Using rowspan, colspan and nested tables

Below is an example of constructing an HTML table using rowspan, colspan and nesting tables in a cell.

Enrollment Services	Finances	Take a Placement test	Testing Center Advising New Student Orientation Finances
Become a Student	How to Make a Payment	Meet with an Advisor
How to Make a Loan Payment

<table  border="1" cellpadding="10">
<tr>
<td>Enrollment Services</td>
<td>Finances</td>
<td>Advising</td>
<td rowspan="4">
<table border="1" cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<td>Testing Center</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>New Student Orientation</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>New Student Orientation</td>
</tr>
<td>New Student Orientation</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Become a Student</td>
<td>Enroll in a Class</td>
<td>Meet with an Advisor</td>
</tr>
<tr>
                <td colspan="2">How to Make a Loan Payment</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>

Using VLOOKUP function with datasource query in Excel

When using the VLOOKUP function on a table array with data returned from a data source query, I found it necessary to explicitly convert my lookup value to a text value. Failing to do so normally resulted in a error.


=VLOOKUP(TEXT(A1,0),Table_Query_from_My_Data_Source,2,FALSE)

SharePoint Custom List web part template

A recent project involved adding the same navigation links to a couple of SharePoint blog sites. The navigation links must appear on the default.aspx, categories.aspx and post.aspx pages. Using a custom list in the parent site, we created a web part using SP Designer. Now, if we need another navigation web part for another set of blogs, we can simply export the web part and make the necessary changes. Below is the content of web part. Included is the xml definition of the view as well as the xsl to create the links.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<webParts>
 <webPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3">
  <metaData>
   <type name="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.XsltListViewWebPart, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />
   <importErrorMessage>Cannot import this Web Part.</importErrorMessage>
  </metaData>
  <data>
   <properties>
    <property name="InitialAsyncDataFetch" type="bool">False</property>
    <property name="ChromeType" type="chrometype">None</property>
    <property name="Title" type="string" />
    <property name="Height" type="string" />
    <property name="CacheXslStorage" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="XslLink" type="string" null="true" />
    <property name="AllowZoneChange" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="AllowEdit" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="XmlDefinitionLink" type="string" />
    <property name="DataFields" type="string" />
    <property name="Hidden" type="bool">False</property>
    <property name="ListName" type="string">{37683D39-B11D-4E11-8B1C-8C5421EDB458}</property>
    <property name="NoDefaultStyle" type="string">TRUE</property>
    <property name="ListDisplayName" type="string" null="true" />
    <property name="AutoRefresh" type="bool">False</property>
    <property name="ViewFlag" type="string">8388621</property>
    <property name="AutoRefreshInterval" type="int">60</property>
    <property name="AllowConnect" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="Description" type="string" />
    <property name="AllowClose" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="ShowWithSampleData" type="bool">False</property>
    <property name="ParameterBindings" type="string"></property>
     <property name="EnableOriginalValue" type="bool">False</property>
    <property name="CacheXslTimeOut" type="int">86400</property>
    <property name="WebId" type="System.Guid, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">ef069fb2-2b0b-4c00-ad1f-231d5485f963</property>
    <property name="ListUrl" type="string" null="true" />
    <property name="DataSourceID" type="string" />
    <property name="FireInitialRow" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="ManualRefresh" type="bool">False</property>
    <property name="ViewFlags" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.SPViewFlags, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c">Html, TabularView, Hidden, Mobile</property>
    <property name="ChromeState" type="chromestate">Normal</property>
    <property name="AllowHide" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="PageSize" type="int">-1</property>
    <property name="SampleData" type="string" null="true" />
    <property name="BaseXsltHashKey" type="string">/_layouts/xsl/vwstyles.xsl;#12/13/2011 02:25:36;#0;#/_layouts/xsl/fldtypes.xsl;#03/26/2010 21:24:40;#0;#/_layouts/xsl/fldtypes_Ratings.xsl;#03/14/2012 11:19:12;#0;#/_layouts/xsl/fldtypes_docicon.xsl;#09/07/2011 11:41:41;#0;# 1 100  14.0.6120.5000</property>
    <property name="AsyncRefresh" type="bool">False</property>
    <property name="HelpMode" type="helpmode">Modeless</property>
    <property name="ListId" type="System.Guid, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">37683d39-b11d-4e11-8b1c-8c5421edb458</property>
    <property name="DataSourceMode" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SPDataSourceMode, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c">List</property>
    <property name="AllowMinimize" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="TitleUrl" type="string">/XXXXX/XXX/Lists/Navigation</property>
    <property name="CatalogIconImageUrl" type="string" />
    <property name="DataSourcesString" type="string" />
    <property name="PageType" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.PAGETYPE, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c">PAGE_NORMALVIEW</property>
    <property name="DisplayName" type="string">All Items</property>
    <property name="UseSQLDataSourcePaging" type="bool">True</property>
    <property name="Width" type="string" />
    <property name="ExportMode" type="exportmode">All</property>
    <property name="Direction" type="direction">NotSet</property>
    <property name="ViewContentTypeId" type="string">0x</property>
    <property name="HelpUrl" type="string" />
    <property name="XmlDefinition" type="string">
    &lt;View Name="{E9A835C7-4605-41BD-AA5E-50D9799DE2C9}" MobileView="TRUE" Type="HTML" Hidden="TRUE" DisplayName="All Items" Url="/academic-affairs/AFA/SitePages/Untitled_12.aspx" Level="1" BaseViewID="1" ContentTypeID="0x" ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/generic.png"&gt;
     &lt;Query/&gt;
     &lt;ViewFields&gt;
      &lt;FieldRef Name="LinkTitle"/&gt;
      &lt;FieldRef Name="URL"/&gt;
      &lt;FieldRef Name="Title" Explicit="TRUE"/&gt;
     &lt;/ViewFields&gt;
     &lt;/View&gt;
    </property>   
     <property name="Xsl" type="string">
    &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" version="1.0" exclude-result-prefixes="xsl msxsl ddwrt" xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime" xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20" xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ddwrt:ghost="show_all"&gt;
    &lt;xsl:template match="dsQueryResponse" xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20" xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer" xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ddwrt:ghost="" xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal" xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime"&gt;       
     &lt;div class="AFANavigation"&gt;&lt;xsl:apply-templates select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row"/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
       &lt;xsl:template match="Row"&gt;
      &lt;xsl:choose&gt;
       &lt;xsl:when test="substring(@URL,2,3) = 'a h'"&gt;
        &lt;xsl:variable name="link" select="substring-after(substring-before(@URL,'&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;'),'&amp;gt;')"/&gt;
        &lt;div&gt;&lt;a href="{$link}"&gt;&lt;xsl:value-of select="@Title"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
       &lt;/xsl:when&gt;
      &lt;xsl:otherwise&gt;
       &lt;div&gt;&lt;a href="{@URL}"&gt;&lt;xsl:value-of select="@Title"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
      &lt;/xsl:otherwise&gt;
     &lt;/xsl:choose&gt;
        &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
    &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
    </property>

