Announcing the Dynamic Quick Launch Master Page (Free!)

One of the problems in SharePoint is fitting all the information you want on a page without crowding or scrolling sideways. Horizontal space on the Home page is the most valuable real estate, and SharePoint eats up a whole column just for the Quick Launch navigation. The most common way to buy more space is to use one of the MOSS publishing page templates or to add the following CSS to the page using a Content Editor Web part:

<style>

   .ms-nav{display:none;}

</style>

That's actually the CSS that the publishing pages use to turn off the Quick Launch. There are two problems with this, though:

  • Sometimes it's nice to have the Quick Launch available (especially for the View All Site Content link)
  • The setting only applies to one page at a time

It would be great if the user could turn the Quick Launch on or off at will, and if that setting automatically applied to all pages. That's why I created the Dynamic Quick Launch master page. if you've visited the SharePoint Workshop, you've seen it in action:

Click Here to Download Now!

Voila! You get back the space without losing the navigation. The really nice thing about it is that the setting will persist across all pages that use the master page - that's why I put it in the master page rather than writing a separate web part. Try it out by downloading it from here: http://community.bamboosolutions.com/media/p/5327.aspx

And let me know what you think!


Posted Sep 26 2008, 01:42 PM by jeff.webb

Comments

Mike Ferrara wrote re: Announcing the Dynamic Quick Launch Master Page (Free!)
on Wed, Oct 1 2008 3:33 PM

Jeff,

This is a great little tool! It's nice to give the user the ability to gain on their experience if they'd rather have a better view. This works really well for widescreen monitor users who are looking at spreadsheets or long lists. Nice work!

Mikey wrote re: Announcing the Dynamic Quick Launch Master Page (Free!)
on Mon, Nov 17 2008 1:12 PM

Does this control follow page permissions?  If a visitor has only read permissions, will they be able to see/use this ability, or can anyone see/use it?

jeff.webb wrote re: Announcing the Dynamic Quick Launch Master Page (Free!)
on Mon, Nov 17 2008 7:18 PM

Readers and others can use the dynamic quick launch. The setting persists as a cookie on their machine, so there's no need for security and the control itself is not sensitive.

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About jeff.webb

Jeff Webb helps companies of all sizes plan, deploy, customize, and maintain SharePoint and related technologies. He has published a dozen books in 30 languages. O’Reilly Media’s “Essential SharePoint 2007” is his third book on SharePoint. Jeff is also a member of Bamboo Solutions Technical Advisory Board. For more information, see http://www.essentialsharepoint.com 

  
Bamboo Solutions Corporation, 2002-2008