XSLT and SharePoint – Part 3

I seem to have been busy for a couple of weeks so writing this final part of the series got delayed.

As a quick recap we looked at the basics of XSLT style sheets and presenting content from a SharePoint list.  This example list I am using is has just two columns – the standard Title and also a URL (hyperlink).

Instead of presenting a long list of links which can take up quite a bit of space on the page, it would be great to be able to put these into a dropdown control.  Easy to get to and takes up very little space.

Well fortunately XSLT is perfect for this so let us have a look at how easy this is.

<xsl:template match="/" >
 <xsl:variable name="Rows“ select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row"/>
 <!-- Add in a select control which will open up our URL when we change the dropdown value -->
 <select onchange="location=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;">
  <xsl:for-each select="$Rows">
   <xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.rowview" />
  </xsl:for-each>
 </select>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="dvt_1.rowview">
 <!-- Instead of our anchor tag we now use the option with the value as our URL -->
 <option value="{@URL}"><xsl:value-of select="@Title" /></option>
</xsl:template>

And that is it.  I told you it was simple.  The links in your list will now appear in a dropdown box and will go straight to the URL when you select it from the dropdown.

The opportunities XSLT opens up are endless.  I would be keen to hear more example of how you have used it to good effect.