A friend of mine and I were talking about a "simple" way to make links in the QuickLaunch (QL) menu open in a new window. In our case, we want the slideshow of a Picture Library to be listed on QL, and have it pop open to a new window that can then be closed after viewing. Currently, if you don't pop the link open into a new window, the link goes straight to the slideshow page. But, the parent links in the slideshow page open up--yet again--additional new windows when you try to go back to the main site or subsites in the Asp:SiteMapPath control. It's definitely not the best user experience
At first glance, the idea of "targeting" a new window from QL seems easy. But, after you explore both the browser-based interface to QL--as well as via SharePoint Designer--the <SharePoint:AspMenu> control isn't easily configured on an item-by-item basis. Of course one could attempt to build a custom webpart, and go that route. But, what is meant to be a simple "thing" ends up consuming quite a bit of time determining the best way to implement.
JavaScript in QuickLaunch
As you may know, the browser-based QL link manager allows you to build standards-based <a href=""> values to show links on the left side a standard WSS or MOSS layout. Maybe an (un)known secret to some is that those hef values can hold a standards-based javascript:; call as the value of the href.
For example, in the QL link manager, if you add a javascript command as if you were building standard HTML...
(Be sure to use single quotes when designating string values; full quotes will cause an error)
... you will see a link in your QL area...
... that when clicked, produces your standard message box:
Make A Reusable Function
Now, the logical progression in this is to leverage the fullness of the JavaScript environment in SharePoint. By creating a JavaScript function in your masterpage, not only can you control the target of your QL links, but you can reuse this function for any links on a page inheriting your masterpage.
(Note: be sure you make a backup of your masterpage before attempting this)
- Step #1 - Open your masterpage in the SharePoint Designer site where you want to have this javascript command exposed
- Step #2 - In the Code view, insert a client-side JavaScript tag at the end of your <head> tag that has a funtion that calls a window.open method, and save your masterpage...
- Step #3 - Open the QL link manager in your browser and type in the javascript call for your link...
... where [your page] is your valid SharePoint site URL. Of course, you can expand your javascript:openWin(...); call to also include feature and replace values.
This is all typical JavaScript functionality; just make sure it all conforms to standards, and you can program any client fucntionality into your QL links... or any other links on your page.
Bonus!
So, at the beginning of the article I mentioned the whole Picture Library issue how the View Slide Show menu creates a lot of unnecessary targeting for subsequent pages. Well, if you're building a QL to this page, it'd be a better user experience if you negate the parent links on the slideshow.aspx page.
The simplest way to do that is to just kill the SiteMapPath control on your particular slideshow.aspx page. Just go into SharePoint Designer, and open your: Picture Library --> Forms --> slideshow.aspx. Then, locate the <asp:SiteMapPath> tag, and remove it...
... you'll be prompted to overwrite the definition, which you should do. Alternately, you can set the ParentLevelsDisplayed equal to 0 to only show the current node without any parent links.