Zac Mullett Engineering Services
© 2011 Zac Mullett
Contact
Site Map
Weblog
Weblog
« Improving readability of multi-line text columns in display view
Determining web part user permissions on a Web Part Page »

DataFormWebPart’s sensitivity to XSLT parameter tag placement

While customising the XSLT of a DataFormWebPart I found a discrepancy between design-time and run-time interpretation of a template tag implementing param and variable tags. Placing the <xsl:param> tags first is important.

In design-time it doesn’t so much matter where you place the <xsl:param> tag - SharePoint Designer will render the web part. At run-time, if <xsl:param> tags appear beneath <xsl:variable> tags then SharePoint delivers one of its characteristically unhelpful error messages (shown below). Of course, you try out what it suggests and everything is irritatingly fine in Designer.

Unable to display this Web Part. To troubleshoot the problem, open this Web page in a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible HTML editor such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer. If the problem persists, contact your Web server administrator.

Tags: , , ,

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm and is filed under SharePoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “DataFormWebPart’s sensitivity to XSLT parameter tag placement”

  1. Mark says:
    March 18, 2009 at 12:18 am

    Thanks for the tip. Newbie question though. By “beneath” do you mean within an tag or literally beneath in the sense of an tag appearing after an tag in a page’s code?

  2. Zac Mullett says:
    March 18, 2009 at 3:39 am

    Hi Mark,
    By beneath I mean ‘after’, and not ‘within’. xsl:param and xsl:variable are both children of the xsl:template tag.

Leave a Reply