In SharePoint Online, when we create a new modern page, by default, the header of the page is coming as below. Sometimes, we don’t want that to be displayed. To hide the title bar, we can change the layout of the page itself.

#Connect to SharePoint Online site
$SiteURL = "https://sppalsmvp.sharepoint.com/sites/ReactRepository/"
Connect-PnPOnline $SiteURL -Credential (Get-Credential)

#Get the ID of the Page
Get-PnPListItem -List SitePages

#Change Page layout from "Article" to "Home"
Set-PnPListItem -List SitePages –Identity "13" -Values @{"PageLayoutType"="Home"}

Then, the title bar will not appear on this layout.

Happy Coding
Sathish Nadarajan

In this article, let us see a Simple SharePoint tip to hide the Title Area of an Article Page in SharePoint Online. Usually when I create a page in the Modern Site, the title area will be shown as below. Even, If I delete the title, the section will be shown as below.

But, my requirement is, to hide them and there are possibilities through CSS. But a permanent solution will be, creating the Page using the layout “Home” instead of “Article”. By default, we were not able to create a layout with a defined layout in modern page. Hence, after creating, using the below PowerShell script, we can convert the layout and the Title Area will be automatically hided.

$SiteURL = "https://MYSite.sharepoint.com/sites/MySiteCollection/"
Connect-PnPOnline $SiteURL -Credential (Get-Credential)

Get-PnPListItem -List SitePages

Set-PnPListItem -List SitePages –Identity "5" -Values @{"PageLayoutType"="Home"}

After converting the page looks as below.

A small tip which will help to convert the page layout.

Happy Coding
Sathish Nadarajan

There are many question whether it is possible to create a modern SPFx web part as a control in Page Layout (Template).

Yes, there is a workaround which is far from ideal but works:

· Export your SPFx webpart from the browser (.webpart file).

· Upload the .webpart file to the webpart gallery.

· Open SharePoint designer

· Navigate to page layouts folder from your SharePoint designer

· Right click on your page layouts

· Open the page layouts (ie: .aspx) as preview in browser

· Manually edit the aspx file in browser by clicking on edit button or by navigating using the URL “?ToolPaneView=2&pagemode=edit”

· Add the required SPFx webpart from the “Add Webpart” section.

· Save the aspx and when you create a page using the page layout, your SPFx webpart should be there.

Note: Please ignore the error while saving the .aspx page from browser. Just refresh your page then webpart will get added automatically.

Here you go!

Your page layout is ready with SPFx webpart.

In this article, let us see how to change the PageLayout of a Publishing page using PowerShell in SharePoint 2013. All the PowerShell Scripts will be very much helpful and handy during the time of preparing the deployment package.

The Script is straight forward and does not require any explanation I guess.

 ##================================================================================================
 ## Description	: To do the below two items.
     #1. Update the PageLayouts of the Existing Pages
 ## Author		: Sathish Nadarajan
 ## Date			: 16-Nov-2015
 ##================================================================================================
 
 ##============================================ Setup Input Paths ===========================================================
 
 cls
  
 $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = "-- Update the Page Layouts of the Existing Pages --"
 
 $StartDate = Get-Date
 Write-Host -ForegroundColor White "------------------------------------"
 Write-Host -ForegroundColor White "| Update the Page Layouts of the Existing Pages |"
 Write-Host -ForegroundColor White "| Started on: $StartDate |"
 Write-Host -ForegroundColor White "------------------------------------"
 
 $LogTime = Get-Date -Format yyyy-MM-dd_hh-mm
 $LogFile = ".UpdatePageLayout-$LogTime.rtf"
 
 #start-transcript $logfile
 
 $scriptBase = split-path $SCRIPT:MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path -parent
 Set-Location $scriptBase
 
