Ellipses and Rendering Limits

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Windows SharePoint Services displays an ellipsis in the mobile device viewer when the text length of a field exceeds a limit that is set in the mobile web.config file (located in Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\MOBILE). In mobile Edit forms for items containing large amounts of data, Windows SharePoint Services disables field editing per field type to avoid data loss when the contents exceed a specified limit. In both cases, mobile rendering limits determine what is displayed in the mobile device.

Figure 1. Text truncation and ellipsis rendering

You can modify the limits for text length, and change the behavior of mobile view or form rendering, by editing the web.config file in a text editor, or by using types and members of the Windows SharePoint Services object model.

Rendering limits define not only text length limits for ellipsis rendering used in mobile controls, but also the number of options displayed in the controls. For a list of the rendering limits and their default values, see the table at the end of this topic.

Each limit setting is represented as a key-and-value pair within the <appSettings> section of the web.config file—for example, <add key="mobile_webtitlelimit" value="20" />. If the configuration for a text length limitation is set to 0 or no entry is specified, ellipsis rendering does not work.

Note

When you modify the mobile web.config file, you must do so on each front-end Web server in a Windows SharePoint Services deployment.

Using the Object Model to Configure Limits

Rendering limits are determined in one of two ways:

  • Through default configuration settings that are set in the mobile web.config file.

  • Through the Properties property of the SPWeb class that can be configured per Web site through the object model.

Modifications you make to web.config are global to a front-end Web server, while changes you make through Web properties are scoped per Web site, which are not inherited by subsites.

To allow customization of rendering limits per Web site, Windows SharePoint Services first determines whether the property bag (the Properties property) of the SPWeb object stores the rendering limit parameter. If so, the value stored by the property bag specifies the rendering limit; otherwise, the value stored in web.config specifies the rendering limit. Property bag settings for a particular site override the global settings in web.config.

To change the rendering limit for a mobile control, add a property to the property bag (SPPropertyBag object in the Properties property. The following example shows how to change the rendering limit for list titles of a specific Web site to 15 characters.

SPWeb webSite = SPContext.Current.Site.AllWebs["WebSite"];
SPPropertyBag propBag = webSite.Properties;
propBag["mobile_listtitlelimit"] = "15";
propBag.Update();

The example requires using directives (Imports in Visual Basic) for the Microsoft.SharePoint and Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities namespaces. In addition, you must insert a FormDigest control in the default.aspx page of the custom Web application.

Rendering Limits

The following table describes the rendering limit parameters used in mobile pages and shows their default maximum values. The unit of measure is character, regardless of half-width or full-width character.

Name

Description

Value

Base Rendering Limit

 

 

mobile_basetextlengthlimit

Base limit for text length

255

System Rendering Limits

 

 

mobile_enablelimitationondispform

Flag for ellipsis rendering on Display form

FALSE

mobile_fieldnumberlimitforinputform

Limit for the number of fields to show on New and Edit forms

100

mobile_fieldtitlelimit

Limit for the title of each field on forms

20

mobile_itemtitlelimit

Limit for the item title shown on forms

20

mobile_listtitlelimit

Limit for the List title on list views

20

mobile_viewitemnumberlimit

Limit for the number of items to show on list views

100

mobile_viewnumberlimit

Limit for the number of Views to show in the View drop down list

10

mobile_viewtitlelimit

Limit for the length of View names in the for View drop down selector

20

mobile_webtitlelimit

Limit for the length of the Web site title shown on the top page of the Web site

20

Field Related Limits

 

 

mobile_attachmentsfieldnumberlimit

Limit for the number of attachments to show

3

mobile_attachmentsfieldtextlimit

Limit for the file name of an individual attachment

20

mobile_calculatedfieldtextlimit

Limit for field value length for Calculated field

20

mobile_choicefieldoptionnumberlimit

Limit for the number of options to show on the New and Edit forms for a Choice field

10

mobile_choicefieldoptiontextlimit

Limit for the name of any individual on the New and Edit forms for a Choice field

20

mobile_fieldtextlimitforview

Limit for the length of any individual field value on list views

19

mobile_filefieldtextlimit

Limit for the field value length for File fields

20

mobile_lookupfieldoptionnumberlimit

Limit for the number of options to show on the New and Edit forms for a Lookup field

10

mobile_lookupfieldoptiontextlimit

Limit for the name of any individual option on the New and Edit forms for a Lookup field

20

mobile_multichoice_displaylimitforselectedchoices

Limit for the number of selected choices, in a multi choice field, to show in list views and item Display forms

10

mobile_multilinetextfieldtextlimit

Limit for the field value length for text fields with multiple lines

256

mobile_multilookup_displaylimitforselectedlookups

Limit for the number of selected lookup values, in a multi value lookup field, to show in list views and item Display forms

10

mobile_multiuser_displaylimitforselectedusers

Limit for the number of selected users, in a multi user field, to show in list views and item Display forms

100

mobile_singlelinetextfieldtextlimit

Limit for the field value length for single line text fields

256

mobile_urlfieldtextlimit

Limit for the length of the text for a URL field (the URL itself is not shown and not truncated)

20

mobile_userfieldoptionnumberlimit

Limit for the number of options to show on New / Edit form for a user field

100

mobile_userfieldoptiontextlimit

Limit for the length of any individual option for a user field

20