Logo SharePoint Thoughts   Downloads   About   Up to Bluedog Limited
Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Posted on 6/1/2005 8:54 PM by Maurice Prather

Today’s topic is another one of those items that has been sitting in my idea queue for quite some time... since someone recently bumped up against this problem (again), I figured that it would be good to mention this sooner than later...

First, a definition...

Form pages - The pages that allow the editing, creation and viewing of lists and their corresponding items.  These pages are found in the “Forms” folder of any list. 

And now, a caveat...

Do not add any WebParts to form pages.  Placing WebParts on the form pages is not supported. 

“Wait?  Did you just say that I can’t add WebParts to a form page?”
Yes.

“Don’t the form pages have WebPartZones?  And, therefore, you should be able to add WebParts to the zones?”
Technically, yes to both questions.

“So why is adding WebParts to those pages unsupported?”
Form pages, although technically web part pages which do contain zones, were not designed, or tested, to be as fully operational as standard web part pages.  They are in a class of their own. As a result, you may run into weird behaviors when you add a WebPart to a form page.  This is reason the “Modify Page” link/functionality was explicitly removed from the form pages.

“How about if use FrontPage?  Or can I use the browser UI?  How about adding via a site template? Will that make it a supported action?”
No. The method by which parts are added doesn’t matter. 

Bottom line...
Default form pages were not intended to be used like a standard web part pages.  If you add a WebPart to a form page, your page will move over to the unsupported category.

-Maurice
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Hi Maurice, thx for the info. Is this documented in the SDK somewhere? /Steen
Steen Molberg @ 6/4/2005 4:35 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
FrontPage 2003 has a menu option to add a SharePoint List Form to an aspx page... do you know if that page then becomes unsupported (if it has other web parts on it) or does this apply only to the default forms?
Jim Duncan @ 6/5/2005 2:26 AM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Steen: Documentation is pending.  If you raise an issue with product support, this is the answer they will give.
 
Jim: The issue applies to the default form pages, AFAIK.
 
Maurice Prather @ 6/5/2005 11:58 AM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Hi Maurice, can you explain how you implemented the comments on your weblog? Looks like you added a web part to yours forms page;-)
Serge van den Oever [Macaw] @ 6/6/2005 2:26 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
If you're talking about the new comments page, I built it using a copy of the default form page. 
Bluedog @ 6/7/2005 10:59 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
 
Hi,
   Can you please tell me how to remove the "Modify Page" link/functionality in the webpart page..
 
its really helpful if you solve this problem..
 
Thanks and Regards,
Rahul B.
Rahul rahul.bhaskarini@cesltd.com @ 4/9/2006 5:57 AM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
The Modify Page link is typically hosted by the TitleBarWebPart.  Try removing that part from the page and see if that works well enough for you.
 
-Maurice
Maurice Prather @ 4/18/2006 5:45 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Maurice, I can't find any official confirmation from Microsoft that the combination of Web Parts and form pages is unsupported - could you point me to an official resource?
Joris @ 4/27/2006 12:42 AM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Joris,
 
I work on the team.  This is the exact answer given to customers that have opened PSS tickets related to this issue.
 
-Maurice
Maurice Prather @ 5/15/2006 10:00 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
By adding ?ToolPaneView=2 right after the URL and your Web part tool pane will be activated giving you the possibility to add Web part to the pages. But it's still unsupported.
Niklas @ 6/16/2006 4:23 AM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Does anyone know how I can generate a form reply or confirmation page from a SharePoint form?
 
I do not want the user returned to the default list page. I realise that I can redirect them anywhere, but I want to provide them with a reply containing their form variables.
 
FP03 offers form variables through webbots, but this obviouisly does not comply with SharePoint's model.
Rick @ 6/25/2006 6:33 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination

Rick,

I'm not really sure if there is a way to quickly accomplish what you're looking for... but it is possible.  Here's a quick 2 second plan...

  • Redirect to a "view" page, much like the standard view item page
  • The page can contain customized text and perhaps javascript that quickly calls into the list web service to pull down the necessary item info for display.
  • Alternatively, you might be able to include a DataViewWebPart on the page that simply pulls down the most recent item created by the user.  This would be simpler than the javascript/web service approach (although it is arguably perhaps the most useful).

Hope that helps,
-Maurice

Maurice Prather @ 6/29/2006 12:02 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Hi Maurice,
I have a sharepoing survey developed on a list, the default forms for editing, creating are modified by including web parts (not sure as I did not develop this, but I can see ListFormWebPart in the code when opened thru frontpage),now I am trying to deploy this list to a different server, i created a template of the list and recreated this list on a different sharepoint site, the list is created fine with all the columns and data but when I open the display form I find no content in it i.e. the form is empty with only WebPartPages:WebPartZone tag in it. I am not sure what to do, any guidance is helpful.
Regards,
San
San @ 8/8/2006 4:29 AM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
San:
 
I believe the problem lies with the fact your page references list X, but when the template is instantiated list X cannot be found and the parser simply strips out your part.  I'm not sure there is an easy way to fix the problem.
 
Maurice Prather @ 8/11/2006 1:41 AM
new link giving "page cannot be found"
I added a new link page in a list. When clicking a new list item item I get a page cannot be found. Yet it looks like it should work.
 
Any Ideas
 
 
 
 
Jim @ 10/3/2006 2:57 PM
re: Web Parts and form pages: an unsupported combination
Does this unsupport status apply to WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, that is, if you add other Web Parts to a Forms page using SharePoint Designer, are these pages in the unsupport category?
Jane Barrister @ 10/10/2007 1:54 PM
RSS feed
Microsoft Certified Master
MVP Logo
Follow me on Twitter!
Keyword Search
 
View by category
 

Disclaimer:
The contents of this site represent thoughts and opinions of the authors , not those of anyone else - such as past, present and future employers.  This a forum of the exchange of ideas centered on SharePoint technologies.  It is not a support channel.  :)

Copyright © 2004-2010 Maurice Prather, Inc. All rights reserved.