The Links List

The links list is present on many SharePoint sites and is included in several of the standard templates, including the Team Site template and the Document Workspace template. This Web Part is pretty self-explanatory and doesn't include very many special features. The main use is to provide easy access to websites that would be of particular interest to a user of the site. These can be sites on the same SharePoint server, such as other departments, or external sites, perhaps those of business partners, or even reference sites containing technical reference materials.

Figure 7.1 shows a sample links list with three entries in it. This list can be accessed by clicking the title of the links list from the site home page, by clicking the name of the links list from the Quick Launch bar on the left side of the home page, or by clicking Documents and Lists in the navigation bar on the home page and then selecting the links list.

Figure 7.1. List Web Part AllItems page.

To add a new link, you simply click New Item in the menu bar, as shown in Figure 7.1. Once the New Item page (referenced as the NewForm.aspx page in the URL) is open, simply enter in the following information:

• The URL You can type it in from memory if it's short, or open another instance of IE, go to the site, select and copy the entire URL (Ctrl+C), and then paste (Ctrl+V) it back in the NewForm.aspx page. Once the URL has been entered, you can click Click here to test above the field to make sure you entered it properly and to make sure SharePoint can actually talk to the server housing the URL.

• A description This is what shows up on the home page, and it is recommended that you make it short and descriptive.

• Notes Notes are optional, and they are viewable from the AllItems.aspx page.

Another useful tool in the links list view (referenced as AllItems.aspx in the URL) is the Change Order tool, which, as the name implies, let's you assign a number to each entry that corresponds to its position from the top of the list. If you have sufficient rights, this allows you, or the Site Administrator, to determine the exact order in which these items are arranged.

TIP

Note that you can add a link to a specific document or a specific document library on a SharePoint site if you have the whole URL.