Following up on edit, display and new form

Following up on Customizing DispForm, EditForm and NewForm

I've found out how to not override the RenderTemplates. "All" you have to do is:

1. Create classes (in .cs-files) which overrides the classes, you want to customize
2. Make sure to register both the assembly and the namespace in the ascx
3. assign new ID's to the rendertemplates in your ascx

This is what I did in the ascx:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="false" %>
<%@Assembly Name="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
<%@Assembly Name="Customer.Controls, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=XXX" %>
<%@Register TagPrefix="SharePoint" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"%>
<%@Register TagPrefix="SPHttpUtility" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities"%>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="ToolBar" src="/_controltemplates/ToolBar.ascx" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="ToolBarButton" src="/_controltemplates/ToolBarButton.ascx" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="Customer" Assembly="Customer.Controls, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=XXX" Namespace="Customer.Controls.CustomControls" %>

<SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="MyListForm" runat="server">
 <Template>
 <div id="text">
  <wssuc:ToolBar CssClass="ms-formtoolbar" id="toolBarTbltop" RightButtonSeparator=" " runat="server">
    <Template_RightButtons>
     <SharePoint:NextPageButton runat="server"/>
     <SharePoint:SaveButton runat="server"/>
     <SharePoint:GoBackButton runat="server"/>
    </Template_RightButtons>
  </wssuc:ToolBar>
  <SharePoint:FormToolBar runat="server"/>
  <Customer:EmployeeFieldIterator runat="server"/>
 </div>
 </Template>
</SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>

<SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="EmployeeDisplayCompositeField" runat="server">
 <Template>
  <h3><SharePoint:FieldLabel runat="server"/></h3>
  <p><SharePoint:FormField runat="server" /></p>
  <SharePoint:AppendOnlyHistory runat="server"/>
 </Template>
</SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>

<SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="EmployeeFormIterator" runat="server">
 <Template>
  <Customer:EmployeeCompositeField runat="server"/>
 </Template>
</SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>

<SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="EmployeeCompositeField" runat="server">
 <Template>
  <h3><SharePoint:FieldLabel runat="server"/></h3>
  <p><SharePoint:FormField runat="server"/></p>
  <p><SharePoint:FieldDescription runat="server"/></p>
  <SharePoint:AppendOnlyHistory runat="server"/>
 </Template>
</SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>

I've made the overriden classes in one .cs (not very best-practice, but it does the job!):

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

namespace Customer.Controls.CustomControls
{
 public class EmployeeFieldIterator : ListFieldIterator
 {
  protected override string DefaultTemplateName
  {
   get
   {
    return "EmployeeFormIterator";
   }
  }
 }

 public class EmployeeDisplayCompositeField : CompositeField
 {
  protected override string DefaultTemplateName
  {
   get
   {
    if (SPContext.Current.FormContext.FormMode == SPControlMode.Edit || SPContext.Current.FormContext.FormMode == SPControlMode.New)
     return "EmployeeCompositeField";
    else
     return "EmployeeDisplayCompositeField";
   }
  }
 }

 public class EmployeeCompositeField : CompositeField
 {
  protected override string DefaultTemplateName
  {
   get
   {
    if (SPContext.Current.FormContext.FormMode == SPControlMode.Edit || SPContext.Current.FormContext.FormMode == SPControlMode.New)
     return "EmployeeCompositeField";
    else
     return "EmployeeDisplayCompositeField";
   }
  }
 }
}

Notice the only thing I do is to ovevrride the DefaultTemplateName-property and return the ID of the RenderTemplate in the ASCX. Fairly easy.

If you expirience problems with the above, try searching through your latest SharePoint Logs in the 12-hive. That helped me!

Happy SharePointing!