I thought this would be easy
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I should have known better.
I am really as system admin/DBA type and not really a developer but I know enough to be dangerous. When a mini-project came in to make some minor tweaks on a SharePoint site publishing site, I figured I could handle that. They wanted some CSS changes, a new master page, a handful of page layouts, and a couple of site columns to categorize and sort things. It was pretty basic, classic, publishing portal.
The master page and CSS stuff took a couple of days – mostly because of the back and forth e-mails but I got things looking the way I wanted them to. Then I combine their document libraries and add two site columns “Portal Topics” and “Portal Sub-Topics”. I used those two columns to sort everything on the site.
I used a new content type with the two site columns to create a new landing page and top-level topic pages. I dropped in all the web parts, banner stuff, and filtered views. Even setup the submit/approval/publish workflow. Things are looking good.
Then, I created a page layout for the sub-topics. Odd... the drop down control for “Portal Sub-topics” doesn’t render in my page when I go to “Edit Page”. I figure I must have missed something so I’m checking everything I can think of. The site column shows in every other object. I can even see it on the “Edit Properties” view of the page but I want this to show up right on the page so that people can find it.
I do some Google searches, ask around to some of the real dev guys, and crack open some of the SharePoint books lying around. Nothing comes of that. I create a site column called “test” and it works perfectly. And then, the light dawns...
The hyphen… something about the drop down control doesn’t like the f*uckin’ hyphen. Every other part of SharePoint can handle the hyphen but noooooo, the one part I want to use can’t handle the hyphen. I can handle spaces but can’t handle a goddamned hyphen. Now I have to figure out the best way to handle this... after a beer or two... or six or seven, actually...
Why didn't I just say no when they asked if I could do this?
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Um...
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If that does not work, using the unicode character 8208 (0x2010) (hyphen) as a replacement would be another thing to try (inserted literally by selecting from the character map or by escape sequence).
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@Ex-Navy Dude said:
“Portal Sub-topics”
=> "Portal Sub Topics" or "Portal Subtopics"?
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Ahhh... Sharepoint. In my friend's words, "the very best thing since Chinese water torture."
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@bjolling said:
I wish it was that simple, but I it won't let me change it via the stock admin pages. And of course, SharePoint buries all of it's configurations is several different databases so I'm not sure what I could break if I mess with it directly...@Ex-Navy Dude said:
“Portal Sub-topics”
=> "Portal Sub Topics" or "Portal Subtopics"?I can add a new site column but can't delete the old one until I purge all references to it in all existing objects, then I have re-do all my views...
Or I wait until someone with more experience on the team gets back from vaction.... yep... time for more beer. Should have just stayed away from this one.
