Introduction

The other day I was wrestling with the new SharePoint 2013 App framework. I created a SharePoint 2013 SharePoint Hosted App. Besides full screen mode (which pops up when you press F5 in Visual Studio 2012), I also wanted to add an AppPart in order to make the app available on my host website. The problem I was facing is that my App Part is just an IFrame loading the main page of my App. This includes the Chrome and Navigation of the App default.aspx page. This makes my App Part look like this:

I was searching the internet for a quick and easy way to remove the chrome and navigation from the page when using an AppPart, while keeping it when my App is in Full screen mode. I could only find some pretty complex ways to do this, so I thought I’ll share my solution to this. The final result looks like this:

The Solution

I did this in a SharePoint Hosted App. The problem as described above occurs if your App page is hosted inside SharePoint (as is the case with a SharePoint hosted app). What I did was first create a new Project in Visual Studio 2012 and choose the “App for SharePoint 2013” template. I then chose the “SharePoint-hosted” app option. This creates a default SharePoint Hosted app with a Default.aspx page in the App-web.

In order to make an AppPart available in the Host Web you’ll have to add a Client Web Part item to your Visual Studio Solution. Right-click on your project in Visual Studio and select New Item. Then choose the Client Web Part item template.

In the next dialog window I chose “Select or enter a URL for an existing web page”.

This makes sure that the AppPart loads the same page in the IFrame as is shown in the full screen version of the app. Doing the steps above gives you an Elements.xml file containing the following XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

  <ClientWebPart Name="MyDemoAppPart" 

                 Title="My Demo AppPart" 

                 Description="This is a demo AppPart" 

                 DefaultWidth="300" DefaultHeight="200">

    <!-- Content element identifies the location of the page that will render inside the client web part

         Properties are referenced on the query string using the pattern _propertyName_

         Example: Src="~appWebUrl/Pages/ClientWebPart1.aspx?Property1=_property1_" -->

    <Content Type="html" Src="~appWebUrl/Pages/Default.aspx" />

    <!-- Define properties in the Properties element.

         Remember to put Property Name on the Src attribute of the Content element above. -->

    <Properties>

    </Properties>

  </ClientWebPart>

</Elements>

Putting the new AppPart on a page in your Host Web gives the result as shown in the introduction of this article. To remove most of the navigation and chrome a very simple trick can be applied. Just add “IsDlg=1” to the querystring of the call to the Default.aspx file in the App Web. This querystring is also used by SharePoint internally to remove navigation when opening a Model Dialog. Hence the name of the parameter IsDlg. So now the Elements.xml file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

  <ClientWebPart Name="MyDemoAppPart" 

                 Title="My Demo AppPart" 

                 Description="This is a demo AppPart" 

                 DefaultWidth="300" DefaultHeight="200">

    <!-- Content element identifies the location of the page that will render inside the client web part

         Properties are referenced on the query string using the pattern _propertyName_

         Example: Src="~appWebUrl/Pages/ClientWebPart1.aspx?Property1=_property1_" -->

    <Content Type="html" Src="~appWebUrl/Pages/Default.aspx?IsDlg=1" />

    <!-- Define properties in the Properties element.

         Remember to put Property Name on the Src attribute of the Content element above. -->

    <Properties>

    </Properties>

  </ClientWebPart>

</Elements>

The clue is in the following line of XML:

    <Content Type="html" Src="~appWebUrl/Pages/Default.aspx?IsDlg=1" />

As you can see I’ve added the IsDlg=1 as a querystring. The resulting AppPart looks like this:

Almost got it! The only thing is that there is a lot of whitespace in the top of my AppPart content. Using the IE developer tools I figured out that this is caused by a div with id=”globalNavBox” that is still taking up space.

<div class="noindex" id="globalNavBox">

In order to hide it I’ll have to add a little bit of JavaScript using jQuery to my App.js file. This piece of JavaScript fires only when the IsDlg=1 parameter is in the querystring.

// This code runs when the DOM is ready and creates a context object which is needed to use the SharePoint object model

$(document).ready(function () {

    // Hide the globalNavBox element if IsDlg querystring parameter is set

    var isDialog = getQueryStringParameterByName('IsDlg');

    if (isDialog == '1') {

        $("#globalNavBox").hide();

    }

    context = SP.ClientContext.get_current();

    web = context.get_web();

    getUserName();

});

function getQueryStringParameterByName(name) {

    var match = RegExp('[?&]' + name + '=([^&]*)').exec(window.location.search);

    return match && decodeURIComponent(match[1].replace(/\+/g, ' '));

}

The trick is in the following:

    var isDialog = getQueryStringParameterByName('IsDlg');

    if (isDialog == '1') {

        $("#globalNavBox").hide();

    }

When isDialog is 1, I use jQuery to hide the element with Id=”globalNavBox”.

