Taming the Elusive “Calculated Column” – Referencing a Multiple Lines of Text Column With Append Text: Part 2

In Part 1, Dessie gave us the first six steps "How to reference a ‘Multiple Lines of Text’ column in a ‘Calculated Column’ to display a complete list of appended changes to all items on a list as a group – in 10 Easy Steps”. Now we pick up where he left off with Step 7:

Step 7: The “Magic” URL

In order to be able to view the complete list of versions in an items history, you needn’t look any further than the magic URL of “?IncludeVersions=TRUE”.  Why this wasn’t made as a directly accessible option in views I’ll never know, but suffice it to say, all you need to do is add this to the end of your list view URL and watch the magic happen.

http://[Your-Domain]/Lists/All%20Comments/AllItems.aspx?IncludeVersions=TRUE

Of course, it may make more sense if you add in the “Version” column to your view:

Notice how the most recent version is the one listed first?

Step 8: My Memory is full!!

Although this approach is “technically” working, it’s not really the best tactic (as it is) since you’ll have to remember what that “Magic URL” is and paste it in each time you want to view the list of versions. 

To remedy this, we’ll create a separate view and use some simple JavaScript to append on the “Magic URL” to our target page.

Start by creating a new view called “Comments View” and add in the columns “Title (linked to item with edit menu)”, “Expanded Comments”, and “Version”. 
Additionally, scroll down to the “Group By” section and choose “Title” for the first group by column and choose “Expanded” for the default “Show Groupings” setting.

This will display as:

Next, we need to add in the “Magic URL” to our link for this view so it automatically displays the complete version list when we get there.

Choose the “All Items” view from the View dropdown to return to the default view page. 

Once there, go into the CEWP, open its “Source Editor” and right before the closing “script” tag, add in the following:

var items = document.getElementsByTagName('ie:menuitem');
  for(var i=0; i<items.length; i++)
  {
  if(items[i].id == "zz30_View1")
  {
  var itemAtt = items[i].attributes;
  var newAtt = itemAtt.onMenuClick.value;
  itemAtt.onMenuClick.value = newAtt.replace(/aspx/,  "aspx?IncludeVersions=TRUE");
  }
  }

Note – the above referenced “ID” of “zz30_View1” is what I’ve noticed to be the default id given to the first custom view created (the “All Items” view always seems to get “zz29_View1”).  I just wanted to mention that here in case it doesn’t work for you, you may need to view the page source to find the appropriate ID.

Once saved, clicking on the “Comments View” from the view dropdown will now take you to the view, but also have the “Magic URL” appended to it which will expand out the list of comments for viewing:

Step 9: Test Round 2

Once we have this set up, go back to the list and create several new items – each with several edits to make a history of comments.

Till next time…
– Dessie

In his next post, Dessie gets us to step 10 and cleans everything up.

Dessie Lunsford
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