What are Sharepoint Lists?
SharePoint lists are tables of data, much like Excel spreadsheets. But lists can do a lot more than just store columns and rows of data—in fact, lists are like mini-applications in SharePoint.
Create a list using one of the built-in templates.
Add columns to collect additional data and calculate values as required.
Create supporting lists for lookups and master lists.
Add views to display required reports.
Enable email, versioning, and item approval as required.
Optionally customize the data entry forms.
Save the final list as a template and deploy it to other site collections.
As a developer you sometimes forget to look at the functionality that is available just out of the box. One of those things is the standard functionality that is available in the SharePoint lists. Most people knowledgable of SharePoint will think: what is your point? Didn't you know this? Why do you bother me with this: read the f*cking manual. For those other people who forgot to read the manual, I would like to enumerate some things about lists that are "out of the ordinary".
Did you know that:
Lists based on the "Links" list have a "Change Order" option in the menu bar of it's views that allow you to reorder the list items
Lists based on "Tasks" and "Issues" have an "Assign to:" field that is a lookup to users in the UserInfo list for the web the list is on. This list contains all users that ever visited the list. What does this mean:
Users who did not visit the web yet are not in the list
Users who ever visited the web site, but whom's account is now removed is still in the list (Should be like this: task/issue can be assigned to user that is now gone, if you edit the task/issue to change something, the user shouls still be in the list, otherwise it must always be reassigned on edit.)
System accounts that crawl the list are in the list (we filter those out using the MacawSharePointSkinner)
Lists based on "Issues" have an option to sent the "Assigned To" person a notification e-mail (General Settintgs ->Email Notification) on changed item or when ownership is assigned.
Lists based on "Issues" have a "View reports" action with reports to track issue trends
Lists based on "Contacts" have "Export Contact" functionality in the menu of an entry that created a vcard file
Lists based on "Contacts" can "link to Outlook", this creates a read-only contacts list in outlook, with in each item a link to update the contact. This list in outlook stays up to date automatically
Lists based on "Contacts" can import contacts from the address book
Lists based on "Events" can "link to Outlook", this creates a read-only calendar in outlook, with in each item a link to update the event. This list in outlook stays up to date automatically
Lists based on "Discussion" support threading on items, and that this list sucks for discussions (in my opinion). We rewrote the new/edit/view pages to se things like the thread you are replying on, the complete thread of a single discussion item, see the newest discussion thread first. This makes it usable.
List items can have multiple files attached
There are no events available on lists, only on libraries. When I asked Mike Fitzmaurice about this on the PDC 2003 he answered that it was due to lack of time. There was a big launching customer who needed events on libraries, so this was implemented.
All this functionality is somewhere available in the list definitions, so if you define your own template you can combine all this functionality!!
