Problems with Calendar list and custom forms

Recent problems I have come across when designing custom forms for the Calendar list. This work couldn’t be completed using Visual Studio (project requirements).

Hmmm….its these little things that take time when working sharepoint….ok sometimes it is also the big ones

Problem 1
Create a list from the Calendar template.

1. Create your own custom forms (NewForm.aspx. EditForm.aspx or DispForm.aspx) in SharePoint designer (I didn’t remove the existing web part I just hid it).
2. Now go and add new item using your new forms and then edit the item you have just entered.
3. Select the make all day event check box and wham…you receive the lovely error occurred error message. Apparently this is a reported bug.

Problem 2
Same scenario as described above. Custom forms in a calendar list.

1. Now add a third date column and make it a date only.
2. Add a new item and fill in all dates and select the All Day Event check box and save the record
3. Now edit same the item and you will see that the third date column has automatically decreased its value by one day. Continue to save and edit and that third date column will decrease its value by one day every time you save the record back to the list.

Problem 3
So with all these issues I went to a custom list. But my problems didn’t end there. Date only columns default to a time of 12:00am. This means that if you select a start date and an end date and display it as a monthly calendar view then the item displays up to the end date at 12:00am, so it displays one day short. If you add 5 minutes to the time and make it 12:05am then it displays for the whole day and looks correct.

Update: Work around

• Changed Date columns to Date and Time columns and defaulted to Today date. This defaults the time component to the current time which is required so it shows up correctly in the Calender view (not one day short).
• This then inserted the time component in the NewForm.aspx and EditForm.aspx so I hid the time component using CSS. Style: ms-…{block:none}

Problem 4
Same scenario as described above. Custom forms for a custom list.

1. Dates display correctly to the regional settings that are set except for dates on the DispForm.aspx. It always displays in US format even though SharePoint’s regional settings is set to something else.

Update: work around

• Open the Dispform.aspx in SPD and change the xsl for the DateTime field and set the date format to 5 (instead of 1). This will now only show the date component

Also when creating your own custom forms using SharePoint designer you should never remove the existing List Form Web Part on the .aspx, just make them hidden.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935504

 

Would love to hear other peoples workarounds in the above situations.