 $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
 
 function AddPowerShellSnapin()
 {
     try
     {
         Write-Host "Adding PowerShell Snap-in" -ForegroundColor Green
         # Try to get the PowerShell Snappin.  If not, then adding the PowerShell snappin on the Catch Block
         Get-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell" 
     }
     catch
     {
         if($Error[0].Exception.Message.Contains("No Windows PowerShell snap-ins matching the pattern 'Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell' were found"))
         {
             Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell"
         }
     }
     Write-Host "Finished Adding PowerShell Snap-in" -ForegroundColor Green
 }
 
 
 function UpdatePageLayout([string]$WebURL, [string]$PageLayoutName,[string]$PublishingPageName)
 {
     #Get the web and page
     $Web = Get-SPWeb $WebURL
     
     #Get Publishing Site and Web
     $PublishingSite = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingSite($Web.Site)
     $PublishingWeb = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingWeb]::GetPublishingWeb($web)
  
     #Get New Page Layout
     $SitePageLayouts = $PublishingSite.GetPageLayouts($false)
     $NewPageLayout = $SitePageLayouts | ? {$_.Name -eq $PageLayoutName}
 
     #Get Pages Library
     $PublishingPage = $PublishingWeb.GetPublishingPage($WebURL + "Pages/" + $PublishingPageName)  
     $PublishingPage.CheckOut()
     $PublishingPage.Layout = $NewPageLayout
     $PublishingPage.ListItem.Update();
     $PublishingPage.CheckIn("Page layout Updated via PowerShell")
     $PublishingPage.ListItem.File.Publish("Published via PowerShell")
     if ($PublishingPage.ListItem.ParentList.EnableModeration)
     {
         $PublishingPage.ListItem.File.Approve("Publishing Page Layout Updated!");
     }
  
     write-host "Updated Page layout on: "$PublishingPage.url -ForegroundColor Green
 }
  
 
  
 
  
  
  try
 {
     [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.Sharepoint")
     [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.Sharepoint.Administration")
         
     $ConfigXmlPath = $scriptBase + "ConfigXMLPageLayouts.Config.xml"
     Write-Host "Read the Config Values" -ForegroundColor Green 
     [Xml]$Config = Get-Content $ConfigXmlPath  
     
     AddPowerShellSnapin
     
     foreach($Page in $Config.Configuration.Pages.Page)     
     {
         UpdatePageLayout $Config.Configuration.PublishingSite.URL $Page.LayoutName $Page.Name
     }
 }
 catch
 {
     Write-Host "Custom Exception Happened on Main : " + $Error[0].Exception.Message -ForegroundColor Red  
 }
 

And the Config XML is as follows.

 <Configuration EnvironmentName="Dev">
   <PublishingSite URL="http://MySiteCollectionURL/" />
   <Pages>
 	<Page Name="home.aspx" LayoutName=" Home-Layout.aspx"></Page>
 	<Page Name="books.aspx" LayoutName="Topic-Layout.aspx"></Page>
   </Pages>
 </Configuration> 
 
 

Happy Coding,

Sathish Nadarajan.

In one of the older Article, we saw how to create a PageLayout using Visual Studio. A small add-on to that article is the one which we are going to see now.

I request the readers to read that article first and then reading this one is a worth. Moreover, here we are not going to discuss elaborately. Just a continuity of the older one as recently I met with this kind of requirement.

Basically a Layout which should be used for both the View and Edit Mode. The user will be editing the PublishingPageContent from this layout. As soon as they save the page, then the PublishingPageContent should be rendered on the same page.

For that, there is nothing much deviation from the older one. But the only thing is EditModePanel.

The aspx file would be something as below.