This results in an AppPart with all Chrome and Navigation removed. The same page in Full Screen Mode does show the Chrome and Navigation.

Summary

To remove all the default styling from a SharePoint Hosted App page showing in an AppPart, you can take the following approach:

Add IsDlg=1 to the querystring of the call to the App page from the AppPart.

Add the following code to the App.js file:

    var isDialog = getQueryStringParameterByName('IsDlg');

    if (isDialog == '1') {

        $("#globalNavBox").hide();

    }

A while ago I did a series of blog posts about Taxonomy Fields. You can find those posts here: Part I, Part II, Part III. Most of the code in those posts is not usable when working in the Sandbox, since the Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy namespace is not available when writing solutions for the sandbox.

The other day I had to write a solution for a customer which had (among others of course) the following requirements:

- Centrally managed content types

- Sandboxed Solution

- Automated Install

I decided to create a Sandboxed Content Type Hub that would contain my Site Columns and Content Types.

All this will be deployed to the SharePoint Farm using PowerShell Scripts. This gives me some flexibility to configure my Taxonomy Fields using PowerShell. The solution to declaring Taxonomy Fields described in my earlier post http://www.insidesharepoint.net/post/2010/11/05/Using-taxonomyfields-in-Sharepoint-2010-Part-I.aspx uses a Feature Receiver to connect the declared Taxonomy Field to its hidden notefield and to the Term Set from the TermStore. In order to do this, we need classes from the Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy namespace that are not available in the Sandbox. So I couldn’t use that solution directly.

What I eventually did was declare the fields as usual in the solution, and then rewrite the feature receiver to a PowerShell function. Also I wrote scripts to create the Content Type Hub site collection and to upload the Sandboxed Solution containing my Content Types and Site Columns to the Content Type Hub site collection. I thought I share the code to do this with you, maybe it helps someone out there.

Wiring up a Taxonomy Field using PowerShell:

function ConfigureMetaDataField( [string]$taxFieldGuid, [string]$noteFieldGuid, [string]$siteUrl, [string]$mmaName, [string]$groupName, [string]$termSetName ) 
{
    # Get the site
    $site = Get-SPSite $siteUrl
    # Get the taxonomy field that was deployed by the Sandboxed WSP
    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.TaxonomyField]$field = $site.RootWeb.Fields | Where-Object { $_.Id -eq $taxFieldGuid }
    
    # Set the hidden note field
    $field.TextField = $noteFieldGuid
    # Get the correct Term Set from the Managed Metadata service app
    $session = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.TaxonomySession($site)
    $termstore = $session.TermStores[$mmaName]
    $group = $termstore.Groups | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $groupName }
    $termSet = $group.TermSets[$termSetName]
    # Set the fields termstore id and termset id
    $field.SspId = $termstore.Id
    $field.TermSetId = $termSet.Id
    # Update the field
    $field.Update()
 
    # Dispose
    $site.Dispose()
}

The PowerShell function assumes that you have already deployed the Taxonomy Field and its hidden note field using a (Sandboxed) WSP. How to do this is described in my earlier post here, but reprinted here for completeness:

Fields declaration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">  
	<Field Type="TaxonomyFieldTypeMulti"          
		DisplayName="MyTaxonomyField"          
		ShowField="Term1033" Required="TRUE"          
		ID="{8D0458C1-0FB7-4981-BEE1-52D0DF01895C}"          
		StaticName="MyTaxonomyField"          
		Name="MyTaxonomyField"          
		Group="Custom"         
		Mult="TRUE"         
		>
	</Field>    
	<Field Type="Note"          
		DisplayName="MyTaxonomyField_0"          
		StaticName="MyTaxonomyFieldTaxHTField0"          
		Name="MyTaxonomyFieldTaxHTField0"          
		ID="{3a913424-fc7f-49ef-8fb6-a2ca1712cdc3}"          
		Hidden="TRUE"         
		DisplaceOnUpgrade="TRUE"         
	/>
</Elements>

