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Customize TOC Web Part CSS

How to Replace default CSS styles used by a TOCWP with new CSS Classes
How to modify the default XSL Style Sheets used by Table of Contents web Parts to replace the default CSS classes with new ones.  Modify styles for all TOCWPs accross a SharePoint site collection.

How to differentiate styles between the Horizontal & Vertical Presentation Layouts of a TOCWP
Various presentation layouts available for a Table of Contents web Part use identical class names as other presentation layouts.  To differentiate classes that are used by multiple presentation layouts, you can write new CSS classes, then replace the default by modifying the XSL Style Sheet used to format TOC Web Parts.

Where to find the default XSL Style Sheets for a TOCWP in SharePoint (MOSS)
Where are the default XSL Style Sheets located for a Table of Contents Web Part (TOCWP)?  The default XSL style Sheets used are located in the style library of the site collection (http://sitecollectionurl/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/LevelStyle.xsl).

How to modify and apply changes to the Default XSL Style Sheet for TOC Web Parts
How to make changes to the global (default) XSL Style Sheets for application to all Table of Contents Web Parts accross a Site Collection, and how to implement CSS styles that correspond to the changes to allow TOC Web Parts to be rendered with the modified styles. 

Download sample image set and style sheets for TOCWPs
Customise the Table of Contents Web Part styles with background images and and alternate theme.  Download a sample image set and corresponding style sheets to apply customised styles to one or many Table of Contents Web Parts.

How to Customise All Table Of Contents Web Parts in a Site Collection
How to modify default style classes, and/or the default XSL style sheet used by Table Of Contents Web Parts accross an entire Site Collection.  Override or replace default styles used by a TOCWP, then apply the styles to a globally available style sheet for use by any Table of Contents Web Part in a Site Collection.

See Customize TOC Web Part CSS for details.

Customize TOC Web Part CSS

How to override default CSS styles/classes for one or more TOC Web Part in SharePoint
How to override CSS classes used by one or many Table of Contents web Parts (TOCWP) without affecting the default classes or XSL stylesheets.  Using CSS, the styles of one or more TOC Web Parts can be customised by overriding the default classes and styles.  By placing styles direcly into a page, or attaching a stylesheet with the updated classes to the page containing a TOCWP, the default classes can be overridden when the updated classes have the same name.  This can be utilised to allow customisation of the TOCWP without haveing to modify core functionality or style sheets (core.css).

How to customise CSS styles of a single Table of Contents Web Part on a specific page
How to customise a single or specific set of Table of Contents Web Parts, but not others that may exist in a SharePoint site collection.  By Attaching an additional style sheet to a page containing a TOCWP, or by including styles directly in the page allows the TOCWP to be cusomised without having to modify core styles.

How to apply additional Styles to a SharePoint Site, Page or existing CSS Style Sheet
How to incorporate a new stylesheet into a SharePoint site or page.  There are a number of methods available for incorporating styles into a page on SharePoint, including associating the stylesheet as the style sheet to be used by the SharePoint Site, attaching an additional style sheet to a page using SharePoint Designer, or by including the CSS classes in a style tag in the head section of a specific page.

What CSS Classes Does a TOCWP Use by Default
How do I know which CSS classes to make changes to in order to customise a specific presentation layout for a Table of Contents Web Part?  The following provides a table containing the main classes and elements used to render a TOCWP.  The classes can be overridden or replaced with new ones to allow Table Of Contents Web Part styles to be customised.

How to differentiate the styles between the Horrizontal & Vertical presentation Layouts
Many of the Horizontal and Vertical presentation layouts available for a Table of Contents web Part are shared with other presentation layouts, making it hard to customise a specific one.  For example, the “Vertical with boxed title” and “Horizontal with boxed title” layouts both use the same class for the outer div container and title text.  Overriding CSS styles for one of these presentation layouts will affect TOCWPs on the page with wither of the two layouts.  To differentiate styles between the Vertical / Horizontal layouts (or any others), the XSL style sheet used to define elements and CSS classes for TOC Web Parts needs to be modified to include differentiated classes for the various presentation layouts.

