I have just started to look at SharePoint 2010, but one of the first things I noticed, was how cumbersome it was to change view in a list or library. In the default “Browse” layout, you must use at least 4 clicks to change view.

I therefore made this solution to add a SharePoint 2007 style view selector to the top link bar:

As always we start like this:

Create a document library to hold your scripts (or a folder on the root created in SharePoint Designer). In this example I have made a document library named “Javascript” and added “jquery-1.4.2.min.js” and “spjs_customViewMenu.js”:

Add this code to a CEWP in the list view where you want the menu to appear:

<script type="text/javascript" src="../../Javascript/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../Javascript/spjs_customViewMenu.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
	createCustomViewMenu();
});
</script>

The code for the file “spjs_customViewMenu.js”:

/* SharePoint 2007 style view selector for SharePoint 2010
 * Adds a view selector to the Top link bar
 * ---------------------------------------------
 * Created by Alexander Bautz
 * [email protected]
 * Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Alexander Bautz (Licensed under the MIT X11 License)
 * v1.0
 * LastMod: 11.07.2010
 * ---------------------------------------------
 * Include reference to:
 *  jQuery - http://jquery.com
 *	spjs_customViewMenu.js (this file)
 * ---------------------------------------------
*/

function createCustomViewMenu(){
	// Get the view collection for the list
	var viewColl = customGetViewCollection(_spPageContextInfo.pageListId);
	var activeViewName = '';
	var htmlBuffer = [];
	// Build the view selector
	$.each(viewColl.views,function(){
		var viewIcon = 'itgen.png'
		var viewType = $(this).attr('Type');
		var viewUrl = $(this).attr('Url');
		var viewDispName = $(this).attr('DisplayName');
		if(viewType=='CALENDAR')viewIcon = 'itevent.png'
		var thisViewGuid = $(this).attr('Name');
		if(location.href.match(escape(viewUrl))!=null){
			activeViewName = $(this).attr('DisplayName');
			_spPageContextInfo.activeViewGuid = thisViewGuid;
		}
		htmlBuffer.push("<div class='ms-cui-ctl' style='display:block;padding:2px 0px 0px 2px;cursor:pointer' viewUrl='"+viewUrl+"' ");
		htmlBuffer.push("onclick='javascript:selectView(this)'>");
		htmlBuffer.push("<img style='vertical-align:middle;padding-left:2px;' src='"+L_Menu_BaseUrl+"/_layouts/images/"+viewIcon+"'>&nbsp;"+viewDispName+"</div>");
	});
	// Edit view and create view
	htmlBuffer.push("<div style='border-bottom:1px silver solid;height:4px'>&nbsp;</div>");
	htmlBuffer.push("<div class='ms-cui-ctl' style='padding:2px 0px 0px 2px;cursor:pointer;display:block' ");
	htmlBuffer.push("viewUrl='modify' onclick='javascript:selectView(this)'>");
	htmlBuffer.push("<img style='vertical-align:middle;padding-left:2px;' src='"+L_Menu_BaseUrl+"/_layouts/images/modifyview.gif'>&nbsp;Modify view</div>");
	htmlBuffer.push("<div class='ms-cui-ctl' style='padding:2px;cursor:pointer;display:block' ");
	htmlBuffer.push("viewUrl='create' onclick='javascript:selectView(this)'>");
	htmlBuffer.push("<img style='vertical-align:middle;padding-left:2px;' src='"+L_Menu_BaseUrl+"/_layouts/images/createview.gif'>&nbsp;Create view</div>");
	// Wrap the selector
	var htmlWrap = [];
	htmlWrap.push("<div id='customViewMenuWrapper' style='cursor:pointer' class='menu-item' onclick='javascript:customShowMenu()' onmouseout='customMouseOutHideMenu(event)'>");
	htmlWrap.push(activeViewName);
	htmlWrap.push("<img id='customViewMenuWrapperImg' onmouseout='customMouseOutHideMenu(event)' style='vertical-align:middle;padding-left:4px' src='/_layouts/images/ecbarw.png' alt='Open Menu'></div>");
	htmlWrap.push("<div id='customViewMenuDiv' style='padding:1px;background-color:white;border:1px silver solid;display:none;position:absolute;z-index:1001;width:150' ");
	htmlWrap.push("onmouseover='customHideMenu(false)' onmouseout='customMouseOutHideMenu(event)'>");
	htmlWrap.push(htmlBuffer.join('')+"</div>");
	// Append the new menu to the toplink bar
	$("div.s4-toplinks ul").append("<li class='static'>"+htmlWrap.join('')+"</li>");
}

