Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

906 Part IX: Maintaining a Server in Windows SharePoint Services
browser or to the developer from within FrontPage 2003. If we hadn’t placed the
Data View into the Web Zone, the drop-down menu in the top right corner would
not have been available.
Formatting the Data View
What we have seen so far are just the basics. Data Views have many rich and powerful
capabilities built into them, such as grouping, filtering, sorting, toolbars, layout
and formatting capabilities, the ability to work with hierarchical data, and more. In
the next few sections, we will explore formatting the Data View in more detail.
One of the most powerful features of the Data View is that it allows XSL-based
WYSIWYG formatting of data, thus providing multiple presentation options with just
a few mouse clicks. The power of WYSIWYG lies in the fact that you can work
entirely in the Design View. The powerful design tools in FrontPage 2003—such as
formatting toolbars and so on—are readily available to format the output any way
you want right in Design View.
Applying Styles
FrontPage 2003 provides several built-in styles to format the data in the Data View.
Application of these styles is done using the Style link in the Data View Details task
pane. Similar to the way we formatted the SharePoint Announcements list earlier
in this chapter, we will continue formatting the Data View we added to the
DataView.aspx page in the previous section.
To apply a style to the Data View
1. Ensure that the Data View Details task pane is displayed for the Data View. If
it is not, you can display it by right-clicking anywhere in the Data View and
choosing Data View Properties in the pop-up menu.
2. In the Manage view settings section at the top of the Data View Details task
pane, click the Style link. This opens the View Styles dialog box.
3. In the list of available HTML styles, change the selection from the Basic Table
to the Two Column Repeating form with border style (which is the fifth choice
in the list). The style name shows as a ToolTip when you hover the cursor over
the style.
4. Click the Options tab and in the Record Sets section at the bottom of the dialog
box, change the value in the text box to the right of Display items in sets
of this size from 10 to 4. Click the OK button to apply the changes.
5. You might be warned that changing the view style will remove any custom formatting
and asked if you want to continue. Click the Yes button.
6. Save the DataView.aspx page and then view it in your browser. (See Figure 32-51.)