Boolean parameters in SharePoint definition files are CASE-SENSITIVE, crazy!

This is real SharePoint crap!!!

I just found out, that boolean Parameters in Definition Files (like List Definition, Content Type Definition, Site Columns Definition et cetera- in general all schema.xml definition files) are CASE SENSITIVE!

One example:
<Field
ID="{...}"
Required="True"
/>

This will not work. The Field will not be defined as required. Reasons: SharePoint understands only TRUE / FALSE values written in capital letters - everything else (including True or true) will be ignored and the default setting will be taken (in case of Required the default is false).

In make our example work:
<Field
ID="{...}"
Required="TRUE"
/>

This issue applies also to all other boolean parameters, like
Hidden="TRUE" or FROMBASETYPE="TRUE".

This is something I have never seen before... anyway - that's SharePoint!!!

Hidding Title Field in your Custom List Definition

Most of the time you want to get rid of the anyoing Default Field 'Title' you automatically get from the the Base List (Custom List) you are using in your Custom List Definition. Now there is not really a way to remove or delete this field, but you can hide it from your List by using the following tag:

<Field
ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}"
Name="Title"
StaticName="Title"
DisplayName="Title"
Type="Text"
FromBaseType="TRUE"
Required="FALSE"
Hidden="TRUE"
SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3"
/>

Note, that I tried to hide the Title Field by just applying the Hidden="True" parameter. That did not work. I really had to provide FromBaseType="True" and Required="False" as well to make it work. Hope that helps you if you get in troubles trying to hide the field.

HRESULT: 0x81070201 Exception

Okay okay, this is actually something very basic, but it happend now a couple of times to me. If you work on a Feature that defines a custom SharePoint List, you can run into the following Error while activating it (in this case during Site Provisioning by definitions in onet.xml):

The element 'MyList' of type 'ListInstance' for feature 'MyListFeature' (id: 794958c5-fede-4e1f-aa96-d9fcd087945e) threw an exception during activation: Exception from HRESULT: 0x81070201

The reason for this error is, that SharePoint can't find the related schema.xml file for the list to define. This can happen, if

• You simply forgot to write an schema.xml file


• or, what is more realistic, the Name Attribute in ListTemplate is not the same as the Folder Name you have the schema.xml File stored in.

The Name-value of the ListTemplate tag must match the name of the folder you have your schema.xml file stored in:


<ListTemplate
Name="MyListDefinition"
Category="Custom Lists"
DisplayName="MyList"
...