 <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage,Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=15.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 
 <%@ Register TagPrefix="SharePointWebControls" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 <%@ Register TagPrefix="WebPartPages" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 <%@ Register TagPrefix="PublishingWebControls" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 <%@ Register TagPrefix="PublishingNavigation" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 <asp:content contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead" runat="server">
 	<SharePointWebControls:CssRegistration name="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/~language/Themable/Core Styles/pagelayouts15.css %>" runat="server"/>
 	<PublishingWebControls:EditModePanel runat="server">
 		<!-- Styles for edit mode only-->
 		<SharePointWebControls:CssRegistration name="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/~language/Themable/Core Styles/editmode15.css %>"
 			After="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/Style Library/~language/Themable/Core Styles/pagelayouts15.css %>" runat="server"/>
 	</PublishingWebControls:EditModePanel>
 	<SharePointWebControls:FieldValue id="PageStylesField" FieldName="HeaderStyleDefinitions" runat="server"/>
 </asp:content>
 <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server">
 	<SharePointWebControls:FieldValue id="PageTitle" FieldName="Title" runat="server"/>
 </asp:Content>
 <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderPageTitleInTitleArea" runat="server">
 	<SharePointWebControls:FieldValue FieldName="Title" runat="server"/>
 </asp:Content>
 <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb" runat="server"> 
     <SharePointWebControls:ListSiteMapPath runat="server" SiteMapProviders="CurrentNavigationSwitchableProvider" RenderCurrentNodeAsLink="false" PathSeparator="" CssClass="s4-breadcrumb" NodeStyle-CssClass="s4-breadcrumbNode" CurrentNodeStyle-CssClass="s4-breadcrumbCurrentNode" RootNodeStyle-CssClass="s4-breadcrumbRootNode" NodeImageOffsetX=0 NodeImageOffsetY=289 NodeImageWidth=16 NodeImageHeight=16 NodeImageUrl="/_layouts/15/images/fgimg.png?rev=23" HideInteriorRootNodes="true" SkipLinkText="" />
 </asp:Content>
 <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">
 	<div class="article article-body">
 		<PublishingWebControls:EditModePanel runat="server" CssClass="edit-mode-panel title-edit">
 			<SharePointWebControls:TextField runat="server" FieldName="Title"/>
 		</PublishingWebControls:EditModePanel>
 		<div class="article-content">
 			<PublishingWebControls:RichHtmlField FieldName="PublishingPageContent" HasInitialFocus="True" MinimumEditHeight="400px" runat="server"/>
 		</div>
 		
 	</div>   
 	 
 </asp:Content>
 

Happy Coding.

Sathish Nadarajan.

In this post I am going to add a Web Part Zone snippet in page layout.

Step 1: Open the site then click design manager link from right top corner "Settings" menu.

Step 2: Click “Edit Page Layouts” link

Step 3: Click “SamplePageLayout” .It will open preview page.

Step 4: Once open the preview page then click Snippets menu from top right side. It will open “Snippet Gallery” in new tab page.

Step 5: Click the Web Part Zone menu item in “DESIGN “tab.

Step 6: In this page we can easy to configure component properties. Now, I will change the Web part Zone Title under Misc category. After customization must click the update button then only the changes are reflected in the component snippet.

Step 7: Once click the update button the HTML code automatically generated in the “HTML snippet” box and click “Copy to Clipboard” button.

Step 8: Open the mapped network drive then open the page layout HTML file and paste HTML snippet where you want the web part zone to show.

Step 9: We should add the HTML snippet inside of the <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">. In my example I am remove all the default div tags (inside of the content place holder) and paste with my HTML Snippet content.

Default content

Replaced Content

Step 10: Once complete the activity the save the page and publish the page layout in design manager.

Step 11: Open the sample page (which we have used in “SamplePageLayout”) and click edit and try to “Add a Web Part”. You will see the web part zone title in the “Add part to” drop down.

Next Blog I will explain the create design manager master page package.

Happy Coding.

SanthoshBabu ManickaMohan

In this post I am going to create a page layout using design manager.

Step 1:

Open the site then click design manager link from right top corner "Settings" menu.

Step 2: Click “Edit Page Layouts” link

Step 3: Click “Create a page layout” link. It will open a popup window and select Master page (which we have created in earlier post) for this scenario we need to select “HTMLPage” then click ok button.

Step 4: Once the page layout created then publish the same.

Step 5: After publish the page layout click the “Settings” icon then click Add a Page. It will open a popup window and provide the page name and click create button.

Step 6: After created page automatically redirect to the new page.

Step 7: Select the PAGE tab and open Page Layout menu then select “SamplePageLayout”. It will change the page layout. After then check-in and publish the page.

