Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Unable to locate the xml-definition for FieldName with FieldId ...

If you're trying to deploy some custom site columns using a feature and the feature activates fine, but the columns don't show up and your logs give you the above error, then the solution is pretty simple: when you're defining your columns, you have to make sure to use brackets around your column guid, like this: {GUID}. Deploy your feature again, deactivate it, activate it again and everything should work fine! You also have to use the brackets when you're referencing the column in a content type!

Thanks to Edwin Vriethoff for posting this!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Modify the default scope for your search box

Today I got asked how to modify the search box on a MOSS site so that it displayed "People" by default in stead of "All Sites". The customer already figured out a way to do this with code, but they weren't 100% sure about it. I had to search for this myself too, cause to be honest, I hadn't done this before, even though I'm already working with SharePoint for almost 3 years now... That's why I'm making this short post, so that all the other people who are trying to do this, know how easy it really is.

To modify the default scope, go to your home page and navigate to "Site Actions” --> “Site Settings” --> “Modify All Site Settings". On this page, pick "Search scopes" under the Site Collection Administration. Here you'll see some different "Display groups", one of them is the "Search Dropdown", which is the search box you see on your SharePoint site. If you click on the "Search Dropdown" link, you'll be taken to a page with some settings for this group and the bottom one is where you set your default scope. So modify this to whatever you want, click OK and you're done!