http://sp2010.pathtosharepoint.com/SharePoint-User-Toolkit/Pages/Bookmarklet-Expand-Collapse-Web-Parts.aspx
Once you have your bookmarklet, head out to a SharePoint home page and apply it. Again, you only need read access, so you can try it out on the home page of the Chicago User Group (SP 2007), or the San Diego User Group (SP 2010), as I did:
For site owners, I’ll publish a slightly different and more robust version that can be included in the page ( it won’t have the 500 character limit constraint). Actually there’s already one available on my blog, but, as the code is already two years old, it is time for a new release.
Have fun!
In the past few days, several of you have reported that they were not able to access www.pathtosharepoint.com . Let me explain the situation, and the steps I have taken to address the current issues.
There are actually several platforms behind the PathToSharePoint.com domain:
blog.pathtosharepoint.com is my blog, and has been hosted by WordPress.com for 2 years. WordPress.com is a great platform, and I plan to continue using it. I find it a perfect solution, for myself (anti-spam, SEO, tagging, dashboard) and my readers (RSS, subscription to posts and post comments).
www.pathtosharepoint.com and pathtosharepoint.com point to a SharePoint 2007 (wss v3) site. This site is hosted by WebHost4Life.
In 2009, this site worked perfectly. Things changed this year as their service went down and they migrated to a new platform. My site has been experiencing multiple outages in the past month, and has been consistently down in the past 4 days. I still have a tiny hope to get my site back up, despite the lack of dedication from the support (not even a status update in four days).
sp2010.pathtosharepoint.com is my new SharePoint 2010 (Foundation) site, sponsored by fpweb.net. I only started using it recently, but it’s been a great experience so far. The guys behind it, like Chris Schwab and Andrew Milsark, are active members of the SharePoint community, and this means a lot to me.
As WebHost4Life’ s service was deteriorating, this prompted me to accelerate the migration of my content to SP 2010. Since last week, all my solutions have been replicated in the new platform:
- New location for the SharePoint User’s Toolkit (announced in my previous post):
http://sp2010.pathtosharepoint.com/SharePoint-User-Toolkit/
This includes the Easy Tabs, the Image Rotator, the Color Coded Calendar, etc.
- New location for the downloads:
http://sp2010.pathtosharepoint.com/SharePoint-User-Toolkit/Downloads/
This includes the HTML Calculated Column, the Color Coded Gantt, etc.
I have also started updating my blog posts, to make them point to the healthy location.
My SharePoint 2010 site is still under construction, and will eventually become the location www.pathtosharepoint.com points to.
As for my mailbox, it is also hosted by WebHost4Life. It was down for a couple days, and I also lost a couple e-mails in the recovery. If you sent me an e-mail in the past couple weeks and haven’t heard back from me, please resend it (and sorry for the disruption).
The SharePoint User’s Toolkit has a new official page:
http://sp2010.pathtosharepoint.com/SharePoint-User-Toolkit/
The old location will remain active but won’t be updated anymore.
The new site is based on SharePoint 2010 and hosted by fpweb.net. Thanks to the support of fpweb.net, I expect the new site to be more reliable and offer a better user experience.
The SharePoint User’s Toolkit is a collection of tools designed to help end users build advanced customizations. It includes for example the Easy Tabs and an Image Rotator. It will continue to grow, with new tools added every month.
Regular users of the Toolkit will notice that several solutions are not in beta anymore. I haven’t actually made any changes to the code, the beta versions are becoming official simply because no issue was reported in the past few months.
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