I ended my last post, how to globally uncheck images in a SharePoint picture library, with the unsettling confirmation that once an image has been edited, it remains checked by default in the library. This default behavior introduces the possibility of checked items being accidentally deleted, since one person may edit an image and another person (or, heck, even the same person on a different day, since checked images remain checked until/unless they are actively unchecked) may select a second image in the library and delete it. In such a case, they will have unknowingly also deleted the first image since clicking Delete in a picture library deletes all selected items in the library.
I regret to report that I haven't turned up a solution to this problem. In fact, one of the first things I turned up was a message board post on eggheadcafe asking if there is a fix or workaround for the problem. That question was posted over two years ago ... and remains unanswered to this day. Unfortunately, further investigation (read: Googling) has also failed to turn up any solution or workaround, save for my previously suggested step of always globally deselecting the contents of a picture library before selecting specific image(s) for deletion.
As a reminder, if you discover that images have been accidentally deleted from your SharePoint picture library, they may not be lost. Check the contents of your site's Recycle Bin and, depending on how much time has passed since the deletion, you may very well be able to restore the selection. Of course, if multiple files were accidentally deleted, the level of effort involved in manually restoring those images is going to increase, and possibly exponentially in a large and heavily used picture library. Needless to sya, if there were a safeguard which could help prevent such accidental deletions, that would definitely be a Very Good Thing.
I sense another possible development opportunity for Bamboo here. Perhaps a Web Part that could generate a warning that multiple images are about to be deleted, and list all selected images? I'm just thinking out loud here, and I'm certainly not a developer, but I suspect that there are more than a few folks out there who would appreciate the existence of a safety net of this nature.
It's also entirely possible that this is something Microsoft will have addressed themselves in the SharePoint 2010 release, which would certainly be good news for early adopters who are heavy users of picture libraries.
Posted
Oct 02 2009, 01:23 PM
by
John Anderson
John Anderson joined Bamboo Solutions as Manager of Content & Syndication in May 2008 after a 12-year career at AOL. New to SharePoint at the time of his hiring, John was tasked with creating a new blog for the just-launched Bamboo Nation community in which he would document his daily SharePoint learning process. Thus was born the end user-centric SharePoint Blank, for which John authored 200 posts within a year, and which he continues to write today. Today, John writes SharePoint Blank in addition to his responsibilities as Managing Editor at Bamboo and, while he learned much about SharePoint in his first two years, he gleefully celebrates the release of SharePoint 2010 and the reset button that the new platform represents for SharePoint Blank.