Next Blog I will explain about how to add code snippet in page layout.

Happy Coding.

SanthoshBabu ManickaMohan

I was come up with an interesting requirement stating that, we need to create some huge numbers of pages based on a Custom PageLayout in our Site Collection. For that, I was planning to write a PowerShell with some configuration values. So that, on the execution, the script will create those pages. Thought of sharing this to the community.

Basically it is going to be a simple straight forward script. We have a publishing portal and the custom PageLayout has been deployed on the Publishing Portal.

The script is self-explanatory and doesn’t require much explanation I guess.

 # Add the PowerShell Snapin
 $snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}
 if ($snapin -eq $null) 
 { 
     Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell" 
 }
 
 # Get the SiteURL
 $SiteUrl = "https://MySiteCollectionURL"
 
 # Get the WebURL
 $WebUrl = "https://MyWebURL"
 
 # Get the PageLayout
 $PageLayoutRelUrl = "/_catalogs/masterpage/CustomPageLayout.aspx"
 
 # Get the Page URL
 $PageName = "Test.aspx"
 
 # Get the Title of the Page which is going to get created
 $PageTitle = "Test"
 
 # Initialize the Site Object
 $Site = Get-SPSite($SiteUrl)
 
 # Get the Publishing Site based on the SPSite
 $PubSite = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingSite($Site)
 
 # Get the SPWeb Object
 $Web = Get-SPWeb $WebUrl
 
 # Initialize the PublishingWeb based on the SPWeb
 $PubWeb = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingWeb]::GetPublishingWeb($Web)
  
 # Get the PageLayouts Installed on the Publishing Site
 $Layouts = $PubSite.GetPageLayouts($False)
 
 # Get our PageLayout
 $PageLayout = $Layouts[$PageLayoutRelUrl]
  
 # Create a new publishing page.
 $Page = $PubWeb.AddPublishingPage($PageName, $PageLayout)
 
 # Assign the Title for the Page
 $Page.Title = $PageTitle
 
 # Update the Page
 $Page.Update();
 
 # Check in the Page with Comments
 $Page.CheckIn("Test Comment")
 
 # Publish the Page With Comments
 $Page.ListItem.File.Publish("Test Publish Comment")
 

That’s it. Run the script with the required privilege. To verify that, go the Pages Library and make sure that you are seeing Test.aspx there.

Happy Coding.

Sathish Nadarajan.

In this article, let us see how to create a PageLayout using Design Manager. In the previous article, we saw about the creating a page layout using Visual Studio, SharePoint Designer. Here let us utilize a new feature in SharePoint 2013, which is not available on SharePoint 2010 – Design manager.

Design Manager is a new feature which is available only in SharePoint 2013 (not in the previous flavors of SP), that allows us to easily create the branding artifacts like MasterPages, CSS, PageLayouts Etc.,

Design Manager will be available only in Publishing template and not in the Developer Site Template. Hence, we need to create a Publishing Site for this demo.

Let me create a publishing Site.

On the Settings Icon on the Right top corner, you can find a new link called Design Manager.

Design Manager will look like this.

Click on the Edit page Layouts link.

Click on the Create Page Layout.

Enter the name for the pagelayout and select the Content Type which we created.

Keep the master page as it is as of now. Since, we are not focusing that.

Now, we got the html file inside the pagelayouts folder.

Let us, publish this. Then the “Approval Status” will become “Approved”

Now, let us go to the Pages document library.

Associate this doc library into our Content Type which we created. To add our Content Type, follow the steps.

Go to Library Settings.

That’s it. Now we added our Content Type.

To confirm that, go to the Files-> New Document. Our newly added content type will be listed there.

On the Create Page, you can find the Page Layout, which we created using the Design Manager.

Let me create a page based on the page layout we created.

After giving the mandatory fields, our page will look like the below.

Now, let us see, how to modify the layout of the Page Layout which we created. To see that, go to Master Page Gallery.

