Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Tips and Tricks: Opening a Hidden Web Part
I received an interesting email today: “I hid a web part by clicking on the X button. How can I bring it back and then delete it?” Why would someone want to bring a web part back on the page just to delete it again?
When a web part is closed using the X, the web part is still loaded on the page, it is just not displayed. Resources are allocated that are never used, so she was right in asking the question.
Here are the steps to put a web part back on a page:
- Site Actions -> Edit Page
- Click Add a Web Part
- Click Advanced Web Part gallery and options
- Click Closed Web Parts
- Drag closed web part onto the page
Here are the steps to remove a web part completely from a page
- Site Actions -> Edit Page
- Click the edit button in the chrome menu
- Choose Delete -> OK
Nice question. I love the little stuff when it works right.
Hi,
The correct way to handle an issue like this (deleting closed web parts) is to go to the Web Parts Maintenance page and delete it from there.
You can easily navigate to the following url: http://yoursite/whatever/default.aspx?contents=1
The important thing to note here is that you simply add the querystring of “?contents=1″ to the end of your URL-string and you’ll get to the WP Maintenance page. From there, you can manage the Web Parts on that perticular page.
Cheers
There is another way explained in my blog (http://sharepointxperience.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html).
If you add “?contents=1″ to the url you will access to the maintainance page and you can delete all your closed web parts. For examle: “http://MyMOSSSite/Pages/Default.aspx?contents=1″.
Enjoy it!
Alex — Yes, I had seen your post before. Good tip…
Tobias — Your method works well. In addition to showing how to delete a hidden web part, the intent of my post was to demonstrate how to make the web part visible again.
Thank you both for your input.
I realize this conversation is almost a year old, but is it possible to re-open a closed webpart from the contents=1 page?
Not sure… did you try it?
Thank you!
Saved my life!
?contents=1 doesnt work there is no option to open the web parts from there
This function or facility to manage the page webparts (?Contents=1) is already there since SPS 2003
Thanks for the information guys/girls, and the lady’s request was quite a legitimate one. Because exactly the same thing happened to me. I mistakingly hit the close instead of exit edit and wanted to modify my web part….I knew it was not deleted but hidden.