ContentType declaration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <!-- Parent ContentType: Item (0x01) -->
  <ContentType ID="0x0100b58d33764b384da58bbadee9721e1843"
               Name="MyCustomContentType"
               Group="Custom"
               Description="Custom provisioned contenttype containing a Taxonomyfield"
               Inherits="TRUE"
               Version="0">
    <FieldRefs>
      <FieldRef ID="8D0458C1-0FB7-4981-BEE1-52D0DF01895C" Name="MyTaxonomyField"/>
      <FieldRef ID="3a913424-fc7f-49ef-8fb6-a2ca1712cdc3" Name="MyTaxonomyFieldTaxHTField0"/>
      <FieldRef ID="f3b0adf9-c1a2-4b02-920d-943fba4b3611" Name="TaxCatchAll"/>
      <FieldRef ID="8f6b6dd8-9357-4019-8172-966fcd502ed2" Name="TaxCatchAllLabel"/>
    </FieldRefs>
  </ContentType>
  <Receivers>
    <Receiver>
      <Name>TaxonomyItemSynchronousAddedEventReceiver</Name>
      <Type>ItemAdding</Type>
      <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c</Assembly>
      <Class>Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.TaxonomyItemEventReceiver</Class>
      <SequenceNumber>10000</SequenceNumber>
    </Receiver>
    <Receiver>
      <Name>TaxonomyItemUpdatingEventReceiver</Name>
      <Type>ItemUpdating</Type>
      <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c</Assembly>
      <Class>Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.TaxonomyItemEventReceiver</Class>
      <SequenceNumber>10000</SequenceNumber>
    </Receiver>
  </Receivers>
</Elements>

Uploading the Sandboxed Solution (WSP) to the Content Type Hub Site Collection:

Add-SPUserSolution -LiteralPath $wspPath -Site $siteUrl

Activating the Sandboxed Solution:

Install-SPUserSolution -Identity SolutionName.wsp -Site $siteUrl

Activate the Content Type Feature using the commandlet Enable-SPFeature.

This feature automatically activates the Site columns feature. If you make the Site Columns feature hidden and you create an activation dependency between the Content Type feature and the Site Columns feature, the Site columns feature will automatically be activated when activating the Content Type Feature. Pretty neat.

Calling the PowerShell function:

ConfigureMetaDataField -taxFieldGuid "8D0458C1-0FB7-4981-BEE1-52D0DF01895C" -noteFieldGuid "3a913424-fc7f-49ef-8fb6-a2ca1712cdc3" ‘
-siteUrl "http://mycontenttypehub" -mmaName "My Managed Meta Data Service Application" -group "MyGroup" -termSet "MyTermSet"

Thats it! Hope this helps someone…

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If you don’t want to read the theory and go straight to downloading the example solution, click here

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In my series of posts about using Taxonomy Fields in SharePoint 2010 I am using code to do all kinds of stuff with Taxonomy Fields and Terms from code. Because I can´t leave those fascinating Taxonomy Fields for what they are, here is yet another post about this subject  

This is a follow up on my previous posts on this subject:

Using Taxonomy Fields in SharePoint 2010 - Part I

Using Taxonomy Fields in SharePoint 2010 - Part II

Using Taxonomy Fields in SharePoint 2010 - Part III

This post is meant for those of you that have read the previous posts (or attended one of my sessions on Managed Metadata Fields), and want to know more in order to write better code.

To get the Term Store from code I was using the following code in the Using Taxonomy Fields in SharePoint 2010 series of posts:

// set up the field for my termstore

TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(site);

if (session.TermStores.Count > 0)

{

      // get termstore

      TermStore ts = session.TermStores[0];

      // more code here...

}

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I had a great time at the European SharePoint Conference in Berlin last week. Saw some great sessions and met a lot of cool new people. Thanks to everyone that attended our Managed Metadata black belt presentation. The slides are now available for download here

I’m very happy to announce that I will be giving a presentation on the European SharePoint Conference in Berlin. I will be doing a session on Managed Metadata together with my collegae Donald Hessing. Here is a description of the session:

The use of Managed Meta Data in SharePoint seems to be trivial. You link the managed meta data service application to the proxy group that you want to use in the webapplication, you add a managed meta data field to the list and link that to the termset you want to use. No magic here! But once we dive into the more advanced scenarios we will see that the use, development and management has a lot of dark sides. What is actually stored in a taxonomy field, do I need the note field, where is the TaxonomyHiddenList good for, can I use managed meta data in the sandbox, how do I use the taxonomy field with search, are there any restrictions from an architectural point of view?

The session will be on Thursday the 20th of October at 11:15.

Hope to meet you there!

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