You can find the list of files, and the one which we created just now. For every PageLayout, created by the designer would be having 2 files. One aspx and one html. In our case, PageLayoutDesignmanager.aspx and PageLayoutDesignManager.html.

As far as concerning the Design manager approach, html file is very important. The aspx page will be overridden by html template when next time, sharepoint gets loaded. Hence, it is strongly recommended that not to modify the aspx. Modify only the html.

Being a developer/designer, we can use any tool to modify the html. To do that, we need to map the galleries into our local computer.

Open the Windows Explorer and Select Map Network Drive.

Enter the folder as the url of the masterpages gallery.

Now, the folder would be mapped to our local machine.

We can see the files, which we were talking about.

Now, open the html in your favourite editor and modify the layout. Let me open it using the visual studio itself.

The page is a mixture of pure html code and commented aspx

For instance in the html file, remove the following selection that displays the Title field in the Page Title:

As soon as you do it, the modification will be reflected in the associated aspx page:

Now, let’s create a new Page Content from our new JobPosting page and you will see that everything works as expected.

When saved, the page looks like this:

There are no fields labels.

So update the html file with the following spans :

When you make any modification to the html file, don’t forget to Publish a Major version of the file (in the Master Page and Page Layouts gallery).

Now, we are going to redeploy the package.

Go to Design manager and Select Create Design Package.

On clicking the Create,

By clicking the download, we can download our package.

The downloaded will be a WSP and we can open the WSP using visual studio and see, the artifacts. Then we need to copy those files and put in a separate visual studio solution to deliver the package alone.

Happy coding.

Sathish Nadarajan.

In this article, let us see how to create a PageLayout using SharePoint Designer. In the previous article, we saw about the creating a page layout using Visual Studio. But on that, the PageLayout.aspx, we need to know, how to create the skeleton of the aspx.

We saw that, we need to paste the below lines in the previous post.

 <%@ Page language="C#" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage,Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=15.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 
 <%@ Register Tagprefix="SharePointWebControls" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 
 <%@ Register Tagprefix="WebPartPages" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 
 <%@ Register Tagprefix="PublishingWebControls" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 
 <%@ Register Tagprefix="PublishingNavigation" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
 
 <asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server">
 
 <SharePointWebControls:FieldValue id="PageTitle" FieldName="Title" runat="server"/>
 
 </asp:Content>
 
 <asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">
 
 <ui>
 
 <li ><span style="color:red" >Article Author : </span></li><SharePointWebControls:TextField ID="Author" FieldName="5511034a-38c6-4861-9d00-1633cc111ca3" runat="server"></SharePointWebControls:TextField>
 
 <li ><span style="color:red" >Article Body : </span></li><SharePointWebControls:NoteField ID="Body" FieldName="93bb1031-87a2-4f84-bddb-3a9d94d197d1" runat="server"></SharePointWebControls:NoteField>
 
 <li ><span style="color:red" >Tags : </span></li><SharePointWebControls:CheckBoxChoiceField ID="Tags" FieldName="9736f0e4-9c76-4ff7-bf33-1547ac53553c" runat="server"></SharePointWebControls:CheckBoxChoiceField>
 
 </ui>
 
 </asp:Content>
 
 

We should know, how to get this code.

For that, the usual trick is create the layout on the SharePoint Designer and copy the code. Paste it on the Visual Studio aspx page. Build the wsp. That’s it.

For doing that, let us see how to create a page layout using the SharePoint Designer.

Let us open the Designer.

Open our SiteCollection. Here it is SathishPageLayoutSample.

Designer will somewhat looks like this.

Select the Page Layouts

We can see the list of existing PageLayouts.

On that, Click “New Page Layout” from the ribbon

We will be prompted with the following popup.

Select the Content Type and give the URL and Title.

The layout will be created on the PageLayouts folder.

Open the PageLayoutDemoSPD on the Designer itself and modify how you want the layout should be. Later copy the code and paste it on the Visual Studio. That’s it…….

In the next article, let us plan to do the same thing by Design Manager.

Happy Coding.

Sathish Nadarajan.