Formatting Views | SharePoint Tutorial pdf

Formatting Views

In addition to the filter settings, views have a number of other settings that let you format their appearance on the Create View and Edit View pages (Figure ).
Figure : View settings are organized into sections

The Columns section lets you select which columns to display. It’s a good idea to limit the number of columns you show to what fits horizontally on a standard display.
Otherwise, users will have to scroll sideways to get the whole view.
The Sort section specifies the columns to sort on. Use sorting to help users find the information they want. Usually that means sorting by Title in ascending order or by Create (creation date) in descending order (most recent first).
Use the Group By section to create tree-views of list items. Group By sections also sort items and takes precedence over the Sort section. The Phone List web part uses Group By to organize phone numbers by department.
Use the Total section to provide a count or sum of items. Totals combine with Group By to give running totals for each category.
The Style section applies formatting to the view. I like to use the Shaded view for most lists since it makes rows easier to read. (Shaded applies shading to alternate rows.)
The Folders section applies to document libraries, so I’ll discuss that in next Chapter.
The Item Limit section sets the size of the batch of items displayed on a page. If you want to display all of the items in a list, set the number very high. Otherwise, large lists are broken in to multiple pages.
The Mobile section lets you create a view for mobile devices, which have much smaller screens.
The best way to learn about formatting views is to experiment with the settings yourself.
It’s a good idea to create a style guide when you find a combination of settings that you like. I’ve found these general design rules work best:
=> Limit the number of columns to what will appear on a screen that is 1024 pixels wide. 800 pixels generally won’t fit enough information and most displays now support 1024.
=> Use the Shaded style. I’ve noticed folks have less trouble reading that style, and it looks nice.
=> Avoid Totals in standard views. They look better and make more sense in datasheet views.
=> Set the item limit so views page or scroll -- don’t do both. I’ve found users often miss the paging links at the bottom of the page, but they understand how to scroll. I reserve paging for lists with more than 1000 items, and then I try to fit each page on a single screen (Number of items to display: 20, Display items in batches of specified size).
Feel free to use those suggestions as a starting point for your own style guide, or come up with one that’s completely your own. If you include pictures and print it out, folks will be more likely to follow the guide (and you’ll be surprised by how welcome it is).