    <property name="Default" type="string">FALSE</property>
    <property name="TitleIconImageUrl" type="string" />
    <property name="MissingAssembly" type="string">Cannot import this Web Part.</property>
    <property name="SelectParameters" type="string" />
   </properties>
  </data>
 </webPart>
</webParts>

Sharing variables between a subreport and the main report in Crystal Reports

In a recent  Crystal Report I was working on, I had a need to share a variable between a subreport and the main report so I could suppress rows based upon the value returned in the subreport. Normally, any value within a subreport is not visible to the Formula Editor. The key is to then to use a shared variable to pull the data into the main report where it's visible within the editor.

Because in the normal processing flow, subreports are exectuted in the 2nd pass, after record retrieval,

Using the following-sibling to compare node-sets in a SharePoint list

In a table I need to display items from a SharePoint custom list grouped by a column. For styling purposes, I need to identify the last row of each grouping. Using the following-sibling axis, I can look ahead to see if the group value will change. If so, I apply a class to the current table row.

<xsl:template match='Row'>
<tr>
<xsl:if test="@Group != following-sibling::Row[1]/@Group or position() = last()">
     <xsl:attribute name="class">lastItem</xsl:attribute>
 </xsl:if>
....
</tr>
...
</xsl:template>

In my stylesheet, I can then apply rules to the lastItem class:

table  tr { border-bottom: 2px #707070 dotted; }
table tr.lastItem { border-bottom: none; }

Displaying multiple parameter values in a Crystal Report

When a Crystal report user chooses multiple values for a parameter, sometime it's nice to display all those parameter values in the report header. The following code can be added to a function for displaying in the header.

WhilePrintingRecords;
StringVar Array term := {?Term};

StringVar terms := term[1];
Local NumberVar i;

For i := 2 To count(term) Do
(
   terms := terms + ", " + term[i];
);

terms

Including a link to a javascript file in XSLT

In SharePoint 2010, I was updating a custom version of the ContentQueryMain.xsl file, needing to include javascript for the page. When I added the following code, the layout of the page changed, the ribbon stopped responding and the page would not respond when in edit mode.

<script type="text/javascript" src="/Script%20Files/myjavascript.js"></script> 

Turns out, the XSLT processor didn't care for the empty script tag. Adding the space entity &#160; fixed the problem.

<script type="text/javascript" src="/Script%20Files/myjavascript.js">&#160;</script>