Chapter 4: Working with Lists

 Download CD Content

Chapter at a Glance

View existing site content, page 82. Create new lists and libraries, page 83. Use list actions, page 101. View list items in the datasheet view, page 96. Create new list views, page 110.

In This Chapter, You will Learn to:

Discover default lists in a site.

Create a new list.

Add, edit, delete and restore list items.

Use Datasheet view.

Attach files to list items.

Add, edit, and delete list columns.

Sort and filter a list.

Add and modify a list view.

Set up alerts.

Use RSS feeds.

E-mail-enable a list and library.

Delete a list.

Restore a list.

You can think of the lists found in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services as spreadsheets that you and your coworkers can simultaneously use on the Internet. SharePoint lists represent editable, Web-based tables that facilitate concurrent, multi-user interactions against a common, centralized, extensible set of columns and rows. They empower you to provision your own repositories of structured information in which list items behave like rows consisting of self-labeled columns. All of the Web pages needed to create, review, update, delete, and manage a list and its data are automatically and dynamically generated by Windows SharePoint Services.

Tip 

Unstructured information is typically stored as a document with associated columns in a document library. Document libraries are discussed at length in Chapter 5, “Creating and Managing Libraries,” and Chapter 6, “Working with Library Settings.”

In this chapter, you will discover the default lists that already exist on your site, create new lists, and alter existing lists. Depending on the site template that you initially create, some lists (such as Announcements, Events, and Links) may be provisioned when the site is created and you need only to begin using them. Yet, there will come a time when the lists that are auto-provided do not quite meet a need. Therefore, this chapter explores the Web pages that allow you to not only alter existing lists, but create your own custom lists.

Important  

Before you can use the practice sites provided for this chapter, you need to install them from the book’s companion CD to their default locations. See “Using the Book’s CD” on page xix for more information.

Important  

Remember to use your SharePoint site location in place of http://wideworldimporters in the following exercises.