// Overcome the missing onmouseleave event in Firefox
function customMouseOutHideMenu(e){
if(!e) var e = window.event;
	var target = e.srcElement || e.target;
	var relTarg = e.relatedTarget || e.toElement;
	var relTargID = $(relTarg).attr('id')
	isInWrapper = ($(target).attr('id')=='customViewMenuWrapper' || $(target).parents("div[id='customViewMenuWrapper']").length>0);
	if(!isInWrapper || relTargID.match('customViewMenu')==null){
		customHideMenu(true);
	}
}

// Hide menu if user moves mouse outside the container
function customHideMenu(hide){
	if(hide){
		hideMenu = setTimeout(function(){
			$("#customViewMenuDiv").hide();
		},500);
	}else{
		if(typeof(hideMenu)!='undefined'){
			clearTimeout(hideMenu);
		}
	}
}

function customShowMenu(){
	$("#customViewMenuDiv").show();
	// Fix div width in IE 7
	var menuWidth = 150;
	$("#customViewMenuDiv").find('div.ms-cui-ctl').each(function(){
		thisWidth = $(this).width();
		if(thisWidth>menuWidth)menuWidth=thisWidth+10
	});
	$("#customViewMenuDiv").css('width',menuWidth);
}

function selectView(obj){
	var Url = $(obj).attr('viewUrl');
	var activeViewGuid = _spPageContextInfo.activeViewGuid;
	var activeList = _spPageContextInfo.pageListId;
	if(Url=='modify'){
		Url = L_Menu_BaseUrl + "/_layouts/ViewEdit.aspx?List="+activeList+"&View="+activeViewGuid;
	}else if(Url=='create'){
		Url = L_Menu_BaseUrl + "/_layouts/ViewType.aspx?List="+activeList+"&View="+activeViewGuid;
	}
	location.href=Url;
}

/*****************************************************
				Get view collection
*****************************************************/
function customGetViewCollection(listGuid){
	xmlStr = "<GetViewCollection xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/'><listName>"+listGuid+"</listName></GetViewCollection>";
	var result = {success:false, errorCode:'', errorText:'internal error', views:[]};
	wrapSoapRequest(L_Menu_BaseUrl + '/_vti_bin/views.asmx', 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/GetViewCollection', xmlStr, function(data){
		if($('ErrorText', data).length>0) {
			result.success = false;
		}else{
			result.success = true;
			$('View', data).each(function(i){
				if($(this).attr('Hidden')!='TRUE'){
					result.views.push($(this));
				}
			});
		}
	});
	return result;
}

/*****************************************************
				Wrap webservice call
*****************************************************/
function wrapSoapRequest(webserviceUrl,requestHeader,soapBody,successFunc){
	var xmlWrap = [];
		xmlWrap.push("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>");
		xmlWrap.push("<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema' xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>");
		xmlWrap.push("<soap:Body>");
		xmlWrap.push(soapBody);
		xmlWrap.push("</soap:Body>");
		xmlWrap.push("</soap:Envelope>");
		xmlWrap = xmlWrap.join('');
	$.ajax({
		async:false,
		type:"POST",
		url:webserviceUrl,
		contentType:"text/xml; charset=utf-8",
		processData:false,
		data:xmlWrap,
		dataType:"xml",
		beforeSend:function(xhr){
			xhr.setRequestHeader('SOAPAction',requestHeader);
		},
		success:successFunc,
		error:function(xhr){
			alert(xhr.statusText);
		}
	});
}

Save as “spjs_customViewMenu.js” – mind the file extension – and upload to the scriptlibrary as shown above.

Ask if something is unclear!
Alexander

Guest Author: Alexander Bautz
SharePoint JavaScripts

Alexander Bautz is a SharePoint consultant/developer (mainly JavaScript/jQuery solution) living in Norway. Alexander spends a lot of his spare time blogging on the same topics. His focus area is "end user customizations" with no (or as little as possible) server side code.