Using tokens in custom list forms

Question

I am deploying a list using Visual Studio 2010 that is based on a content type I created. The list also uses custom new/edit/display forms whcih I created using SharePoint Designer. I achieve this all as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"> 
    <ContentType ID="0x0100730B35B9AD3755498EF8D60B1E3E0AFE01" 
                 Name="Custom Content Type" 
                 Group="Custom" 
                 Description="" 
                 Inherits="TRUE" 
                 ReadOnly="TRUE" 
                 Version="0"> 
        <FieldRefs> 
            // Code omitted for readability 
        </FieldRefs> 
        <XmlDocuments> 
            <XmlDocument NamespaceURI="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url"> 
                <FormUrls xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url"> 
                    <Display>Lists/ListName/CustomDispForm.aspx</Display> 
                    <Edit>Lists/ListName/CustomEditForm.aspx</Edit> 
                    <New>Lists/ListName/CustomNewForm.aspx</New> 
                </FormUrls> 
            </XmlDocument> 
        </XmlDocuments> 
    </ContentType> 
</Elements>

Note the FormUrls section -- this instructs SharePoint to always load the specified form for this content type (as appposed to the default OOTB list forms). See MSDN.

To create my custom forms, I simply created a copy of the OOTB "NewForm.aspx" file and tweaked the layout a little. Nothing drastic.

So far this all works great.

My only problem is that "NewForm.aspx" contains some hardcoded list ID and URL references which I need to replace (with a token?). An example is in the SPDataSource control:

<DataSources>
    <SharePoint:SPDataSource runat="server" DataSourceMode="ListItem" SelectCommand="..." UseInternalName="True" UseServerDataFormat="True">
        <SelectParameters>
            <WebPartPages:DataFormParameter ParameterKey="ListItemId" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="0" Name="ListItemId"></WebPartPages:DataFormParameter>
            <WebPartPages:DataFormParameter ParameterKey="weburl" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="http://devsite" Name="weburl"></WebPartPages:DataFormParameter>
            <WebPartPages:DataFormParameter ParameterKey="ListID" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="{40047E88-C8E1-4E9B-88E6-2FD75A9D8533}" Name="ListID"></WebPartPages:DataFormParameter>
        </SelectParameters>

What can I replace the hardcoded URL and ListID paramter values with so that my custom form will work with any list that is based on this content type in the future?

Answer 1

It seems you can't use tokens as such, but you can change the default parameters slightly to more reusable ones... e.g:

I changed the WebUrl parameter to:

<WebPartPages:DataFormParameter ParameterKey="weburl" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="/" Name="weburl"></WebPartPages:DataFormParameter> 

And the ListID parameter to:

<WebPartPages:DataFormParameter ParameterKey="ListName" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="Plant Compliance Inspection" Name="ListName"></WebPartPages:DataFormParameter>

As you can see, I have referenced the list by name instead of ID. Admittedly, this does still "hardcode" you to a specific list, but it at least prevents your forms from breaking every time you just re-deploy from Visual Studio (as it blows away your list and recreates it, thus creating a new GUID).

See http://sympmarc.com/2008/12/16/replacing-listids-with-listnames-in-data-view-web-parts/ for more details.

I hope this helps somebody. This stole an entire day out of my life.