How to include a custom background image for Table Of Contents Web Part Titles using CSS
How to override or replace the default classes used by a Table of Contents Web Part to incorporate background images and an alternate layout.  How to incorporate background images and CSS into a page or style sheet so that they are available to all TOCWP that require the new styles.

Free example image set and styles for Table of Contents Web Part
Download a free example image set for use as background and bullet images for a Table of Contents web Part.  Style Sheets are included to allow default classes to be overridden or replaced with new styles.

Incorporate company Branding into TOCWP Styles
Customise the CSS styles and classes used by a Table of Contents Web Part to include Company Branding.  Apply company branding and theme (fonts, colours, images) into a TOCWP in SharePoint.

See Customize TOC Web Part CSS for details.

SharePoint Workflow Errors: Descriptions, resolutions and Workarounds SharePoint Workflow Errors

There are many cases where a workflow developed using SharePoint Designer will stop due to a workflow error. A number of factors can cause a workflow error, including list permissions, data types, incorrect lookups to items that don’t exist based on the criteria specified or document libraries and lists with Force Checkout and Content Approval enabled.

Workflow errors can also be used intentionally to break / stopping a looping workflow sequence. For example, a looping workflow that is configured to processe all items from a list will stop once all items have been processed as it will not be able to find the next item to process. The result will be a “List item not found” error which will cause the looping workflow sequence to break / stop.

For more information about workflow errors in SharePoint including examples, common causes and workarounds / resolutions, see SharePoint Workflow Errors.

Common Workflow Errors:

• List Item Not Found
• Error updating a list item
• Access Denied
• Failed on Start (retrying)
• Document must be checked out
• Error Deleting a list item

By default, SharePoint Designer (2007) doesn’t allow you to retrieve the
details of the user who started / initiated a workflow.  The only option
available using OOB workflow activities is to get the user who created the list
item or to retrieve the user who last modified the list item, which in most
cases will be the user who initiated the workflow, but not all.

To retrieve the account details of the user who triggered the workflow, you can
create or modify a separate list item, then retrieve the account details of the
item from either the Created By field or the Modified By field.  As the
workflow runs using the credentials of the user who initiated the workflow, when
an item is created or modified by the workflow it will be done using the account
of the workflow initiator.

For more information, see SPD Workflow: Get account details of the user who initiated the workflow.

Forum Discussion:

Replicate / Migrate data into sharepoint lists from an external sql database

Solutions for integrating data from an external SQL database in SharePoint. Migrate data from an external database into Sharepoint Lists and libraries, or configure data connections to retreive data directly from the external database to be displayed on pages or stored in SharePoint.

Replicate / Migrate data into sharepoint lists from an external sql database

How to configure a workflow to start at specific time, then loop / repeat periodically (Daily, Weekly)

The following method can be used to start a workflow at a specific time, then repeat periodically (each day). Periodic Workflow Processing (send daily email notification or reminder) A useful implementation of this technique allows you to configure workflows to run as background tasks at a specific time instead of being triggered by a user manually, or after creating or modifying a list item.

How to configure a workflow to start at specific time, then loop / repeat periodically (Daily, Weekly)

SharePoint XSL String Replacement Function
Using a custom XSL template with a Data View web part, a Lookup column in SharePoint which allows multiple selections can be used to replace ; with a new line and bullet.  The following article describes how to use a custom XSL template in a Data View Web Part to create the equivalent to an XSL string replace function which then splits and formats the string of multiple selections, delimited with a semicolon (;).

SharePoint XSL String Replacement Function

Q: How do i get the current time in a SharePoint Designer Workflow?  When I try to test if the due date and time is less than two hours away, the condition doesn’t work as I am only able to select [today] from the options, which seems to ignore the time component of the current date.

A: You can create or modify another list item using the workflow, then get the ‘Created’ or ‘Last Modified’ date of the item to get test against the current time.
This may result in the current time being a few minutes late, but works well.

See Get current time in Sharepoint Designer workflow for details.